The Carolina Standard: How UNC’s Culture Has Propelled the Heels to the CWS Twice in Three Years
Following their Game 3 victory over USC on Sunday, the North Carolina Tar Heels are headed back to the College World Series.
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A sliding outfielder, a puff of dust, and a bouncing ball off the wall were the first indications that the North Carolina Tar Heels were heading back to Omaha.
There was no smile on Owen Hull’s face as he rounded first – just outstretched hands, palms out, as if to indicate this walk-off moment was pre-ordained and simply inevitable.
For the second time in three seasons, Carolina was going to the College World Series. Each of the past three seasons has featured very different rosters, but one thing has remained the same: the culture established over the years.
Carter French was the final out of the 2025 season, whiffing on strike three in a 4-3 ballgame against Arizona in the Chapel Hill Super Regional. The walk-on turned starting outfielder trudged back to the dejected UNC dugout as Arizona players stormed onto the field to celebrate.
The 2025 squad was a top five team with national championship aspirations, but they were losing a slew of players and needed to reload or rebuild. And UNC doesn’t do rebuilds.
ACC Pitcher of the Year Jake Knapp and reliable swingman Aidan Haugh were the departing arms, while seven of Carolina’s nine hitters were heading toward the professional ranks or had run out of eligibility.
Only rising junior Gavin Gallaher and French were expected to return from the starting nine. By the time they were eliminated by Arizona, the Tar Heels’ coaching staff had already gotten to work.
For head coach Scott Forbes and his elite assistants, it’s not about bringing in the splashy star or signing the biggest names. It’s about identifying the right people, the right type of players that can continue a rich Carolina tradition of success.
“It’s a massive credit to our coaching staff for bringing in the right people,” Georgia State graduate transfer Colin Hynek said before the Super Regional. “Not just the right baseball players, but the right people, and then making sure every day that it’s understood how we should act.”
Hynek and his best friend Michael Maginnis both committed to transfer after serving as captains at Georgia State in the Sun Belt. While Maginnis hasn’t played a ton this season, Hynek has anchored the bottom of the lineup while solidifying himself as the primary catcher down the stretch.
The Heels scoured the country for the right people. All-ACC shortstop Jake Schaffner and slugging third baseman Cooper Nicholson are high-character juniors from the Midwest – Schaffner hailing from Wisconsin and transferring in from North Dakota State, and Nicholson from a JUCO in Des Moines, Iowa.
UNC went back to their New York pipeline to identify Erik Paulsen, a blue-collar first baseman from Stony Brook who had dazzled so much in the field that he won the CAA Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2025.
It’s worth noting that first base is not a position that gets much consideration for defense, and yet Paulsen is a great hitter as well, evidenced by his Most Outstanding Player performance in this year’s Chapel Hill Regional.
Owen Hull etched himself alongside program legend Vance Honeycutt with his postseason heroics this past weekend and continues a strong run of elite center fielders in Chapel Hill. Before he donned Carolina blue, the Alexandria, Virginia native was a game-changer in the A-10 for the George Mason Patriots, but often overshadowed by superstar teammate James Quinn-Irons.
Unlike the rest of the transfers, Forbes and his staff didn’t have to look far for their other big-time catcher. Like his new UNC teammates, Macon Winslow experienced heartbreak one win short of Omaha when his Duke Blue Devils lost in three games at home to upstart Murray State.
A former high school roommate of Gallaher’s, Winslow turned in his Duke blue and made the short move to Chapel Hill, where he’s teamed up with Hynek to form one of the best catching tandems in the country.
It’s not often that a team finds success in nearly every transfer, but Carolina has done just that, as six of their seven transfers are regular starters, putting up strong numbers on both sides of the ball.
“I’ve been on teams that had to bring in 15 new guys,” Hynek said. “And the truth is that you don’t always get that right. But when you look at every single guy in this locker room, every one of them is a great guy.”
Legendary Tar Heel coach Mike Fox built his program on the 4 C’s: Character, Commitment, Confidence, and Competitiveness. And while those traits are still at the core of Carolina’s culture, Scott Forbes added to them when he was elevated to head coach in 2021.
The UNC coach isn’t afraid to use techniques from other great coaches across multiple sports. He frequently quotes Nick Saban and sends motivational videos and quotes from famous leaders to his players daily.
To add to Fox’s Four C’s, Forbes borrowed former Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett’s Five Pillars and instilled those tenets into the North Carolina baseball program.
The Five Pillars are painted on the walls of the UNC Players’ Lounge and elsewhere in the facilities, frequently reminding members of the program of their core values.
Humility. North Carolina baseball players are expected to play with confidence, yet remain humble. Humble players tend to promote a team-first culture.
Passion. North Carolina baseball players are expected to be fueled by love of the game, love of their teammates, and love of the program. The phrase often thrown around when Tony Bennett introduced the pillars was, “Don’t be lukewarm.”
Unity. North Carolina baseball players are expected to perform as one unit. Examples include Hynek and Winslow’s catching tandem or the infield defense turning double play after double play with unparalleled chemistry.
Servanthood. North Carolina baseball players are expected to be servants to the team and make their teammates better. This pillar is evident when watching this club play day in and day out as they sacrifice for each other.
Thankfulness. North Carolina baseball players are expected to have gratitude for every experience – even failure, because some lessons cannot be learned through success only.
When asked in the preseason what pillar Forbes thought this particular group best exemplified, he highlighted ‘Servanthood’.
“I’m going to go with servanthood with this team,” he said. “This team is understanding how important it is to serve each other and to make each other better. This team cares about each other. They serve each other well.”
Before they were awarded the fifth overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, they were perhaps college baseball’s least ever talked about No.2-ranked squad.
Despite winning nine straight ACC series and reaching that No.2 ranking, Carolina never really got the love from the national media that normally comes with that kind of success.
The Tar Heels just kept winning, relying on clean baseball, good pitching, and timely hitting. They have a deep roster, but the numbers don’t jump off the page. Because of that, and because this group has embraced the Five Pillars, it likely contributed to the lack of attention.
“Humility is at the top [of the Pillars] for a reason,” Forbes said in that preseason press conference. “I don’t think you can be great and not have humility.”
The coaching staff and the players who came before have set a standard for this program, but this year’s team still needed to build its own culture and identity. To do that, they needed to gel quickly with seven new transfers and a handful of freshmen.
In the offseason, the team went to pitcher Folger Boaz’s house for a weekend to fish and enjoy time away from baseball. Half of the guys stayed at Boaz’s house, while the other half stayed nearby at an Airbnb.
“We just hung out all weekend,” said senior captain Matthew Matthijs, a former all-American relief pitcher coming off a major injury. “It was really nice to be close to everybody. There was no baseball, no nothing, it was just hanging out with the guys.”
Several members of the group went fishing and caught speckled trout.
“Jason [DeCaro] caught some,” Matthijs said with a laugh. “I think [Erik] Paulson caught some, too. But Owen Hull never did, unfortunately, but he tried.”
Hull may never have caught a fish, but he certainly reeled in the biggest prize of all when he delivered four doubles and walked off the Trojans in Game Three of the Super Regional.
Gavin Gallaher, another captain, is well known for his postseason prowess. “Mr. Regional” went 23-for-46 with 12 extra base hits in 11 career Regional games over three seasons. He highlighted an escape room experience during the fall as one of many examples of building team chemistry.
Perhaps that experience helped the Tar Heels generate a ninth-inning comeback to escape the clutches of the USC Trojans.
Gallaher, Winslow, pitcher Ryan Lynch, and another UNC player all live together. It’s unusual to see such closeness between position players and pitchers, but it’s the norm at Carolina in 2026.
The stories from that household include snowball fights and indoor games of catch with footballs. Surely that helped build team chemistry as well and didn’t cause too much damage inside the house.
“It goes into trusting the coaching staff with the guys that they’ve brought together,” said Gallaher in the preseason. “We’ve grown close together over the fall and into the preseason. You find little things to do to figure out a way to bond with each other, but then also just trust each other on the field.”
“We all know that we’re here for a reason. We’ve all proven to each other the level that we can play at, and so [it’s about] trusting each other, having each other’s back, and working together on the field.”
North Carolina has reached Omaha 13 times and is consistently at the top of the ACC. The standard and culture begin with Scott Forbes, who frequently meets with his players and reaffirms his love and belief in them.
But there is a level that players are expected to meet, and that has created a atmosphere of excellence that has transcended seasons.
“There are no team rules or anything,” Hynek said. “There’s just a standard you’re gonna need to meet, or you’re not gonna be here.”
“If you are gonna be that guy, you’re gonna hear about it from your teammates. You’re probably gonna hear about it from the coaches, and if it keeps happening, then at the end of the year, you’re probably not gonna be asked to come back, right?”
Everybody in the program is aware of the standard and capable of holding others accountable. That includes former coach Mike Fox, who is frequently around the team, and other various alumni who come back to visit.
Cubs first baseman Michael Busch visited in the offseason, as did Danny Serretti and Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen. Hynek credited them specifically, as well as all alumni, with helping build the culture.
Gallaher credits the players who came before him as well, highlighting former captain Jackson Van De Brake for teaching him how to be a leader and pass the levels of excellence down to the next group of young Tar Heel players.
“I’m just trying to do the same thing for these younger guys or just the new guys to the program,” Gallaher said in February. “Whether that’s something with baseball or with our culture here. I am just trying to embrace the culture that was established before me, realizing how that’s worked and created such a winning program, and try to continue that.”
Everyone from the equipment manager to the alumni are on board and working toward the same direction. Since 2024, there have been 23 different teams to reach Omaha. Only North Carolina has been there more than once.
364 days after he struck out to end the 2025 season, French would find redemption, lacing a two-strike base hit through the right side of the infield to put runners on the corners. During an offensive timeout, he appeared as cool as a cucumber, smiling and nodding with Forbes as if it were any other game, any other moment.
Perhaps nobody else personifies the Carolina standard more than Carter French. He’s a senior walk-on who sat on the bench for two full seasons, serving mostly as a pinch runner and defensive replacement before emerging as a starting outfielder last year.
He’s spent four years at North Carolina balancing a rigorous academic load, as the Tampa, Florida native is pursuing a career in medicine. Last month, following the Duke series, French took his MCATs for medical school, in the middle of D-I baseball season, while being a starter.
After that, staying cool under pressure and delivering a crucial base knock for the Heels in an elimination game must’ve been easy. A few batters later, French’s redemptive arc was complete as he scored the winning run off Hull’s double to walk off USC.
French trotted home, thrust his right hand up with his index finger pointed skyward, and tapped the plate as the Carolina dugout exploded towards Hull at second base. The Tar Heels were heading back to where they belonged.
North Carolina will play on Friday in the College World Series against Ole Miss at 7 PM EDT.
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