Root fulfills dream on UNC’s senior night

Twelve years ago, a young Chipper Root took his place on the sideline every game at Fetzer Field as a ball boy for the North Carolina men’s soccer team during its 2001 national championship-winning season.

And each time after he scooped up a ball that rolled out of bounds and tossed it to an awaiting Tar Heel player, he knew that one day he wanted to be on the receiving end of the exchange, wearing Carolina blue.

“It really got me into college soccer and showed me I really wanted to do this when I was older,” he said. “I loved UNC from that point on and I always wanted to come here — it was one of my dreams.”

Tonight, when the Tar Heels face N.C. State on Senior Night, Root will take to the sideline in what could be the senior midfielder’s last game at Fetzer Field. Only this time, he will be surrounded by fellow Tar Heels while sporting his No. 23 UNC jersey.

“This is where he really always wanted to be,” Mary Kay Root, Chipper’s mom, said. “It’s exciting because he grew up here, he went to Chapel Hill High School, and since he was 4 we’ve been coming and watching these games.

“And now he’s on the team.”

But Root hasn’t been listed on the Tar Heel roster for the last four years. Despite being a two-time all-state and all-region player at Chapel Hill High School and talking to former UNC coach Elmar Bolowich, North Carolina didn’t offer the 5-foot-6 midfielder a spot on the team right out of high school.

Root played two seasons at South Carolina, but discovered Columbia wasn’t the place for him. He wanted to return to the field he had known since he could barely tie his cleats.

“It ended up not being the right decision,” he said. “So I wanted to come back to the place I loved.”

So Root reconnected with a coach he’d known since his youth soccer days — then second-year UNC coach Carlos Somoano— who offered Root a spot on the team.

Heading into his first regular season for UNC, Root felt like he had something to prove — that he should have been on the team all along.

And he did just that— netting what’s been his only career goal as a Tar Heel in a 4-0 defeat of Gardner-Webb.

“There were a lot of jitters, a lot of nerves I guess,” he said. “I wanted to show Chapel Hill, come back and show all the fans who I was and maybe I should have been here from the beginning. I wanted to play the best I could.”

Though Root’s name hasn’t appeared much on UNC stat sheets the past two years, Somoano said the midfielder has done nothing short of impact the team.

“He’s one of the more likeable guys on our team for sure,” he said. “He’s continued to improve and we absolutely couldn’t be more happy to have him on our team.”

Before the N.C. State game tonight, Root will be honored along with redshirt seniors Alex Walters and Josh Rice.

For Root, his college soccer career will end where it all began, but this time, he’ll be on that receiving end of those ball boy tosses.

sports@dailytarheel.com