Maybe Sean May was always a coach.
After all, it was May who gathered his freshman teammates around him in the waning moments of his first game at Carolina. The Tar Heels were walloping Penn State, an appreciative Smith Center crowd was roaring, and May wanted his classmates to enjoy it.
“Look around,” May told them, gesturing into the stands. “This is what we came here for.”
A little less than 20 years later, it’ll be May on the bench for those same Tar Heels. It’s almost impossible to remember this now, but May—part of a deep Indiana legacy and the subject of a heated recruited battle as a prep star—was once considered a long shot for Carolina. Now, as he puts it, “Since I stepped on campus, I haven’t left.”
That’s not exactly accurate, of course. An NBA lottery pick, May had a substantial NBA career and played four more years overseas. That gives him the type of real world basketball experience that will be invaluable to the players eager to learn from him.
