(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Badass.

I was in there.

This link won’t be so cool in a couple of days, but check it now: http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=news_photos&p=chapel+hill

I have gotten a couple of wonderful e-mails today.

From Melissa:

“http://understandingvorn.org/

oh, and do you think that we need to find a way that this might fit the dress code? http://www.threatmeter.com/ ”

From Mary:

“Oh, well…….As much as I would love to see them stay, I understand why they have to leave. Somehow it does not surprise me that Rashad (“an old mountain name”–my favorite Mcfee quote from last night) was the first to announce his departure.

The good news: I have directed enough plays to know that when one star leaves, another appears.”

And from DB:

“another dress code stipulation: all buttondown shirts must be in the buttondown position at all times.”

I can do that, sir. I’ll be in your cubicle later. Meow.

Ladybug and TFP celebratin’ with a "WHOOO!"

More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosswhite/

Well, North Carolina is the national champion that I thought they would be from the get-go (never mind what I said after the Santa Clara game). Roy Williams got a well-earned championship, and thank heavens, he will never have to hear all that crap about “most wins without blah blah blah.”

We watched the game at Chez McFee, completing a wonderful run of games that began with the first Friday of the ACC tournament and was interrupted only by the weekend in Boone. Usual suspects were in attendance tonight– Michael, Belinda, Mary and her husband Joe, Tara, and the Whites. Joined by Mary and Joe’s son William, who just last week was causing Mary sleeplessness by being sick in Ireland.

Tara, Ladybug and I ventured to Franklin St. for a while, where we were party to fireworks, bonfires, lots of shirtless guys, tons of cell phones and digital cameras, and bodies so thick in places you could hardly move.

I was 18 the last time the Heels won it all, in the spring of ‘93 (I started at UNC that fall), and Jon Ingram and I, who had watched the game in his basement, came very close to heading out to Franklin back then. We were convinced they’d win it again while we were at Carolina.

And I stayed convinced during those years, picking UNC in Dan’s basketball pool every year. Carolina basketball, in the years that I was actually enrolled, came to mean so much more than the outcomes of the games. I truly looked forward to the weekend games when Ant, Mike and I (or Ant, Fuzz, and I) would have Lisa, Dan, Alia, Claire, and– despite the fact that he would sometimes root against UNC– Leo over to sit on the crappy couches at Carolina Apts. We had all kinds of people wander in for games: Ken, Charlie, Marshall, Kara, Sharon, Zach, Corey, the GFt, Caroline, even whassername who broke Mike’s heart. We had the wonderful traditions, like Lisa having to take a poop at halftime. (Lisa Bowers, we do still blame you for Carolina’s loss in the Final Four when you went up to Indianapolis to see the game. We did use the cut-out photo of your head, put it on your chair during the game and even took it into the bathroom at halftime. But there is no substituting for having your friends with you at the big game.)

We saw amazing wins, a bunch of them against Duke. They can show the Jeff Capel shot all they want but what not many people remember is that UNC won that game. We saw some heartbreaking losses, a bunch of them against Duke, and one against Harold Arcineaux and Alcorn St.

Watching Carolina win a national championship again tonight, and heading to Franklin St. with Ladybug and Tara tonight, I was thrilled to be out celebrating, but old enough to think that my best years of celebrating were spent on those couches at the old apartment. I was ecstatic about Sean May and Raymond Felton and Marvin Williams and Rashad McCants and Jawad Williams and Melvin Scott and David Noel, and yes, even you, Jackie Manuel. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish that you, Anthony King and Dan Kois and Alia Smith and Mike Garrigan and Fuzz Al-Shibli and Lisa Bowers, and yes, even you, Leo DiNapoli, were there on Franklin St. celebrating with me.