Marcus remembers the first time Williams called.
Just like every other call during the recruiting process, Paige let it go to voicemail. He never answered during that period because he never knew which coach was calling.
Kansas and Virginia had expressed their interest early, and Northern Iowa had even made an offer to Marcus, the eighth-grader. But his sights were set on one program only.
“I was worried — ‘What the heck’s going to happen if North Carolina doesn’t notice Marcus and he’s not offered,’’’ his mother Sherryl Paige said. “This is his dream school.”
Marcus was enamored with UNC from a very young age — why exactly, all the way from Iowa, Sherryl and sister Morgan still don’t know. But growing up, his entire room was baby blue. His pet schnoodle, which he got when he was 13, is named Vince, after Vince Carter. And he spent hours watching Michael Jordan and the Bulls with his father, Ellis. The day his Little Tikes goal broke in the seventh grade was the same day Sherryl knew she was in trouble. That was the thing that, for a few moments, allowed Marcus to pretend he was Carter, practicing dunks.
There wasn’t a North Carolina game on television that Marcus missed and, to this day, Sherryl still has pictures of him sporting Carter jerseys and UNC T-shirts.
Every single part of him, Morgan said, wanted to be at UNC.
“When I say he had a dream school, North Carolina is a dream school,” she said. “He loved everything about it.”
So Marcus called Williams back, dialing the Hall of Fame coach’s number as quickly as he could.
He learned that Williams needed a point guard and had solicited J.P. Tokoto’s advice in picking one. Tokoto was high on Williams’ recruiting list and had also played against Marcus in regional tournaments.
Go watch Marcus Paige play, Tokoto told him. Williams listened.
“He just said that he had sent an assistant to watch me in one of the earlier games and that they were interested in following me and getting to know me,” Marcus said.
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“I was basically the phone conversation version of just nodding your head repeatedly: ‘Yes, sir, yes, yes, sounds good, sounds good.’”
Marcus took a visit to Chapel Hill, narrowed his choices down to Kansas and UNC and quickly made up his mind once UNC put the offer on the table. All the years of waiting by the door for his mom to take him to the gym had paid off. The overly physical pickup games in the backyard with Morgan, who played at Wisconsin, had served their purpose. This was what he had been waiting for.
“I think as soon as he went on that first unofficial visit, when he came home I was like, ‘Alright, we lost him to the South,’” Morgan said. “I just remember him saying, ‘Morgan, it’s a whole different perspective down there. Basketball is a whole different way of life ... I don’t know how to explain it to you other than that, but it’s awesome.’’’
An unexpected role
The text came from Kendall Marshall.
“You gotta get ready,” the former UNC point guard wrote the incoming freshman. “I think I’m going to the league.”
Marcus was stunned, and so was Williams.
“I really thought he had a chance to be really, really good, but I also thought, as he did — and as Kendall would’ve said — that he would come here and play with Kendall Marshall for at least a year,” Williams said. “All of a sudden, Kendall was gone, and so the head coach handed him the ball and said, ‘You’ve gotta run our club.’”
Once under the impression that he would play five to 10 minutes a game backing up Marshall, Marcus was now the starting point guard.
On one hand, he knew it was an opportunity to prove himself. On the other, he questioned if he was ready. That year, the freshman averaged 8.2 points a game, a far cry from the 28.1 he averaged his senior year of high school and an even farther cry from the 49 points he once scored in a state playoff game.
The next year, as his confidence grew, so did his stat line. The 8.2 points per game more than doubled to 17.5, and he became the first UNC point guard to earn first-team All-ACC honors as a sophomore since Phil Ford in 1976.
Known for his late-game heroics, the student body quickly gave him the nickname ‘Second-half Marcus,’ a term he admits got on his nerves.
But if there was ever a time when that scoring ability took over in its purest form, it was against N.C. State in Raleigh in 2014. Thirty one of his 35 points came in the second half and overtime, and he won the game with 0.9 seconds left on the clock.
That’s Sherryl’s favorite memory of Marcus’ collegiate career so far.
“He was just on fire,” she said. “I hope the Lord gives him that gift again because he’s had a rough year so far. I hope he finds that stroke again.”
Paige is still averaging 13.9 points a game this season — still good for a team-best despite battling injuries, most notably plantar fasciitis in his right foot. He’s sprained both ankles and injured a hip, and when plantar fasciitis first took its toll, an emotional Marcus wondered if he’d be able to play this season.
“I was freaking out that I couldn’t walk,” he said. “I was like, ‘We play in two days, what’s going on? Someone tell me that I can play.’”
The trials on the court have been humbling for the preseason ACC Player of the Year, who — on and off the court — is only human.
A blessing to know
Everyone has had that moment with Marcus, his roommate Taylor Sharp says.
It’s the moment when Marcus makes you feel like he’s just another UNC student and you’ve known him forever.
For Sharp, one of those moments came in 2013, when UNC lost to Kansas in the NCAA Tournament, officially ending Marcus’ freshman season. Sharp had traveled to the game and was stuck in a blizzard with an exam the next day. Marcus was heartbroken, but he sent Sharp a text, thanking him for his friendship and support.
“It meant a lot for us as his friends to realize that as he’s in the locker room, as he’s in that quiet, sad locker room, he made sure to thank us for making the trip,” Sharp said. “That meant a lot.”
In his free time, Marcus is a typical UNC student. He loves to read, and Morgan joked that he sometimes writes freestyle raps. He and his roommates, one of whom is junior forward Brice Johnson, make family spaghetti dinners and enjoy family movie nights.
Marcus wants to attend a UNC CHiPs show, and he and his roommates take trips to the golf course, sand volleyball pit and cocktails — for which he properly learned how to tie a necktie with Sharp via YouTube.
His mom has to hide the double-stuffed Oreos from him when he comes home, and sometimes he stays up too late playing Destiny, his new favorite video game.
He makes videos for fans with terminal illnesses, staying true to the values with which Sherryl and his father raised him: eye contact, kindness, manners. There’s life outside of basketball, and that’s why he’s in no hurry to head to the NBA.
“The NBA’s not going anywhere. If I’m good enough to go this year then I’m confident enough that I’m not gonna have a terrible year next year,” he said. “I just don’t know if I could leave just because of how much fun I’m having. You only get to do this one time.”
For Williams, there’s not a day that passes when he isn’t grateful he went back to Iowa and later welcomed Marcus into his program.
Tonight, when the lights illuminate Cameron Indoor Stadium and the No. 15 Tar Heels take the floor against No. 4 Duke, he’ll remember that.
“You know, when I coached Tyler Hansbrough, I told the staff every day we should say our thank yous because we were really blessed to coach somebody like that,” he said.
“And that’s the way we feel about Marcus. There’s not one individual thing that he’s done: It’s just the whole body of work.”
sports@dailytarheel.com
