CHAPEL HILL – Consider this for a moment: Stilman White was Tar Heel teammates with players who were members of North Carolina’s 2009 national championship team, and if any of UNC’s current freshmen stay until their senior years, he will also have been Tar Heel teammates with someone on the 2020 UNC squad.
That’s what happen when someone has been a part of a program for as long as White has been with the Tar Heels.
A senior, White will play his final home game Saturday night 1,564 days after making his UNC debut at the Smith Center. To say it’s been a long ride would be an understatement.
“I’m 24 now. I started when I was 18 and I’m 24,” White said, smiling Thursday before practice at the Smith Center.
Nov. 20, 2011, White played 9 minutes in Carolina’s 101-75 rout of Mississippi Valley State. The Heels have played 96 home games since then without White starting once, but he does have two starts in his career, and they couldn’t have been more pressure-packed.
During his freshman season, starting point guard Kendall Marshall broke his wrist in a second-round win over Creighton, and with Dexter Strickland also injured, White was the only point guard the Tar Heels had that could play.
So, a late recruit that was well under the radar, and seldom used as a freshman, White started in the Sweet 16 win over Ohio University and Elite 8 loss to Kansas. His numbers: 60 minutes, 6 points, 13 assists, 0 turnovers and even 2 steals.
White spent the next two seasons on a Mormon mission and returned for his sophomore season when his original class were seniors. Amazingly, White played 60 minutes in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 combined, but as a sophomore and junior he totaled just 53 minutes.
“It’s pretty wild,” junior Joel Berry said about White’s career and that he’s still in the program. “It’s just the path that he’s taken. And honestly, it’s good to have him on the team to be able to hear some of the stories that went on when he was here with the other guys.”
But this is it for White. He will start again Saturday night, 178 UNC games since his last start.
“Senior Day seniors always get to start the game, so I’m excited to be able to do that and I’m glad my senior day gets to be against Duke, too, so it makes it even more special,” White said. “I’m looking forward to getting all the festivities over with so we can play the game and win the outright ACC championship.”
Festivities, or fun, or however one wants to term it, is a big part of White and what he brings to the Tar Heels.
A season is long and the players are constantly together. They are a family, and families can experience stress, so levity is an important part of breaking from the tougher times and making future ones more manageable. White, the old man on the team, has a clear role in doing that for the Tar Heels.
One might say White is the team’s resident contrarian.
“He’s that guy that disagrees or agrees; say you disagree with something he will go against you, Stilman’s always that guy that’s the opposite,” senior Isaiah Hicks said, laughing.
White feels the need to be ready to respond any time he’s jabbed by a teammate. Being the old man on a team with five teammates still in their teens makes him an easy target.
“All the time, man, all the time,” said White, who has scored 25 points in 78 minutes this season. “I get all these old man jokes and grandpa jokes… (Director of player development Eric) Hoots was telling his kid was a newborn when I came in and now he’s about to start puberty. I hear stuff like that all the time. I try and act like I don’t hear it."
White, however, has mastered the art of responding.
“I’m the guy that gets in everyone’s head on the team, that’s kind of what I known for, getting in everyone’s head and getting on their nerves,” he said, chuckling. “They all thought they found one thing they can finally make fun of me about so they ride it pretty hard, that’s why I hear about it all the time probably. But I have to act like it doesn’t affect me and just come back at them.”
There’s no joking on the court. White takes his role seriously and is intent every day on helping his teammates improve and prepare for upcoming foes.
His experience certainly aids him, but White can play. He could probably play a lot of minutes in other programs, but he’s satisfied being a Tar Heel and competing for a national championship. That’s why he does what he does every day in practice, even though it brings him no attention or accolades outside of the Tar Heels’ locker room.
“Stilman’s been a very important part of the last two or three years preparing our guys to get ready to play, that’s been his role,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said.
Berry echoed that sentiment.
“No one sees it, in practice he makes us a lot better because he puts so much pressure on us,” Berry said. “He can shoot the ball, he can get to the basket, he can do a lot of stuff, so he helps us in practice when we have to guard someone that can score, and he’s capable of giving us that look.”
White has the respect of his teammates, he has the respect of his coach, and likely will get a tremendous ovation from the fans Saturday night. And he will always have that sense of humor, one fine-tuned as the elder statesman in a program with a fascinating history, including White’s.
The whole 2009 to 2020 thing is quite remarkable, and it isn’t lost on White.
“That is funny to think about I played with Justin Watts and Tyler Zeller, and they were part of the last national championship team,” he said. “It’s funny how I can bridge that gap with the freshmen to guys like that that raised a banner here.
“B Rob (Brandon Robinson) was telling me the other day, ‘When you were a freshman I was 13 years old.’
That sort of puts White’s Tar Heel tale in perspective, and a truly fascinating one it truly is.
