North Carolina’s classic 1957 NCAA basketball championship win over Kansas began and ended with Tommy Kearns, the Tar Heels’ little guy whose huge exploits seem to grow more legendary every year.

He opened the game with a surprise and finished it with an exclamation point as Carolina upset Kansas and Hall of Fame-bound Wilt Chamberlain, 54-53, in a triple-overtime thriller that gave the Tar Heels a perfect 32-0 record. They also downed Michigan State in three overtimes in the semifinals.

Kearns, a 5-11 guard, jumped center against the 7-1 Chamberlain in a move that many people felt was a joke, with Carolina conceding it would lose the opening tap. But it was more than that.

"A lot has been written about that," said Kearns, a native New Yorker who now lives in Connecticut. "One writer called it my defining moment. Coach (Frank) McGuire had talked to me about it, and he asked right before the game, ‘Are you going to do it?’

"I said, ‘Of course I am.’ I think it was a key ploy and had a psychological effect on Kansas. After that, they wondered what we might do next. It set a great tone for the game."

Asked about the expression on Chamberlain’s face when joined in the center jump circle by someone more than a foot shorter, Kearns laughed and said, "I don’t know. I couldn’t see up that far."

After scoring 11 points and watching Joe Quigg secure the Tar Heel victory by sinking two free throws with six seconds left in the second overtime, Kearns ended up with the ball in his hands with a couple of seconds remaining. He heaved it high into the air and started celebrating as time elapsed.

"I don’t know what made me do that," he said. "I guess I wanted to make sure Wilt didn’t touch the ball again, and not even he could reach it way up there."

Kearns grew up in the Bronx and starred at St. Ann's High School in Manhattan. His coach was Lou Carnesecca, who would go on to make a name for himself at St. John’s. A large number of schools recruited Tommy, including Holy Cross and N.C. State, coached by Everett Case. But there was really no decision to be made.

"I knew Coach McGuire from way back," Kearns recalled, "and everybody knew Harry Gotkin, who recruited big in New York for Frank. He was known as Uncle Harry, and he saw more basketball games than anybody. I knew for a long time -- for probably a year or so -- that I was going to North Carolina. That was also the case with Joe Quigg and Pete Brennan."

Kearns averaged 11.6 points in 80 games for the Tar Heels from 1956-58, with a high of 14.9 his senior season and 12.8 during the ’57 championship season. Assists weren’t kept as an official statistic back then, but he would surely have had a bunch since he was the team’s primary ball handler and playmaker.

Kearns, whose No. 40 is on one of the jerseys hanging in the Smith Center rafters, scored 29 points as UNC edged South Carolina, 90-86, in overtime during the title season. His jump shot tied the score after Maryland led by four points with 70 seconds left, with the Tar Heels winning in a double-OT contest. He scored 15 points in the second half to spark Carolina to a come-from-behind win at Virginia. A two-time All-ACC selection, he was voted a second-team All-America in ’57.

"That national title has meant a lot in my life," he said. "It’s funny, isn’t it, that two points could make so much difference? If we had lost by one, nobody would know who we were. Because we won by one, everybody knows about us. It opened doors for me that otherwise would not have been opened. I have had articles written about me by Frank DeFord and David Halberstram, and that wouldn’t have happened. Being a part of that team has proven to be a major edge in my life.

"The thing that made us famous was that the Final Four games were televised back to North Carolina, and that was a first. Now, almost every game is on TV, but it was new back then.

"The kicker," Kearns said, "was when we flew back to North Carolina, and 15,000 people were at the airport to meet us. We thought we’d come back to Chapel Hill, go to class and life would go on as it had. That welcome was wonderful and a big surprise, too."

Kearns played in the NBA, but his pro career was brief. Very brief.

"I was drafted by the Syracuse Nationals," he said. "I played one game, played seven minutes, took one shot and made it. It was the season opener against Cincinnati. I made what would be a three-pointer today, and then I got cut in favor of Hal Greer."

Kearns worked 10 years with Merrill Lynch in Greensboro, then went back to New York and helped start a brokerage firm in 1969. Three years later, he got into the investment banking business and continued until retiring in 1988.

Four years ago, he helped begin the Frank McGuire Foundation. It honors high school coaches (of all sports) who exemplify what McGuire stood for as a coach and person. Each coach honored receives $10,000.

Kearns was a trustee of the UNC Endowment for 18 years and has been presented a Distinguished Alumnus Award. He played the role of a basketball coach in the Sean Connery movie "Finding Forrester."

He and his wife, Betsy, have been married 43 years after meeting when she was a student at Duke and he was at Carolina. They have a son, Tom III; two daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline; and three granddaughters.

"I’m a director of four or five companies," Kearns said, "and I play a lot of golf. Dean Smith has become a good friend over the years, and we play golf together. I work out three or four times a week, and that’s strictly maintenance.

"I still think about the 1957 season. It was magical."