TYLER HANSBROUGH
‘The thing
about Tyler, he
takes a lot of
punishment. I’ve
always been
amazed how
he’s the ice man,
like it doesn’t
even faze him.
I know if it was
me, and I had
guys trying to
elbow me in the
face, and taking
cheap shots at
me in the paint,
I’d lose it. He
doesn’t lose it.
That [the Duke
game] was one
of the few times
I’ve ever seen
him just furious
about something
that had
happened
to him.’
Jonas Sahratian
UNC strength
and conditioning
coordinator
was unambiguous — Henderson was
ejected for committing “a flagrant foul for
[a] combative and confrontational action.”
In the Carolina training room, Hansbrough soon was joined by, among others,
his parents, UNC strength and conditioning coordinator Jonas Sahratian, and dentist
and UNC endodontics professor Dr. Eric
Rivera. Sahratian had given Hansbrough
the enduring nickname “Psycho T” on
their second day working together, a result
of the then-freshman’s seemingly unfocused, exhortatory ranting as he exercised.
© ELLEN OZIER/REUTERS/CORBIS
The mother, Tami, was so upset that her
son requested she either remain calm or
leave the room. The father, Gene, an orthopedic surgeon, worried about facial bones
and vision. The dentist gave the thumbs-up
on the teeth and face. The player, half-smiling, said, “Hey, check this out.” The blood,
that is. When Hansbrough saw his shirt
covered with it, he said, “Oh, we’ve got to
get a picture of this.”
The disquieting photograph, treasured
and displayed ever since by Sahratian and
others around the basketball program,
shows blood speckling Hansbrough’s arms,
cheeks, chin and his white uniform with
blue letters and the numeral 50. A blood-soaked cotton stalactite protrudes from the
left nostril of a red and very swollen nose.
Beyond OK, he was eminently himself.
He ached to return to the court, to rejoin
his teammates.
He enjoys being a kid
Above the unwelcome effusions captured in that picture, the victim’s ever-wide
eyes glow with the single-minded intensity
Hansbrough brings to the court.
“I guess that’s the focused, competitive
goofball,” said teammate Marcus Ginyard,
who, with Frasor and team head manager
Preston Puckett, has shared housing with
Hansbrough since their freshman season.
“It’s like the guy’s obviously upset, which
everybody would be. Obviously competitive, he wants to get back out there. Yet
somehow he finds some crazy humor to
think it’s a good idea to get his picture
taken with him all bloody.” Ginyard
laughed, then added, “Oh, man, he’s
beyond my mind, I can tell you that.”
A touch of amusement also lurks in
Hansbrough’s expression, a hint of the boy
who waited in ambush in a darkened
house, armed with a noisy old blender, to
ERIC RIVERA
Top, an official and
teammate Dewey
Burke ’07 restrain
Hansbrough after he
was fouled by Duke’s
Gerald Henderson in
the infamous incident at the close of
the 2007 regular
season.
Left, Hansbrough in
the training room
after initial treatment for the injury.
When he saw his
shirt covered with
blood, he said, “Oh,
we’ve got to get a
picture of this.”
scare his brother Ben, already skittish after
watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Here, too, is the 2008 consensus Division I
National Player of the Year and future pro
basketball player, revealing publicly the silliness known to teammates and friends by
blithely leaping from a Chapel Hill balcony
into a swimming pool last year on a dare
from Frasor, his closest running mate.
“That’s him right there. He said it was
Bobby’s fault,” Coach Roy Williams ’ 72 said
of the pool caper.“He is extremely unusual
