Lucas: Brooklyn Boys

This weekend’s ACC Tournament won’t be Carolina’s first foray into Brooklyn. Sixty years ago, the Tar Heels had a very productive tie to the borough.

In the mid-1950s, the Tar Heel head coach was Frank McGuire, a purebred Brooklyn native who had attended and coached Xavier High School in Brooklyn. War was the only thing that got him out of the city, and his Navy duty during World War II took him to Chapel Hill for the V-5 training program. Almost a decade later, he remembered his time at Carolina fondly, and the school hired him as head coach in 1952, paying a reported salary of $12,000 per season.

Fans loved his coaching credentials but were less enamored of some of his other qualities. He…