The moment Hubert Davis got emotional in his UNC debut and the feelings that follow
North Carolina’s Hubert Davis was so focused on his new duties as head coach before his 83-67 win over Loyola (Md.) on Tuesday that he said he didn’t notice retired head coach Roy Williams seated adjacent to the tunnel as Davis walked onto the Dean E. Smith Center floor.
The game itself was the unemotional part for Davis because he’s done all that before. The tunnel was a different story.
Both before and after the game, walking to and from the court was like a time portal taking him back to being the scrawny kid from Virginia away from home for the first time as he enrolled at UNC.
Davis said his dad and sister were there. So was his own family as his oldest son, Elijah, a freshman at Lynchburg College in Virginia, made the trip back to watch in person. And former UNC forward Pete Chilcutt, who was Davis’ roommate in school, flew in from Sacramento.
Davis has been matter of fact about being named head coach April 6 and careful to attend to all the demands of the job. But that was the moment when he finally became emotional.
“Just seeing all of the people that that have been there for me my entire life, all the emotions that I have felt over the last seven months just came,” Davis said. “One of the things that I always tell the guys is it’s OK to be emotional, because it means you care. And I care about this place and this program and this university so much.”
The face he saw to start the game is what made it all okay. Davis’ journey from the kid Dean Smith thought might not ever play at UNC to the first African-American head coach of the university’s marquee athletic program came full circle when he saw Linda Woods.
She was the longtime basketball office assistant who worked for Smith and later Bill Guthridge. She was Davis’ connection to his undergraduate years. Davis’ mother passed away when he was 16 and he said Woods was like his mom when he was in Chapel Hill.
“She was the one that cared for me and supported me and gave me a hug,” Davis said. “And we’ve been unbelievable friends for so long. And so being able to go through the tunnel and be able to spend a little bit of time with Miss Woods was was really special for me.”
Davis called seeing “Mom Woods” as he took the floor for the first time as head coach was “the perfect scenario.”
“Seeing her was my connection to coach Smith and coach Guthridge,” Davis said.
The way the Tar Heels played was a nod to tradition, too. Davis determined the starting lineup in a way Smith once did, using the top five players who graded out the highest defensively by position.
The way sophomore guard Caleb Love speaks about Davis, he may develop that same reverence that Davis has for his coaches. Love scored a team-high 22 points on 7-for-13 shooting from the floor. He didn’t have a turnover for just the second game ever, which he credited to the way Davis has pushed him in practice.
“Coach Davis makes me average six assists in practice,” Love said. “So just him setting that bar for me and me trying to reach that is great for me and making me a big a better player.”
Carolina (1-0) jumped out to an 18-3 start and never trailed in the game. But the Greyhounds (0-1) did take advantage of the Heels’ playing sloppy at the start of the second half with three turnovers on their first five possessions.
Loyola cut its deficit to 49-40 before Carolina went on a 12-1 run to restore order in the Smith Center. That’s when UNC forward Brady Manek, a graduate transfer from Oklahoma, said he felt the impact of the crowd.
“It was awesome to be a part of, that’s why I wanted to come here,” said Manek, who scored 20 points and had five rebounds. “It’s what I wanted to be a part of and It’s unbelievable. I get to be a part of coach Davis’ first team ever. I was a part of his first win, and that’s a it’s just a great, great thing for me.”
Carolina put out a video on social media that began with Davis saying, “it’s not about me.” But no matter how much Davis deflected the significance of his debut, the players knew how important it was to get off to a good start.
“We definitely knew in the back of our minds, this is gonna be like a new era,” said sophomore guard Kerwin Walton, who had 11 points off the bench. “And it’s his era.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 6:00 AM.