Chapel Hill Memories is for anyone who wants to relive and help preserve memories of Chapel Hill. We welcome your recollections of any subject related to Chapel Hill and The University Of North Carolina in written, photo, audio, and video form. We have the ability to scan and transfer photos, audio, and video if you do not. We do not charge for this, and will return your materials within a week.
Send your memories, ideas, photos, and questions to CHMemories@gmail.com.
If you need to mail us something let us know, and we will send you our mailing address.
UNC's First National Champion Basketball Team
by Charly Mann
The 1924 National Champion UNC Basketball Tarheels
The University of North Carolina was the dominating basketball program in the country in 1923 and 1924. For two years in a row the team won all their games. Prior to 1936 no college basketball team was ever awarded the title of national champion, but in that year the 1924 Tarheels were retroactively given that award.
The highlight of the season was UNC’s first game against Kentucky (for decades the leading basketball power in the country). Kentucky was favored to win the game, but UNC crushed the Kentucky Wildcats 40 to 21.
The 1924 North Carolina team had two great players; All-Americans Cartwright Carmichael and Jack Cobb.
UNC won the NCAA national championships five times, in 1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, and 2009.
1924 Basketball Season
For the second time in two years, Carolina finished her season's schedule without defeat and for the second time in three years the Tar Heels ran a brilliant course through the tournament at Atlanta and emerged as undisputed Champions of the South.
In the tournament of 1924 the University team had won the Southern crown and had written its name deep into the basketball history of the Southland. In 1923 the Tar Heels traveled to Atlanta without a single defeat and were widely heralded as sure winners; but illness and staleness crept in and the team was eliminated in the second round in its only defeat of the year. 1924 saw the team sweep through the South-Atlantic without defeat for the second consecutive time, and at Atlanta in a blaze of glory the Old North State quint defeated four of the strongest institutions in the South and won the championship.
Only two letter-men composed the team that ended the season in triumph against Alabama. Carmichael and McDonald, two of the greatest players ever developed in the South, played their last season for Carolina and were the framework of the team. Capt. Green was injured while on the trip through Virginia and was unable to share in the glory at Atlanta. Carl Mahler, letter-man from the 1924 team, failed to return to school, and Sam McDonald, another regular, found his work too heavy to permit of his playing.
Coach Shepherd found plenty of material with which to work. Besides Green, McDonald and Carmichael, there were eligible Dodderer, Cobb, Devin, Johnson, Koonce, Poole and Lineberger.
The team gave great promise early in the season by easily defeating several independent club teams in practice games and the smaller Colleges in the State. But when Carolina invaded Virginia and returned undefeated, it was generally predicted that Southern honors would again be won by Carolina.
Leaving Chapel Hill, after defeating Washington and Lee for the second time, the Tar Heels went southward to the Georgia capital and drew the University of Kentucky as their first opponent. With apparent ease the score was doubled on the Kentuckians and Vanderbilt was pitted against Carolina. The Tennessee team was completely outclassed, and defeated, 37 to 20. With the field narrowed down to four contestants, Carolina drew the Mississippi Aggies (1923 Champions) as their opponents for the semi-finals and defeated them by 10 points.
In the final championship game with the University of Alabama, the brilliance of the Tar Heels was considerably dulled by the tenacious guarding of the Alabama team. However, in a final spurt that took her away from their closely-trailing opponents, the Carolinians increased their lead and won the cup.
Front Row (left to right): Jack Cobb, Bill Dodderer, Captain Winton Greene, Cartwright Carmichael, Sam 'Monk' McDonald
Back Row: Mayer Bretney Smith, Jimmy Poole, Donald Koonce, Billy Devin, Henry Lineburger
Comments:
Jason Taylor
9:38 AM Wed 4/8/2009
I think this team mark the beginning of a great Carolina tradition.
Katie Merritt
8:46 PM Tue 4/7/2009
It looks like the tallest guy on this team is just under six feet tall. I doubt if any of these guys would be comprable in skill to players today.
Andrea Hensler
5:55 PM Tue 4/7/2009
I love seeing Duke called Trinity. I think starting in 1925, or even later in 1924, the name was changed to Duke.
Wendy Arthur
3:36 PM Tue 4/7/2009
Carolina and college basketball has changed a lot since 1924. Then it was students who played sports as an extracurricular activity. Now it is atheletes that go to school as an extracurricular activity.
Steven Peterson
12:53 PM Tue 4/7/2009
I was looking for a photo of this years team when I cam across this. Thanks for the history lesson.
Felix, Class of 1987
11:51 AM Tue 4/7/2009
It seems like instead of all the sportscasters saying UNC has just won its fifth national championship, they should say their "sixth." Go Heels!
Make-A-Bet Braxton
9:55 AM Tue 4/7/2009
You certainly provide a look at Chapel Hill from many angles. I live in Nevada, and really onty care about the UNC basketball team, but found several of your articles interesting.
Randy Crisp
8:24 AM Tue 4/7/2009
That game last night was fantastic. It reminded of how UCLA use to dominate their opponents in the NCAA finals with blowout
victories. Maybe the Tarheels are at the beginning of a dynasty of dominance.
The team in 1924 certainly had few close games in its season.
Adam Kent
6:05 PM Mon 4/6/2009
Maybe next year Carolina will go undefeated again. The last time a college team did this was in 1976 with Indiana under coach Bobby Knight. I know UCLA had two or more perfect seasons in the 60s, and of course the great UNC team of 1957 did the same.
Gerry Snow
4:13 PM Mon 4/6/2009
You really cover all the bases when it comes to Chapel Hill.
Terry Richards
3:10 PM Mon 4/6/2009
It is amazing how long this basketball tradition has stayed strong at North Carolina. I live in Iowa, but have been a Tarheel fan since I was a kid in the 1980s.
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
Use Coupon Code chapelhillmemories to receive a $9.94 discount!
My mother was dating Jack Cobb during both the 1925 and 1926 season.