Perfect tonic

Though it entailed driving to North Cackalacky and back in 48 hours, through snow on both ends of the drive, attending 'The 100 Years of Carolina Basketball Celebration' on Friday night was well well - well - worth it.  

The night was the perfect antidote to the recent doldrums the 2010 Heels have experienced, but it was much more than that.  

The biggest highlight among many was the halftime tribute to Dean Smith.  There are a million reasons to love Dean Smith, my unparalleled hero, and Carolina. I can't believe how lucky I am to be Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred.  And that kind of cheesy but incredibly sincere affection I have for Carolina is shared by almost every Tar Heel you will ever meet.  And it is epitomized by Dean Smith.  

Dean may be the last true hero.  We already know his flaws - he was a big smoker, he's divorced, and he probably went to the four corners 2 minutes too early in the 1977 national championship game versus Marquette - but he will never let us down like other heros (take your pick, Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Mark Magwire, John Edwards, etc.) have.   

He's successful yet genuinely humble; lives in the public eye but abhors public adulation; an activist Christian who is NOT pompous or judgmental. Dean is authentic and sincere.  

Most importantly, Dean understands that we define ourselves in how we interact with other people (had to drop some Aristotle; it's Carolina AND Hellenic Blue after all)  in his case mainly his players who have always excelled on and off the court.  When Dean says 'we' he means it.  It's always been about we, not me.

He even strikes a pose that is almost Sinatraesque in this photo from Inside Carolina.

Dean Smith not only epitomizes the University of North Carolina, a university that epitomizes the good side of the Old North State - more tolerance and excellence than other southern states, a general moderateness and humility, with a distinct lack of pretension - but the transplanted Kansas epitomizes the state itself.  North Carolina's state motto is "Esse Quam Videri" Latin for "To Be Rather Than To Seem."  

That's Dean Smith, and why most of the 21,000 in attendance welled up when Dean came on the floor on Friday night.

There were other highlights from the Celebration of 100 Years of Carolina Basketball, including:

• Evan and I got to speak with Lenny Rosenbluth, the first supersTar Heel who led Carolina to an undefeated 1957 National Championship season.  Evan got Mr. Rosenbluth to autograph a photo from a commemorative edition of Sports Illustrated of Rosenbluth battling Kansas' Wilt Chamberlain.   Pretty cool.
• Watching Phil Ford play one more time.  By far the three loudest ovations of the night were for Dean, Ford, and Tyler Hansbrough.
• The nice hand for of all people Matt Doherty.  That's another great statement on North Carolina. Fans at other places would have booed, but the North Carolinian thing to do is clap politely. Doherty's tenure as coach was a disaster, but he is still a Tar Heel. Classy move by Heels fans to give him a nice ovation.
• The centerpiece of the celebration was an old timers game that featured more than 100 former players, some who played in the 1940s, that featured walk ons to stars like Ford, Walter Davis, Bobby Jones, Eric Montross, and 1993 Final Four MOP Donald Williams.  A highlight of the game had to be Shammond Williams' defense of Donald Williams at the end of the game, and the classic Carolina ball movement that led to Serge Zwikker's game winning basket for the White team.  
• The celebration ended with a legends fast break, with Heels whose jerseys are in the rafters passing a ball down the floor in a mock fast break. The fast break featured Bob McAdoo, Billy Cunningham, Rosenbluth, Ford, Wayne Ellington, Al Wood, among others, and culminated with Tyler Hansbrough making a lay up. 
• The game was interrupted every four minutes for video highlights and live interviews.  The best one had to be the debate between Wayne Ellington and Jawad Williams on which recent National Championship team was better, the defending champs or the 2005 edition.  

The debate reminded Heels fans that we should not feel sorry for ourselves this year.  The Heels have won two championships in five years, have the most national championships - four - in the modern era (since 1979), been to 3 final fours in five years and 5 since Dean retired in 1997 (remember the old days when the Heels went 9 years between final fours?),  have averaged 19.9 wins a year for the last 100 YEARS, boast an unparalleled list of alumni, ad infinitum. 

Best of all, Carolina basketball is probably the only entity that could pull off such a special celebration.  What other school has that kind of history, legacy and quality?  

[Of course, boasting like this is not very North Carolinian, but as any native of the Tar Heel State will tell you: "North Carolinians love to brag about how humble we are." So today's blog Esse Quam Videri!]