Cooper Nicholson sent one over the left field wall in the seventh inning Sunday, and Charles Schwab Field exploded.
That homer scored Erik Paulsen, who'd reached base ahead of him, and pushed North Carolina's lead out to four. It came on Father's Day, with North Carolina's pitching staff handing the Sooners nothing but quiet innings down the stretch. PBS
For most of the dads watching from the stands Sunday, it was just a baseball game on a holiday built for them.
For Erik Paulsen Jr., it was something heavier.
Every Tar Heels father in attendance wore a button Sunday to honor Erik Paulsen Sr., the Long Island NYPD detective who passed away in July 2025 from oropharyngeal cancer. The whole team decided that was non negotiable. If Paulsen's dad couldn't be there, his teammates' dads were going to carry him anyway. PBS
Paulsen Sr. spent his career on Long Island and in Brooklyn as an NYPD detective. He played college ball himself, at Misericordia and Farmingdale State, and never really stopped loving the game even after he traded a bat for a badge. He founded a travel program called the New York Longhorns, and coached hundreds of Long Island kids through it over the years. His son was always the best one. aolaol
On a Tuesday morning in September 2001, Paulsen Sr. got the call every first responder got that day. He spent three straight days at Ground Zero, digging through what was left. He didn't talk about it much afterward. His son says he was just happy he could be out there helping. aolaol
Years later, after a swim, Paulsen Sr. developed an ear pain that wouldn't go away. He tried to push through it for two months before doctors finally ran a CAT scan and found a tumor. The diagnosis was oropharyngeal cancer, the same disease that's claimed so many other 9/11 first responders, tied directly to what they breathed in during recovery efforts at the towers. aolaol
Paulsen Sr. died on July 4th, 2025, a homicide detective with Brooklyn's 75th precinct, just a month before his son ever took the field for North Carolina. ABC News
He never got to see it happen. He did get to visit the campus with his son once, during the transfer portal process that brought Paulsen from Stony Brook to Chapel Hill, a move his father pushed him to make. ABC News
Now his son wears him onto the field every single game. Paulsen has his father's badge restored into a necklace, a gift from his mother. His equipment carries the date his dad died, stitched in alongside the word "DAD." ABC News
The first time he wore it in a UNC uniform, against Indiana, he hit his first home run as a Tar Heel. ABC News
What's happened since has been one of the best stories in college baseball that almost nobody outside Chapel Hill was talking about until this weekend. Paulsen earned Most Outstanding Player honors at the Chapel Hill Regional. He's become a genuine cornerstone of a UNC team that's now one win from forcing a Game 3 and two wins from the first national championship in program history. ABC News
Through 13 trips to Omaha, North Carolina has never once finished the job. Sunday, with the whole roster's fathers wearing a button for the one dad who couldn't make it, the Tar Heels gave themselves another shot. aol
There's no version of this where the baseball stops mattering. Oklahoma's lineup has been a wrecking ball all postseason and North Carolina knows exactly what's still standing between them and a trophy. But for one Father's Day in Omaha, a kid wearing his dad's detective shield around his neck hit a baseball that kept his team's season breathing, in the only ballpark his father never got to sit in.
Whatever happens Monday, Erik Paulsen already gave his dad something to be proud of.