Hopelessly devoted to Blue, part II

In love with the game

Opening day. Heart-warming words for any serious baseball fan.

For Carolina baseball, that fan is Tom Buske.

Buske, fulfillment coordinator for the UNC School of Government, has attended 18 consecutive Tar Heel opening days. He’s followed the team since spring 1978 in his first year as a Carolina student.

“I went to baseball games every chance I got,” Buske said.

Part of the appeal was Boshamer Stadium or “The Bosh,” as fans call it. Buske joined other students on a hillside by right field near Avery Residence Hall. Those halcyon afternoons of lolling on the grass fed his love of Tar Heel baseball.

By the time he arrived at Carolina, Buske had been into baseball “big time,” playing through his middle school days. In high school, he was team statistician. He’s still a statistician. From his seat in Boshamer, he records each game’s play in a scorebook.

Tom Buske

“I’ve always kept score, and it’s fun to see somebody else keeping score,” Buske said. “You can check in with them if you missed something.”

So, why the love of baseball? “I’ve always been a big baseball fan. But, you know, to go to a football or basketball game, that’s a whole lot more of a production. For baseball, I could just plop down and sit on the hill or in the stands. That’s a lot easier to squeeze into a day.”

After college, Buske lived in Tennessee for several years, then returned to work at the School of Government ─ 500 feet from Boshamer. A two-minute walk from the game and the team he loves.

Buske began his opening-day attendance streak in 2002.

“I get all the swag,” he said. “Magnetic schedules, pocket schedules, posters. I hand them out and encourage people to come with me to games.”

After joining co-workers at a Durham Bulls season opener, he decided to recruit folks to join him at Boshamer. Since then, as many as a dozen people have tagged along.

Opening day is Buske’s only nod to good-luck rituals or superstitions. Otherwise, he’s satisfied with taking in the action from the left-field bleachers. “It’s in the sun, so for opening day we’re talking February and having the sun is pretty important.”

Over the year, players and their performances have kept Buske coming back.

“Memory being what it is, some of them tend to be a bit more recent,” he said. Colin Moran — “a beautiful swing.” Dustin Ackley — “a great player.” Skye Bolt — “an unbelievable season as a freshman.” Matt Harvey — “so good that he was the first UNC pitcher to start Opening Day in Major League Baseball since Hal Brown did it in 1957.”

Then, there’s teamwork, which is most important to Buske.

Two of Tom Buske’s tickets from past baseball games.

Like the team, he feels highs and lows keenly. His anguish over back-to-back losses in the 2006 and 2007 College World Series finals is still evident when he speaks of it. “That was heartbreaking. But those were great runs, great seasons and great games.”

As for coaches, Buske considers it remarkable that “we’ve had just two coaches since I was an undergrad, Mike Roberts [1978-1998] and Mike Fox [1998-2020], who just retired last year. That’s most of my life.”

Among games that stand out is the 18-inning 2-1 win over NC State in the 2013 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. It ended at 1:51 a.m. at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. “Not just for Carolina, but overall, that was one of the most incredible baseball games, as far as drama. Every batter was a potential game changer.”

His favorite, though, was in 1979 when the visiting New York Yankees beat Carolina 9-4. Buske was one of 7,000 people who enveloped Boshamer to see Jim “Catfish” Hunter and Yogi Berra.

Buske is eager to watch the Heels play in person, but the pandemic will prevent that, starting with his annual opening day outing to bring good luck.

When Carolina hosted the New York Yankees in 1979, Buske was in the crowd of 7,000. (Photo by Hugh Morton, UNC Libraries, Special Collections)

Mutual devotion

A checklist for new Carolina faculty members, according to Janice Anderson:

#1 Find your office.

#2 Finalize syllabi for classes you teach.

#3 Buy tickets for women’s basketball.

If Anderson is being honest, though, tickets are #1.

That’s because she and her family ardently follow the Tar Heel women’s basketball team.

Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Education, has been a fan of women’s basketball since her childhood in Dayton, Ohio. Her father was a professor at the University of Dayton, and she attended women’s games there at an early age. “I did not play basketball, but I always loved it growing up.”

After college, she taught at Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School in Dayton and served on the girls team’s coaching staff as an academic coordinator. Several of her students went on to play in college for the likes of Connecticut and Notre Dame, and some became college coaches. The game, with its strategies and competition, is great, but the people and their success are most important to Anderson. “It’s been fun watching their trajectories from high school kids through the years,” Anderson said.

Anderson supplemented her teaching income by operating the scoreboard at University of Dayton women’s games. “It was a front-row seat, the best seat in the house. I’ll tell you, it was hard when I left to go back to school for my Ph.D. and I had to sit in the stands again.”

Before the pandemic, Janice Anderson, right, with her wife Paige and son Logan, cheered on the Tar Heel women’s basketball game at every game, including this one in 2015. (Photo courtesy of Janice Anderson)

When Anderson joined Carolina in 2008, what did she do? “The first thing I did was ask, ‘How do we get tickets for women’s games?’” She and her wife, Paige, have had season tickets ever since.

In 2011, her son Logan was born, and he attended his first game six months later. He’s been a fixture at games and a player favorite since then.

“He absolutely loves the women’s team,” Anderson said. “When he was 3, his favorite player was Stephanie Mavunga, and he was heartbroken when she left. Then Stephanie Watts became his new favorite, so he likes Stephanies, apparently. The players are really kind and have always been nice to Logan. You couldn’t ask for a nicer group of kids.”

Anderson has enjoyed watching Logan’s knowledge of the game grow. “Now he’s asking questions and understanding what’s happening on the floor.”

Anderson has always liked the game’s competitive aspects, especially as the team develops under Head Coach Courtney Banghart, now in her second year on the job. Anderson fills her Twitter feed with updates on the team’s progress.

“We’ve really been enjoying the last two years, watching the transition with Coach (Banghart) and her style. Being a teacher myself, it’s fun seeing people who take on that role in different situations and do it at such a high level.”

Before the pandemic, Carolina basketball players Xylina McDaniel, middle, and Hillary Fuller, right, celebrate with Logan Anderson during the 2015-16 season.

Anderson went from spectator to immersion for one game a few years ago when her essay won a contest for a seat on Carolina’s bench. Two-year-old Logan sat with her for a bit before the game.

The team extends its devotion to Anderson’s family. After Logan underwent major surgery last year, Banghart invited him to some practices. “That’s one of my favorite memories of the team,” Anderson said. “The players came in and lifted his spirits a lot.”

For some fans, games can be intense times. Anderson considers them “a relaxation outlet.”

That’s not to say that she doesn’t get excited and cheer loudly. “Oh, I get very into the games,” Anderson said. “What I mean by relaxation is that it is not connected to my work. This is family time. This is something that we do — together time. This is something that we all enjoy.”

“In praise of Carolina women”

Willis Brooks’ passion for Carolina field hockey began with a father’s question.

An emeritus professor of Russian history, Brooks worked in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Information Agency from 1982 to 1984. A colleague whose daughter played high school field hockey asked Brooks about her college choices. Although he hadn’t seen a game since high school, Brooks knew that Coach Karen Shelton had turned the Tar Heels into a burgeoning power. His answer, based on academics and athletics? Carolina.

The daughter, Betsy Gillespie, became a Tar Heel. Her family became the gateway for Brooks. He attended her first game in 1984 and was hooked.

“I haven’t missed a game. I even attended games at Duke,” Brooks said. “In fact, one of the all-time best games was where we were down 2-0 to Duke at halftime. Cindy Werley scored three goals. We won 3-2 in the second half.

All-time Carolina field hockey great Cindy Werley.

“It’s a fantastic game. It’s a fast game. There’s a 10-minute halftime and the game is over in an hour and a half, and it’s all movement rarely stopped except for injuries.”

He took his son Peter, who liked watching field hockey, but Brooks saw another benefit. “When you have a teenager, a fast, interesting game is a great time to sit and have relaxed conversations.” After Peter moved away, his wife Patricia accompanied Brooks and has been at every game for the past 20 years.

Brooks counts other reasons why he’s a fan. Players in his classes, with one exception, were excellent students. He made friends with parents of players, who shared post-game tailgates. “As time passed, my interest wasn’t simply maintained because of students or parents, but because I appreciated that Karen Shelton is a very extraordinary coach,” he said.

Shelton’s record includes 702 wins, 165 losses, 23 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and four NCAA championships.

What Brooks saw beyond the record is Shelton’s creative genius: her judiciously using limited scholarship funds to recruit top players, hiring assistant coaches from field hockey-rich countries and using performance analytics.

“Karen’s creativity also extends to the playing field, where she takes advantage of the rules so they benefit her team like Dean Smith did,” Brooks said.

Years before the pandemic, Brooks and Karen Shelton refereed reenactments of the first basketball game played under the original 13 rules. (Courtesy of Willis Brooks)

Then, there’s the athleticism and teamwork. “It is an incredibly fast game that requires excellent hand-eye coordination,” Brooks said. “People hit high balls and others raise up sticks and catch them, knock them down, all while going 30 miles an hour. It shows their stamina and conditioning.”

To watch the action, Brooks has a simple ritual; he dons a Carolina hat and a T-shirt he received during the opening of Karen Shelton Stadium in 2018.

He’s also done what many super fans do and more. He supplied fans with rally hankies stamped “Carolina Hockey Hanky.” He baked cookies, once delivering a batch as the team boarded a bus to Syracuse. “I asked them later if it was OK because they lost, and they said, ‘Don’t worry. The cookies never made it out of town.’”

For his support and service, Brooks received a double dose of fan knighthood: Shelton bestowed him with NCAA championship rings in 2007 and 2009. “They’re pretty glitzy,” he said.

Brooks summed up his appreciation for the women who play so hard and so well with five words engraved on a brick he purchased during construction of Francis Henry Stadium, the University’s first stadium for field hockey.

The words: “In Praise of Carolina Women.”

One of Brooks’ hockey hankies with his two N.C.A.A. championship rings. (Courtesy of Willis Brooks)