It shouldn't come as any surprise that last Saturday's marathon on the ACC Network featuring Vince Carter’s most memorable games at North Carolina didn't include a win at VMI during his sophomore season.
On Dec. 15, 1996, the Tar Heels blew out the Keydets, 105-61, inside 5,029-seat Cameron Hall, though that Dean Smith took his team to Lexington, VA, was more the storyline for the locals than the score. They were honored to have the fabled Tar Heels and their legendary coach in town and, unbeknownst to them, a young sportswriter was thrilled and honored to be there himself, chronicling a basketball game for the very first time.
That was the first college hoops game I covered. My formal career began a month earlier when my first game of any kind as a member of the media was UNC’s meltdown loss at Virginia in football – you know, the Chris Keldorf interception game.
My first hoops media experience was sitting courtside during the first sellout at VMI in its building, which opened 16 years earlier.
So how does this all tie in together? Pretty simple: My first time ever in a college basketball locker room took place following that game, and the first player I ever interviewed was Carter.
He stood in front of his locker and there I was, nervously stumbling my way through a series of incoherent questions. At one point I had to pause, catch my breath and then march on. Carter, to his credit, smiled as he often did. He knew.
Carter knew I was a newbie and feeling my journalistic oats, so he was patient, and I’m forever grateful. I ended up asking about four questions before I moved on to Vasco Evtimov for a few more. Then I got out of the locker room. That was enough.
My foot had been in the water and I was good.
“It was a different atmosphere,” Carter said about the game, with a few other reporters standing around in front of his locker. “It took a little getting used to.”
Carolina led just 14-12 five minutes into the game. The atmosphere really was electric, though nothing new to the Tar Heels when playing on the road. They used a 21-4 run in the first half to take a 53-28 lead at halftime and never looked back, though this scribe frantically took every note and soaked in every dribble, pass and dunk, and there were a lot from the guys in blue.
Carter finished with 18 points while Antawn Jamison led the way with 21. Serge Zwikker totaled 19 points and 11 rebounds for the Tar Heels, who outrebounded VMI 68-32, including grabbing 28 offensive boards.
Following the game, Smith praised the crowd, gave props to VMI, and was gracious in his team’s 44-point rout. Keydets coach Bart Bellairs later recalled a story exemplifying the immense respect shown to Smith and the UNC program for that visit.
“We had to build a locker room because we didn’t want him to be embarrassed — we built a coaches’ room at VMI in honor of Dean Smith…,” Bellairs told the Roanoke Times following Smith’s death in 2015.
“Almost 75 percent of everybody (in attendance) was in light blue. That’s just the power Dean Smith had. There’s Carolina fans all over.”
For this wet-behind-the-ears sportswriter, the power of just covering a game and it involving a great like Smith, program such as UNC's and a ballyhooed contingent of players might make me the only person in the media who vividly remembers and cherishes his Cameron Hall experience.
I’ve gone on to cover more than 200 games at the more fabled Cameron - Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium - and those are embraced memories indeed, but the other Cameron also holds a place in my heart. Carter does, too.
Had he brushed me off as I stammered through my messy inaugural attempt that screamed "First timer,” there’s no telling how it could have affected me. But he didn’t. Always respectful and later a gentleman, as many of us learned, Carter gets an assist for how he handled that moment.
And if I could point to the passer thanking him right now I would.
