Michael Vitez: Carolina's Blue Steel more than just benchwarmers

You think you have pressure?

Imagine you are the three players at the end of the North Carolina bench, probably the most famous scrubs in college basketball.

You have your own nickname - Blue Steel - taken from male model Derek Zoolander's trademark pose in the Ben Stiller movie Zoolander.  You have over 13,000 fans on Twitter. You tweet incredibly clever things like: "Every time blue steel has gotten in the game we've won. Coincidence? I think not."

Blue Steel usually gets in the game when there is absolutely no chance they can blow the lead. And what do the fans want? Scoring!

If the Tar Heels score 100 points, fans get discounted biscuits at Bojangles'. Blue Steel often gets in with Carolina over 90.

"That's the most pressure-packed point of any game," said David Dupont, a senior from Greensboro, N.C., who understands the importance of his role. "You're feeding people, and what's better than that?"

The situation presents a dilemma, however.

"Should we do the fundamentals we've learned in practice," said Patrick Crouch, a senior from Asheville, N.C., "or should we just throw them up? You get the ball at half-court and people are screaming, 'Shoot!' "

"We always appreciate coach for putting us in," said Stewart Cooper, a senior from Winston-Salem, N.C., "but personally I haven't gotten used to the feeling and always think I'm going to throw up right before he tells us to sub in."

North Carolina is the top seed in the Midwest Regional going into this week's NCAA tournament, and Blue Steel will go as far as the team's future NBA lottery picks can carry them.

Blue Steel gets all the swag, the loot, the travel, and sometimes even the girls, unless the actual scholarship players are around. Then they become just bums at the end of the bench - or worse. Sometimes people assume they're managers, said Cooper.

"Road trips are pretty much mini-vacations for us," said Cooper. "When we go to warm places like Miami and Florida State, we spend our time laying out by the pool."

When the team played Michigan State in San Diego in November on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, Blue Steel was there, too. They watched President Obama land on deck, met him, shook his hand, and saw all the snipers posted everywhere - cool.

These players get to hang out with legends past and future. Blue Steel can get bling, too - like ACC championship rings.

Here are classic Blue Steel tweets (@Real_BlueSteel):

"We may not be big . . . but we're slow."

"Worst thing about making the squad? No chance to shine in intramurals."

"We're gonna have a far better view than the 'crazies' and we didn't waste all of January sleeping in a tent."

"We sweated more in the celebration last night than any game we've gotten in all year."

"Our dance moves are unparalleled by any other team in the country."

"Seeing a misspelled word in our tweets is a lot like seeing us in a game. It's a rarity, but people usually notice."

"We may not start, but we always finish."

Carolina is one of the few universities that still has a JV team. It plays against Division II and III teams as well as junior colleges, prep schools, and community colleges. The JV players can try out to become walk-ons on the varsity, and usually a few make it.

Last season, coach Roy Williams took an unprecedented six walk-ons. On the daily practice plan, their names were put in parentheses, and the coach would literally say, "OK, parentheses, get in there."

Scrubs didn't like this.

"Kind of like in jail when you're just given a number, not even a name," said Crouch.

The first team in practice is the white team. The second team is the blue team. So the walk-ons, noting one night how much they loved Zoolander, decided to call themselves Blue Steel.

"We kind of knew we made it one game during a blowout when Coach looked down the bench and said, 'Blue Steel, you're in.'" said D.J. Johnston, who played high school ball at Germantown Academy and was a member of Blue Steel last season.

He misses it dearly, considered flunking so he could stay one more year, and now lives and works in Chapel Hill.

Bored over Christmas break last season, Blue Steel covered star John Henson's car with 2,400 Post-it Notes. That added to campus fame.

The downside to being Blue Steel? Getting pounded at practice. "They're bigger and beat up on us," said Dupont.

Williams took heat this season when, losing at Florida State, he led his players into the locker room with seconds left in the game to avoid jostling by fans who would be rushing the floor. Blue Steel was still on the court. Williams said he didn't realize he had left them and apologized.

"I think it was blown out of proportion," said Dupont. "None of us felt like we were abandoned. ... We just stayed on the court because nobody really said anything to us. So we just played it."

Three members of Blue Steel graduated after last season, including Johnston, and the last three will graduate this spring - but not before enjoying March Madness from their seats on the bench.

"I've learned a lot about myself," said Cooper, "but the biggest thing is that I should never doubt myself. I've always dreamed about playing for UNC but never thought it could actually happen until it did, and even now I have a hard time believing that this is all actually happening. The three of us have worked very hard our whole lives to get here, and I will never forget how that hard work paid off."

More walk-ons will surely make the team next year, but graduating members of Blue Steel will hold a tryout of their own, to make sure their replacements have sufficient humor and humility.

"We'll put them through the test," said Dupont, "and see if they're worthy of carrying on the Twitter name."