Not just any blue February 25 2026

By Elizabeth Ritchie Sherrill

Carolina Blue

February is the shortest month of the year, the gentle connector between winter and spring. We have moved past the long, slow days of January and can see light on the horizon. While we may yet have a few snowfalls ahead of us, we begin to plan those gardens, book those summer camps, and daydream of warm vacations. We also tend to distract ourselves from the cold with something other than the changing temps and trees, and that is college basketball.

I was born in Chapel Hill and lived there until I was 10 years old. Much too young to be a part of Franklin Street festivities during March Madness, but I do remember the buzz of a college town in spring. My favorite color has always been, and always will be, not just blue, but Carolina Blue. My maternal grandfather works as an architect for the university system, and my mom worked at Bull’s Head Bookshop during her college tenure, so I have vague memories of visiting campus with them on occasion and walking through the bookstore or library. I remember climbing the stone walls in the Forest Theater, getting ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, and having to use scissors to get through the cheese on my lasagna at the Rathskeller. However, my hands-down favorite campus memory was meeting Robin Williams while he was there filming Patch Adams. I remember being in post-pool attire with tangled, chlorine-matted hair, and he walked right up to us, the only kids on scene, and asked if we’d like a picture with him. While that has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, I attribute that memory to the magical atmosphere that is a college campus.

It isn’t just our state, but every state that cheers for its favorite college crew. While the first men’s NCAA Division I tournament was played in 1939, the term “March Madness” didn’t stick until 1982. The first brackets we have come to know so well didn’t show up until 1988 in a place where many grand ideas originate, a bar, in Staton Island. More personal to us than NBA teams, March Madness allows us to cheer on rising stars in our hometowns or with friends, bringing us back to our own college campus days. We rock vintage sweatshirts that sport holes from where our team spirit could no longer be held in, and we wear hats that mark us as fans, because whether we played in our youth or not, we can all cheer for our team.

Celebrating March Madness isn’t only for avid basketball fans; it can simply be for a girl bound by her childhood allegiance to her hometown and her family that walked the campus before her: my parents, aunts, and uncles who are all Tarheel alumni, and my happy, youthful memories of my first home alike. This time of year, watching college teams climb the brackets while nervously snacking on cheese straws, fills me with a hopeful, happy feeling. Like magic, anything can happen!