Tar Heel Born and Bred

I’ve already written a bit about the solid weekend in North Carolina, which featured great times with family and friends as well as the UNC game.  In addition to the fun I’ve already described, I also had a blast participating in the UNC men’s soccer alumni weekend.

For those of you who don’t know, I had the unique privilege of playing on the UNC men’s soccer team as a walk-on during my sophomore year in 2001.  I won’t go into all the details here about the full experience of a Division I athletic program.  What I will say is that the year on the team was both exhilarating and exhausting.  It’s probably the most difficult series of challenges I’ve faced on a day to day basis and one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  I’m proud to say I am a former Tar Heel athlete but at the same time altogether humbled that I had the chance. 

So it was a joy to catch up with some old friends on Friday night as the current UNC squad put together a 2-0 victory over Duke.  And it was even more fun to have the chance to wear a Carolina jersey again the following morning as part of a UNC-Duke alumni game.

I jumped at the opportunity to play in the game.  Sure, I was excited to step on a field one more time for UNC.  And I was almost guaranteed more total playing time than in 2001!  But more than anything I looked forward to sharing the field with a Tar Heel great - my Dad.

A lot of you are probably aware that my Dad introduced me to the game at a young age - I’m told I was kicking a ball in the hallway days after learning to walk, and I played on my first team before age 3.  Yet my Dad’s love affair with soccer didn’t begin until late in high school. 

Up until that point in time he had spent his days honing his basketball skills, and had dreams of starring on the team at Chapel Hill High.  It wasn’t until my Dad was cut from his high school basketball team in what is described as a political firestorm that he even considered playing any other sport with any seriousness. 

It was just after the death of his basketball career that a bunch of my Dad’s buddies talked him into joining them for some pickup soccer games.  Keep in mind that this was the mid 70’s and the Beautiful Game had not yet made it into the mainstream consciousness here in the States.  Yet after just a few unorganized games with his friends, my Dad was hooked.

So hooked in fact that he decided to join the high school team.  It turns out the team was planning a preseason trip to Poland for some extra competition.  You can imagine my grandmother’s face when her eldest son came home one day and said he needed a large sum of money to take a trip to Poland. 

Somehow, they found a way to scrape together the funds.  And before long Dad was looking less the part of soccer neophyte and more and more like a burgeoning star. It wasn’t without work, however, and it wasn’t overnight.  As legend has it, Dad spent time everyday working on his skills and “catching up” for lost time.  He had found his sport and now the sport was defining him.

After a successful senior season, Dad made his way to UNC and played his first year on the NCAA-mandatory JV team along with the rest of the freshmen , starring as a captain and forward.  His hard work was paying off, and during his final three years in Chapel Hill he found his way onto a regular role with the Varsity team.  The team was coached at the time by a young man named Anson Dorrance, who would later go on to gain considerable fame as the legendary UNC women’s coach. 

The best I can piece it together, Dad was an above average athlete with more than adequate skills.  What set him apart, however, was the insatiable desire to outwork his opponents and do just about anything to put the ball in the back of the net, with a particular penchant for scoring goals with his head.  One of my friends asked Coach Dorrance a few years ago to describe my Dad as a player.  Anson was succinct in his praise - “John Mansfield.  Great player.  Helluva header.”

It turns out desire and a refusal to be outworked can get you a long way in life.  By the time my Dad hung up his cleats following his senior season, he had scored more goals in Carolina blue than any man before him.  And the lessons learned on the pitch didn’t end there - Dad’s been able to translate the same ethic he developed on the field to a successful career in the business world. 

So perhaps now you know why I was so pleased this weekend to don the jersey with the interlocking NC on the chest.  It’s not everyday, after all, that you get one last chance to share a field with your hero.