On the back of Nick Farrar’s ’25 left hand is a yellow dragontail butterfly in flight, an ink-stained tribute to his mother, who loved all things yellow. It’s the starting point for a series of tattoos climbing up his shoulder of a woman who shaped and defined his life so far.

Nick will never know what Tarsha Renee Evans thinks of her son’s tattoo. She died when he was 8. But all these years later, Tarsha is on his hand and in his heart. “How do you forget someone who was always there for you?” asks Nick, not waiting for an answer. “I’ll never stop thinking about her because she saw something in me when I was just a kid and she wanted me to see that, too.”

Growing up, Nick’s mom was a track star who never played basketball. “That didn’t matter,” he says. “My mom pushed me like a coach. She did everything for me. She believed in me.”

That’s why Guilford’s 6-foot-7 Farrar has inked a collage of his life and a memorial to his mom across his body. He calls his skin a canvas and on it has painted the complicated picture that is his existence.

A heralded recruit who started his basketball career at N.C. State only to transfer after a season to the College of Charleston because he was unhappy with his playing time in Raleigh. After a year at Charleston, Nick was on the move again for personal reasons, this time to UNC Wilmington, where he played on and off for a year before hitting the road again one last time.

To Guilford. Or as Nick likes to call it, home.

“It’s been a journey, that’s for sure,” he says.

How long that journey continues will hinge heavily on how Nick plays in the Quakers’ first-round NCAA Division III Tournament game against Berry College (Ga.) this afternoon at 4:20 at Emory University.

“The last four years haven’t necessarily gone the way I thought they would,” says Nick. “They sure haven’t been easy, but that’s not the case this year. I feel God had a plan for me and that’s why I’m here today.”

Fresh start

Not a lot of Division III programs are as fortunate to have former Division I players transfer in, but Guilford had an inside edge in landing Nick last spring. Brothers and basketball players Luke ’25 and Gabe Proctor ’26 played with Nick in middle school and high school in Apex, N.C. They watched from a distance as their former teammate bounced from one program to another before talking to him last spring at a gym back home.

When Nick started talking about his senior year and what he might do, Gabe remembers offering up a suggestion. Wouldn't it be cool, Gabe remembers saying, if Nick would finish his collegiate career at Guilford "and we got to play one final year together?”

“The three of us spent so much time growing up together," says Gabe. "We played together, ate dinner together, and studied together. It seemed like Nick coming (to Guilford) was meant to be.”

Nick has made it his goal of playing basketball professionally and wasn’t sure Division III Guilford was the ticket to get him there. But the more he explored the College and its basketball program, which was coming off a Final Four appearance last season, the more he felt at home.

“Definitely getting back together with Luke and Gabe made me feel comfortable, but it was more than that,” he says. “Guilford has a system in place that’s as good as any D-I program. I felt like I fit in on my first day.”

He says Guilford has given him a new-found energy for the game.

He’ll get no argument from Guilford Coach Tom Palombo. “We try to get him the ball a ton,” says Tom. “Even if he doesn’t get the ball when he’s posted on, he attracts so much attention that it spaces the floor for everyone else to do their thing.”

And when the Quakers do get the ball inside to Nick, an Independent Studies major, the odds are good he’ll come away with points. He shoots 51.3 percent from the floor and leads the team with 18.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. He earned First-Team All-Conference honors.

“It’s no big secret he’s a dominant scorer for us,” says Tom. “But he does so much more. Great offensive rebounder and nice passer. He can find the open man.”

Despite a Final Four finish last season, Nick says Guilford has something more to prove this year.

“Congratulations to us for winning the (ODAC) and making the tournament, but I feel a lot of people thought we wouldn't get to this point earlier than the season. And maybe they think we got on a run to win the ODAC so we’ve got more to prove,” he says. “I feel like if we keep on believing and playing together, we're really going to do something special.”