It was never full, Billy. I could always see empty seats on the third base side, and they listed attendance below 4,000 for both games (capacity 4,100). Our section wasn’t entirely full either day, but we had a solid group of Hog fans, probably 500+, and we were doing our best to represent.
Quite a few people mooched by getting on the top row of the field hockey stadium next door and watching over the right field fence (I discovered that UNC won the field hockey natty two years ago).
I saw most of their athletic facilities this weekend. Walked past the football stadium, the football practice field, soccer/lacrosse (soccer Hogs played there last August), swimming (indoor and outdoor), old Carmichael Auditorium where Michael Jordan played (it’s their women’s hoops arena now after a remodeling) and of course baseball and FH. Saw the Dean Dome off in the distance but didn’t go down there; Bob says there is pretty impressive basketball museum down there as well. There’s a university golf course on the edge of town too; I didn’t see that. Supposedly Davis Love III taught MJ how to play golf there. Davis’ dad was from El Dorado; too bad we couldn’t recruit him (Dad played at Texas).
There are so many trees on campus that you can’t see anything from a distance except the Dean Dome. Even the football stadium is kinda shrouded, despite being double-decked. Supposedly when they built the stadium they had to make sure it didn’t rise above treetop level. I don’t think it does even now with the upper deck.
Yeah baseball’s just not that big there they didn’t sell that out
I think like you said they were just glad to get there. I’ve heard it’s a beautiful campus, a lot of memories there with the Great basketball traditions they’ve had for sure… Wow football stadium looks like it doesn’t hold 50,000 …people what’s the capacity?? I can only imagine the beer hats they are unique to say the least… look like you had a great time and I’m glad we made somebody else feel our pain of losing in the supers… hopefully we’ll have a good showing in Omaha.
Capacity at Kenan Stadium is 51,000. At one point it was over 60,000, but they went to 22-inch-wide armchair seats throughout in 2018 which reduced capacity to the current level (they were coming nowhere close to selling it out at 60K).
Yeah no sense in building something you know you’re not going to be able to ever sell out… they are really good in basketball, baseball, I think they’re actually good at lacrosse too,but basketball definitely is there passion…
Dean Smith once said “we’re not a basketball school, we’re a women’s soccer school.” He was right too. They have 22 nattys. TWENTY-TWO. All by the same coach.
They put a $6 improvement fee on their football tickets to pay for the chairback seats. Making them 22 inches sounds quite comfy; I don’t think my indoor club seats at RRS were that wide.
If there’s a US women’s soccer player you’ve heard of, chances are pretty good she was a Tar Heel. Mia Hamm? Tar Heel. And so on.
We’re 7th in the number of nattys in NCAA history. UNC is eighth, and they’re getting closer (they won women’s lacrosse recently). We like to think of John McDonnell as one of the greatest college coaches ever, and he was. But so is Anson Dorrance, the UNC women’s soccer coach for whom their soccer stadium is now named. He started out as the men’s soccer coach, also took over the women when they started the program in 1979, and started winning championships with the women right away. UNC won 21 of the first 31 NCAA titles (they won an AIAW title before that). Dorrance is slumping though; he hasn’t won a natty since 2012, although he’s been to the championship game twice since then and the College Cup (final four) several other times.
Not to belittle Mr. Dorrance’s accomplishments, but when he was winning all those national titles, how many schools had a soccer team? I’d bet a whole lot more schools had a track program than a soccer program for the first 20-30 of those years. Today many more schools have women’s soccer, but I bet they didn’t for quite a while.
It’s sorta like Okie Lite’s wrestling titles. There just isn’t that much competition for the crown.
Right now there are 333 D1 women’s soccer schools. How many of those existed during that 21 in 31 run, I don’t know.
On the other hand, John McD had three chances to win a natty every year (and sometimes won all three). Cross country, indoor track, outdoor track. Once Dorrance gave up the men’s team, he only had one chance per year.
How many soccer nattys does the SEC have? One. Florida, featuring Abby Wambach, in 1998. Maybe Colby Hale can get #2.