Carolina Alumni Review - March/April 2008

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BLUE HEAVEN

UNC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS PHOTOS

the Smith Center, but lately they’ve been staying in Carmichael. Though Duke has been a bother in recent years, they beat Tennessee and Connecticut in Carmichael last year.

“There’s a tremendous atmosphere,” Hatchell said. “You put eight to 10 thousand in the Smith Center, and it’s not even half full. Most of the teams in the ACC would tell you this is one of the hardest places to play.

“I don’t know of a building on campus that deserves some tender loving care more than Carmichael, for what it’s contributed to the University.”

‘It was pretty electrified’

Before there ever was a basketball game in Carmichael, Louis Armstrong and the Supremes had played there in November 1965. (Tickets were $1 in advance, two bits more at the door.) The arena came along at a fortuitous time when many of the rock artists of the 1960s and ’70s were emerging; it was ahead of more attractive venues that later would draw some of the acts away; and in those years Carolina had connections.

The Mamas and the Papas were the first

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March/April 2008

The crowds weren’t as big, but Sylvia Hatchell’s women’s teams had a remarkable run in Carmichael, winning more than 80 percent and losing only one of 19 NCAA Tournament games. In farewell to the “old” Carmichael, Hatchell got her 500th win in 22 seasons in Chapel Hill.