by Charly Mann

UNC has one of the top college basketball programs in the country despite this season's record. Because of its excellent facilities, traditions, and coaching staff many of the most talented high school basketball players in the country want to play for Carolina for at least one season before joining the NBA. Until 2006 if you were a super talented player like Kobe Bryant or Lebron James you could go straight from high school to a multi-million dollar professional career. Now the NBA has mandated that everyone has to play at least one year for free on the college level before they can turn pro. This has been a blessing and a curse for the Tar Heels.

In 2009 UNC was #1 in the nation and celebrated a great NCAA national championship victory over Michigan State. Carolina had a 34 - 4 record that year. After the season two of Carolina's best players Wayne Ellington Jr. and Ty Lawson decided to leave Carolina after their junior year, and begin to get paid for playing the sport they excelled at. Each of them received multi-million dollar contracts. Without these two superstars Carolina managed only 16 wins this season, and was not considered even among the 65 best teams in the country at the end of the year. If Ellington and Lawson had returned for their senior year Carolina would have been a strong contender for another NCAA title. In the last decade many more of UNC's top players have left early to join the NBA, including Brandan Wright and Joseph Forte.

2009 UNC NCAA Championship team players Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson who both left after their junior year

Despite a poor season this year, UNC is still the most successful basketball program in the nation financially, generating over $27 million dollars in profit. While the University makes a lot of money on these kids the players do not get paid. The minimum salary in the NBA is about $450,000 a year. UNC could afford to pay its top players this amount or more and still have a very profitable program. Some actually believe the NCAA should sanction the payment of top athletes. They say it would give them an incentive to stay in school and graduate, and help maintain cohesiveness in the top programs. Another solution being offered is to make classes optional for top athletes. Currently student athletes must maintain a certain grade point average to be eligible to play, and there is a lot of pressure on faculty members to help keep top players eligible. Even with tutors and a less than demanding curriculum for some athletes, this can be a challenge. I have talked to several former Tar Heel players who tell me how hard it was for them to find time to study, attend class, get enough sleep, and have any kind of normal student life with a "sport" that takes up a large part of both semesters, requires two or more travel days a week, practice, and lots of media attention. Even when they are being students their size and celebrity status make them objects of attention for many of the students and faculty they come in contact with.

An illustration of  what the first UNC basketball game was like

If we want real student basketball at UNC we should go back to the way the program was originally designed. In 1911 a UNC sophomore from Charlotte named Marvin Ritch convinced the UNC track coach Nat Cartmell to coach a UNC basketball team. Ritch took it upon himself to find the players for the team and find opponents to play. Since 1906 basketball had been enjoyed as part the physical education program at the university The UNC coach, Cartmell, knew practically nothing about basketball. UNC's first basketball game was held at Bynum Gym on January 27, 1911 before a crowd of less than 35. The opponent was Virginia Christian College, and UNC prevailed 42 to 21. UNC managed a winning season that first year going 7-4 and knocking off powerhouses as the Durham YMCA, Woodberry Forest, Davidson, and the Charlotte YMCA, but losing to teams that included the University of Virginia and Wake Forest. Attendance never exceeded more than 40 at any of the games. UNC's arch rival of today, Duke, was known as Trinity College in those days, and was not one of the teams the Tar Heels played that year. Trinity (Duke) actually started their varsity basketball program five years before Carolina's, in 1906. Marvin Ritch, the person responsible for starting UNC's basketball program, left UNC after that year and enrolled at Georgetown where he was a standout on their basketball team.

Nat Cartmell was the first UNC basketball coach even though he knew little about the game. He was hired by UNC as the Track & Field coach. 

Many of today's best college basketball players are called counterfeit amateurs because of the special treatment they are afforded by the University and other students, and because they are anxious to make the jump to the lucrative NBA as soon as they can. The truth is that UNC basketball is more a commercial entertainment than a college sport if you consider the attention, ticket costs, and facilities it requires. That is why UNC and other major universities have athletic departments that operate as a business separate from the educational side of the University. "Students" in sports such as basketball and football are recruited and given scholarships not because of their academic ability or potential, but for their entertainment value for producing a winning team. This would be equivalent to UNC giving scholarships to up and coming singing stars in the music department so they would perform at UNC and other schools for money that the University would keep.

This is the only decent photograph I have found of Marvin Ritch the UNC student who was responsible for founding the Tar Heel basketball program.

The most successful basketball coach of all time was John Wooden at UCLA. His UCLA teams won 10 NCAA national championships in a period of twelve years. His last championship team was in 1975. During his time at UCLA he never received a salary of more than $35,000 a year, nor asked for a raise. Today head coach Roy Williams receives a salary from UNC that totals more than $1.2 million a year. I think most of us, including myself, think he is worth it, but this is because college basketball has become so much more than what it was 30 years ago. March Madness for example has become a national pastime. Even in 1968 when almost every family had a color television, I recall that the NCAA final between UCLA and North Carolina was not shown nationally (UCLA won that game 78 to 55).

This is Bynum Gym at the UNC Chapel Hill campus in 1910. It was the site that year of the first UNC varsity basketball game.

UNC's basketball team has a reputation for excellence and dominance that needs to be maintained. In order to do this it has to keep the great talent it recruits or the team will face decimation every year through defections to the NBA. The NBA is especially attracted to great tall college players. As a result, there are virtually no dominant post players on any NCAA team this year over 6 foot nine, and all the top players in the ACC, Pac-10, and Big Ten are 6 foot 8 or less. Almost all the best tall players are going to the NBA after one or two college seasons. The same is true of the magic players who have traditionally made the college game so spectacular. This year's most exciting player, Kentucky freshman John Wall, is almost certain to turn professional at the end of the season.

Coach Roy Williams and the graduating seniors of the 2009 UNC basketball team. Until this year Williams had taken the teams he coached to 20 consecutive NCAA tournaments and won at least one game in each.

Face it, we love Carolina basketball because they win so often, and that is what ignites the student section to show so much excitement and enthusiasm during every home game. Sooner or later the futility of cheering for a mediocre team will dampen this spirit. We owe it to our students and hardcore fans to find some accommodation with the NCAA and NBA to discourage top players from leaving the university early.

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