The voice message was left on Wednesday, four days after the euphoria of Chazz Surratt's epic interception of a Duke pass in the end zone on the game's next-to-last play. Carolina's football team prevailed in a 20-17 squeaker over its ancient rival from Durham in the gloaming of an early evening in October, the second-half emotions rocking from joy to anguish and back again with every blink of an eye.
You couldn't say that John Fish's voice was particularly robust—after all, he'd been battling brain cancer for a decade and Parkinson's disease for many months and the many attendant radiation and medication treatments had taken a toll—but there was a lilt of joy and contentment as he recounted his experience the Saturday past.