I have been blessed, for the vast majority of my life, to count the same two guys as my best friends. We met in kindergarten at Ephesus Elementary and graduated together from East Chapel Hill High School. Two of us even roomed together our freshman year at Appalachian State; the other defected briefly to Washington D.C., but found his way back home eventually. They shared best man duties at my wedding, and to this day I still see them regularly. My freshman-year roommate’s partner is one of the first
friends I ever had; my family moved across the street from hers when we were four years old, so she’s been in the fold longer than just about anyone with whom I am not blood related.
I’ve been led to understand that this is not a typical experience. I don’t mention it to brag, although I am quite proud of a quarter-century of friendship, but rather to say that I’ve seen the other side. My wife, for example, had to face down twenty years of shared history when I brought her around the gang for the first time, and for some reason she didn’t cut bait as soon as we called it a night. Now, it’s like she’s always been a part of that group, but it is intimidating to stroll into a situation like that. It can be lonely. Not everyone can do it.
I think of the Carolina Family — about which many words have been written of late — in very similar terms. Like calls to like, after all, and I recognize the same unspoken understanding when I watch members of the Carolina men’s basketball program interact as when I am with my best friends. It’s an insular thing, built on decades and decades of shared experiences, trust, and love. It can’t be easy to just walk into a situation like that, even if you’re invited.
Coach Malone was certainly invited, and judging by his introductory press conference, he is aware of the gravity of what he is attempting to do. He can’t trace any lineage back to Coach Smith, after all, short of being a huge fan like the rest of us, and he’d never coached in Chapel Hill prior to this moment. He’s an outsider, an interloper, a jolt to a system that has slid along the same rails for over half a century. He will be under a microscope from the first practice of the next season — but I don’t get the impression that he particularly minds.
Like calls to like, once again, and I think there’s every chance that Coach Malone is added to the names of the Family-affiliated coaches that came before him. He is saying the right things, at least at this early stage, and there’s certainly a reason he’s in Chapel Hill rather than one of the professional vacancies that were reported. I can speak from experience when I say that it is a good thing to bring someone new into the family. I know we’re all pulling like hell to see him lead the Tar Heels back up the last ladder of the season. That’s something that this family loves more than anything else.
