After 45,000 Tar Heel fans and students rushed Franklin Street to celebrate UNC’s NCAA Championship in 2009, a toppled tree lay on the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets.
For three years, the tree — which was made into a sculpture of a hand holding a basketball — has served as a monument to UNC’s victory that day.
But Tuesday, the “championship tree,” as it has become known, was removed from the corner because decay had overtaken it.
“I was up on the roof at Spanky’s that night, and there were five or six guys on that tree, and I knew it was doomed,” said Greg Overbeck, co-owner of Spanky’s Restaurant & Bar, which is located on the same corner as the sculpture.
Dwight Bassett, Chapel Hill’s economic development officer, said he was asked to sculpt the piece in an effort to save the tree.
“I probably worked on it a couple days a week for probably three weeks that summer,” he said. “I’ve been doing woodworking for probably 25 years. It’s always been an avocation of mine.”
Due to the nature of wood, Bassett said the sculpture was never supposed to be permanent.
“I was actually surprised that it had lasted this long. When I did the work, I had never guessed that it would last a couple of years,” he said.
“It was sad on one hand to see it go because I remember the intense labor that went into it.”
