Title still eludes Tar Heels
Jun 19, 2009
Perhaps its appropriate Roy Williams was at the game on Thursday night in Omaha, Neb. Williams knows what it's like to come so close for so long without winning a national title.
Williams was an assistant on some great North Carolina basketball teams that didn't win a national championship until 1982, a victory that lifted a heavy weight from Dean Smith's program.
And Williams himself, despite enormous success at Kansas, could never punch through and win a title until 2005 at UNC.
Now, of course, the North Carolina baseball team is in a similar role. You can't help but marvel at how Mike Fox has molded this program into a national power. But no ACC team has won the NCAA title in baseball since Wake Forest in 1955 – a stunning lack of hardware for a league that is generally among the elite. Florida State, for all its past success, has never left Omaha victorious. Clemson, Georgia Tech and new addition Miami have had tremendous runs but never brought the ACC a championship.
Carolina has a decent, but not great, baseball history. Given that, what has happened in recent seasons is outright phenomenal. The Tar Heels have signed the nation's best prospects and produced a steady stream of elite players. Only a few years ago, it seemed like Andrew Miller and Daniel Bard were once-in-a-decade players. But Alex White is an elite pitcher, and Dustin Ackley is one of the best hitters the league has ever seen.
Top that off with the fact that Carolina now has a swank, renovated Boshamer Stadium, and you're looking at a program that is among the country's best .The Tar Heels can now host regionals and Super Regionals on a regular basis, and that's always the best path to Omaha.
But then ... what?
"I'm never going to say that a program is defined by a national title," Fox told ESPN recently. "I refuse to do that. Doesn't mean we aren't going to go out and do our best, but I think you're selling yourself short if you do that. And I'm not trying to set myself up for thinking if we don't [win it], but it is very hard to win a national championship in any sport.
"Our program is defined by a lot more; at least, I hope it is."
Aah, that's true, but can't you just see Dean Smith saying that in 1979 ... or Roy Williams in 2003?
And can't you see how the perceptions changed once a national title was secured?
What if Smith had never won a national title? What if Carolina had lost to Illinois in 2005 – can you image the pressure on the 2009 team?
The College World Series is different than the Final Four. There are eight teams, not four. And baseball is a quirky game where the best team doesn't always win.
But this is a program that has shown it wants more than great steaks and a good time in Omaha. Carolina had a marvelous team this season, but ultimately, it didn't have the bullpen it needed, a weakness exposed again in Thursday's loss to Arizona State.
North Carolina has established itself as a strong program. Four straight appearances in Omaha is an achievement to be celebrated, regardless of the outcome.
But they were trips that finished unfulfilled, and only a national title will put the Tar Heels in the sport's elite.
