Most every kid shooting hoops in the backyard or in a silent moment in a gymnasium has envisioned themselves at the free throw line with a championship to win.
It’s the moment of every kid’s dream.
Miss the shot, and you just do it again.
Joe Quigg had only one chance on that March 23, 1957, evening in Municipal Auditorium with six seconds remaining in the third overtime against Wilt Chamberland-led Kansas in the NCAA finals at Kansas City, Missouri.
“It seems like yesterday,” Quigg, 87, says in the video about converting the winning free throws that would lead North Carolina to a 54-53 victory over the Jayhawks for a 32-0 season under late Coach Frank McGuire. “Sixty-seven years ago, I made two free throws that changed my life. Two simple shots, unguarded, 15 feet from the basket. It forever changed how people knew me.
“I’m not a star, but I sign autographs. I’m not a legend, but I pose for pictures.
“Nearly three quarters of a century later, I get to walk into one of the greatest arenas in America,” Quigg says in the video, “and see a permanent reminder of my team, of my friends, of some of the greatest times in my life.”
The video is nostalgic.
The video is poignant.
It is that fond memory of a perfect season of a team of predominantly New York athletes like Lennie Rosenbluth, Bob Young, Bob Cunningham, Pete Brennan, Tommy Kearns, Danny Lotz and Quigg, all who would lead the Tar Heels to the first of the university’s six National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball titles. Other team members were Ken Rosemond, Roy Searcy, Bill Hathaway, Gehrmann Holland, Stan Groll and Tony Radovich.
Quigg returned to the Woody Durham Media and Communications Center in Chapel Hill on March 19 to tape the video under the production supervision of Adam Lucas.
“They did a great job,” Quigg says. “Adam Lucas wrote the script. He would read the lines, and I would repeat them. They did a great job.”
You can see the video on YouTube here as this year’s Tar Heels team bids for it seventh national title. UNC (29-7) has defeated Wagner, 90-62, and Michigan State, 85-69, to advance to the Sweet 16 West Regional bracket against Alabama (23-11) at 9:39 p.m. Thursday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
“They’ve got all the parts,” Quigg says about the Tar Heels. “They’ve got the people off the bench. It depends on the outside shooting. Nowadays, it is a game of ‘threes.’ We’ve got the kids who can make them. That goes for the other team, too. But R.J. Davis has had a fantastic career, and the way he gets off shots, he hits a high percentage.”
‘Finish on your toes’
Quigg knows what an NCAA title can mean, and how it can change lives should Coach Hubert Davis and the Tar Heels find themselves cutting down the nets at State Farm Stadium on April 8 in Phoenix, Arizona.
He’s been there, and the then-20-year-old, 6-foot-9 junior center converted what every Tar Heels basketball fan will tell you were two of the most revered free throws in UNC men’s basketball history.
“I got fouled,” Quigg says. “I told Coach McGuire I was going to make them. I had confidence that whole game.”
Assistant coach Buck Freeman, Quigg says, would offer a reminder during the timeout.
“Buck Freeman says, ‘Finish on your toes,” Quigg says. “That’s all I thought about.”
He finished on his toes.
The free throws were pure.
“They were nothing but net shots,” Quigg says. “Then I was lucky enough to knock away a pass to Chamberlain. Tommy Kearns got it, and we all were jumping up and down and celebrating.”
Rosenbluth finished with 20 points and five rebounds. Brennan had 11 points and 11 rebounds. Kearns scored 11 points. Quigg finished with 10 points and nine rebounds. Chamberlain led Kansas with 23 points and 14 rebounds in a 24-3 season.
Quigg says that had the free throws failed on that March 23, 1957, evening before an estimated 8,000 partisan Kansas fans, he likely would have just returned to his native Brooklyn practicing dentistry and been a footnote as the player who missed the two most critical free throws in UNC men’s basketball storied history.
Instead, he married a Fayetteville girl who was his college sweetheart and practiced dentistry here for more than 40 years.
Epilogue
Joe Quigg thinks about those free throws every so often, particularly when March Madness rolls around each year.
“It was nervous stuff, “ Quigg says, “having to make those free throws.”
But, he says humbly, Lennie Rosenbluth was the UNC star.
“We couldn’t have won it without Lennie,” he says, or without every Tar Heel on the team. “I was a star for a day. Maybe two days. We won the semifinals in triple overtime, too. We were down by two, and when Johnny Green went to the foul line, he said, ‘Thirty and one is not bad.’”
Green missed the free throw for Michigan State. UNC won, 74-70.
“The opportunity to play in NCAA games can be life changing,” Quigg says in the video. “We all play for different reasons. Maybe, it’s for our families or the tangible rewards, but in March and April at North Carolina, you're playing for a legacy. Take it from someone who has lived it. Who has spent 67 years being reminded what we do on that court matters to you forever. This is the moment to play the game you dreamed about as a kid. This is the chance to achieve goals that don’t have a price tag. This is the opportunity to be remembered, because this … is ‘Carolina’ basketball.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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