Robinson cut in to help his teammate.
“I don’t care if I play or not,” he said. “I wouldn’t care if I scored — I did score (this season), so I was cool with that — but as long as we win, and I make them a little bit better in practice — that’s all I care about.”
The trio knows their effort cannot be measured in a tangible sense. It isn’t defined by numbers nor confined by them. In two seasons for the Tar Heels, they’ve scored 21 points. Combined.
Their main defined role is to serve as the scout team. Assistant coaches watch upcoming opponents to uncover their tendencies. Then the scout team imitates the opponent in practice. The walk-ons aren’t just athletes, they’re also actors.
“It’s our job to really perform that in practice, to really give guys who will be playing against those guys an opportunity to know what they do and how they do things to give them a little bit of an advantage,” Robinson said.
But they offer more than just theatrical performances and fresh bodies. Assistant coach C.B. McGrath — who coached Robinson and Manor on the JV team their freshman year — said walk-ons offer a fresh perspective compared to the stars they support.
“They’re real appreciative,” McGrath said. “They don’t take the little things for granted. Sometimes that helps for the other guys.”
The trio’s appreciation for their teammates shows strongest on the sideline, where towel-waving and overzealous ovations are their calling cards.
But they aren’t just there for moral support.
For the most part, Williams says all of his players are equal, whether they score 18 points per game or get mistaken for team managers, as the 6-foot-nothing Moody often does.
“I tell them, ‘If I eat steak, you eat steak. If James Michael (McAdoo) has to run, you have to run.’” Williams said.
Though at times, Williams admits that he does tend to pick favorites.
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
“I try to be nicer to them, don’t make them run as much. I just tell everybody, ‘Well, I like them better than I do you guys.’”
The road to blue heaven
All three players received academic scholarship offers from Division III schools. They might not have been stars, but stardom was never a priority. Manor and Moody said their decisions to come to UNC were never based on the possibility of playing for the Tar Heels. Robinson said, at the time, playing basketball at all wasn’t a priority.
Moody tried other schools, but after one semester each at Presbyterian College and N.C. State, he landed at UNC.
In Manor’s sophomore season on JV, he tore his labrum in his right shoulder. His parents encouraged him to get the optional surgery to repair it, but the recovery time kept Manor out of the gym until one month before varsity tryouts.
Robinson, the son of UNC assistant coach Steve Robinson, had a unique opportunity to participate in the Tar Heels’ preseason conditioning his freshman year — a tryout for Williams. An out-of-shape Robinson wasn’t asked back.
For all three, UNC basketball was always a dream. And when, against all odds, it became a reality, the players held onto the same mentality from before — they weren’t aiming for fame.
They aren’t stars, far from it. But they’re the supporting cast behind the stars. They are the epitome of sacrificing for the greater good. They embody a team-first mentality.
And that attitude doesn’t go unnoticed by the actual stars.
“They don’t ever get tired, they don’t ever complain,” McAdoo said. “They really are the backbone of this team.”
Still, there are times when being behind the scenes takes its toll. And like everything the three do, it’s not because they want to show off.
“We’re practicing every day, we see how good this team is … we see how good we can be when we play together and we’ve shown that,” Robinson said. “But when we lose like that, that’s frustrating when you know you’re not good enough to even get in there to help (the team). Those are times where I do wish I could do anything to help them. Even if I played a minute, if I get a stop on defense or box somebody out or do whatever. Just if I was a little bit better, sometimes I wish I could help us out a little bit more.”
Though they might not be able to contribute during games, it’s in their performance before games that their real contributions lie.
“They come to practice every day with a goal in mind of trying to make everybody else better, and they have really adopted that,” Williams said. “I mean, they believe in it and they do it on the court.”
That court is, of course, the practice court. Sure, it’s still the floor of the Smith Center, but it’s missing a crucial element. The walk-ons put in their hardest work, spend the majority of their time on the hardwood without fans.
Tuesday, Jan. 28 is just another one of those days.
While they are wearing their signature Carolina-blue practice jerseys, today, Robinson, Moody and Manor aren’t Tar Heels. They’re Yellow Jackets. UNC is traveling to Georgia Tech Wednesday, and when practice starts in a few minutes the walk-ons will start their scout team duty. In fact, it’s these performances that gave the trio their other name.
In years past, the Tar Heel walk-ons have gone by the memorable moniker of Blue Steel. While the starters wear white practice jerseys, the walk-ons and a select few others have theirs flipped inside out to its blue hue. This year, McGrath started to call the players’ pregame scout performance the Blue Show.
On Jan. 18, after UNC’s 82-71 win against Boston College, Moody went up to the whiteboard in the locker room and wrote an announcement for the next day’s schedule:
Blue Show – 2:10. Tickets on sale now.
“We’re still Blue Steel, I think that’s forever,” Robinson said. “Blue Steel, Blue Show, Code Blue, walk-ons, whatever you want to call us, blue team, we’re that group.”
Making the cut
One and a half years ago, Robinson, Moody and Manor weren’t Blue Steel or Blue Show or whatever you wanted to call them. They were wide-eyed juniors, their JV playing careers behind them, their dreams in front and seemingly insurmountable odds between.
“JV was pretty good,” Moody said. “But it can’t prepare you for this level of competition.”
After two years on the JV team — the extent that UNC lets students play in the program — the players had two options: Call it quits like they had thought of doing two years ago, or put everything they had into getting everything they wanted. Two choices in the literal sense, but for all three, there was only one.
“If I don’t try,” Robinson said. “I’m going to always think about it one day, ‘Maybe I should have tried.’”
A select few players were chosen to practice with the varsity team for the first 10 practices of the season. At the end of the 10th, Williams eyed four prospects — three juniors and one senior.
Robinson immediately thought he had been cut. ?
“James, Frank (Tanner), Wade, Denzel,” Williams said. “They’re on the team.”
After two years of JV ball, three tryouts and 10 excruciating days under the watchful eye of Williams, it was over. Or better yet, it had just begun. They were Tar Heels.
“I’m never going to know what it’s like to get drafted,” Moody said. “But I feel like that was the closest for me to getting drafted.”
Lights, camera…
Nine seconds after he first checked into the Clemson game, Manor catches a pass from Moody in the corner, rises and fires a shot.
“Threeeeee!” the stadium announcer ecstatically exclaims.
Twenty seconds after that, Manor catches another pass, takes one dribble and lets it go again.
“Threeeeee!”
The crowd erupts into a frenzy, Brice Johnson whips a towel and Joel James lets out a guttural scream. Men and women alike in the student section offer Manor their hand in marriage.
As he backpedals onto defense, Manor tries his best, but can’t stifle a smile.
The fans had bought tickets to UNC vs. Clemson, but now, they were getting more than they bargained for. They had seen a show, highlighted with dunks by McAdoo and J.P. Tokoto, but with 1:41 left on the clock, another performance had started.
It was time for the Blue Show.
sports@dailytarheel.com
