M. Basketball: Treasuring 'The Era of the Lost Contact'

One night at La Residence some random guy sat down next to me wearing a smile wider than the Gateway Arch.

We got to talking and he explained that he attended New York University and was visiting Chapel Hill for the first time. Amid all the UNC basketball players and other athletes in the bar the dude was awestruck.

That's because comparing NYU athletics to North Carolina's is like comparing my dribbling skills to Ty Lawson's.

Found that out firsthand during my NYU college visit. The place doesn't have a patch of grass anywhere. As for sports teams? Might as well have been a junior college.

Never even filled out an application.

Later my mom and I visited UNC after the 2005 national championship. Must have been one of the happiest days of my life: sitting at Top of the Hill on a Kodak-moment spring day" understanding this place for the first time.

""Mom"" I said, it would be pretty cool to go here.""

Any out-of-stater can tell you" one question we always get is" ""What brought you here?""

What didn't bring me here? UNC has a great journalism school" there might not be a better sports school in the country and the men's basketball team had just won a national title. (Cloudless spring days in the quad helped too.)

Maybe the sports stuff seems trivial to you but it mattered to me big-time.

And it mattered to that kid visiting from NYU too. He had never experienced anything like this. His face epitomized the MasterCard tagline: priceless.

It took me the better part of two years to figure out what to write in this my last DTH column. Really there's only one thing left to write about. After graduation — May 10 for me" or whenever it is for you — ""UNC"" will take on a different meaning.

Sometimes" we need to be past things to realize what they were when they were right in front of us. Going to UNC might not mean as much as having gone to UNC — life's weird that way.

Wait until you don't get to be here everyday. Wait until you're not in class with future NBA players or sitting in the stands at Boshamer Stadium or merely wearing Carolina blue in an environment where everybody else is too.

Wait until you're just visiting for the weekend like that NYU guy and you have a moment where it hits you like a light blue wave: There's no place like your home away from home.

And UNC owes so much of that to its athletics. This University would lose a dominant chunk of its identity without its women's soccer dynasty its burgeoning football program or its highly competitive field hockey team.

Nor would it be the same without superb club teams — such as the men's and women's rugby squads — or an extensive intramural program that includes such sports as inner tube water basketball doubles badminton and paper airplane launch.

But let's be honest UNC always has been and always will be a basketball school. THE basketball school. And we were here for one of the greatest eras in Tar Heel history.

Looking back experiencing The Tyler Hansbrough Era — aka The Era of the Lost Contact Lens — was a tremendous privilege.

The winningest senior class in North Carolina's illustrious history. Let your mind chew on that. It started with a freshman season no one thought possible and ended with a national championship. Yes they did it" but did you see HOW they did it?

There are countless Tar Heel fans across the country who never enjoy Chapel Hill's gifts firsthand.

They never get to watch a game from the Smith Center or Kenan Stadium stands. Never get to rush Franklin Street. Never get to sing ""Hark the Sound"" arm-in-arm with thousands of dear" dear strangers.

Don't take the ability to do such things for granted. The truth is most people never partake in something this special.

I'm Sam Rosenthal and I'm forever proud to be a Tar Heel.



Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose@email.unc.edu.