‘Our Fenway Park’
In the last days of the old Carmichael, a
sign hanging near the glossy blue bricks of
the concourse congratulated the latest
national champs, in soccer, tennis doubles,
the 1,500 meters and the javelin. Four team
pictures were all that remained of men’s
basketball, and the women, along with the
volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics teams
— and the coaches in the cubbyhole
offices — were headed for temporary
quarters elsewhere.
A single voice down on the floor
echoed wildly among the spider-leg beams
and the odd contours. A seat on the back
row seemed surprisingly close to the court.
Next door, it should be added, Woollen
Gym had long since matured from a deficient arena to a charming haven for players
who bought their own shoes.
In 1968, Carmichael already was a minor
legend, courtesy of Saturday afternoon television, to 14-year-olds who got to play
there in Dean Smith’s camp. It took them
about 10 minutes in the thick late June air
to change the nickname to Blue Hell.
Four years later, lots of students took a
day off from class to get a ticket in the
bleachers for the Chapel Hill debut of
Maryland’s Tom McMillen, who had jilted
Carolina in a decision Smith seemed to
understand, but most fans did not. Dennis
Wuycik ’ 72 and Robert McAdoo ’ 75 gave
McMillen the Carmichael tour, and the students gave him the business, and the 13th-
ranked Terps went home 20 points behind.
Fred Kiger ’ 74 was there that day — at
courtside keeping stats for the team or
working with the radio broadcasts, he had
access to Carmichael that few people could
match from his time as a student through
the day the men’s team left the building.
When Jordan took the ball and the ball-game from Virginia in ’ 83, he said, “I
thought the roof was gonna fall.
“I wrestled for the intramural championship in there. I had never wrestled
before. I got through two rounds, to the
championship,” Kiger said. His title hopes
crashed after 17 seconds. (Speaking of 17
seconds, Kiger’s moment-by-moment
account of the end of the 1974 Duke game
is at alumni.unc.edu/duke1974.)
He remembers the roller derby in
Carmichael, and the Hanneford Circus’
repeat performances. “I was assistant supervisor of intramural officials — tutored in
YACKE TY YACK 1981 YACKE TY YACK 1972 YACKE TY YACK, 1971
YACKE TY YACK 1972
that job by Roy Williams [’ 72]. I was walking through there, and somebody called
out my name, and I turned to look, and I
ran into the back of an elephant and hit
the floor. Thought I’d broken my neck.”
Kiger was finishing a handball game in
Woollen when he heard a commotion
coming from Carmichael, stepped through
the adjoining door and found himself
backstage, looking at the backside of Ozzie
Osbourne and Black Sabbath.
“I remember Stephen Stills being there
and saying, ‘I hear they play pretty good
basketball here.’ John Denver called it ‘an
institutional bathroom.’ If you weren’t on
the floor, forget it — the sound just
bounced all over the place.
“It was our Cameron Indoor Stadium,
our Reynolds Coliseum, our Fenway Park.
“Senator Sam [Ervin ’ 17] was in there
during Watergate. He ended his speech, ‘I
refuse to see George Washington’s America
become Julius Caesar’s Rome.’
“That place was my portal to a world I
never imagined I’d get to see and hear.”
DAVID E. BROWN ’ 75 is senior associate
editor of the Review.
Shirtless and side-
burned, students
packed the often-
smoke-filled, acousti-
cally challenged
hall for Tull, Denver,
Costello. For a few
years, Carolina could
get almost any
rock act despite
Carmichael’s relative
small capacity.
