102: 🌶️ Peppers 🌶️
Julius Peppers dominance as a two-sport athlete.
All of us can think of an athlete that blows you away. For me, that was Julius Peppers.
Peppers stood 6’7, weighed 260 plus pounds, and moved with ease. The Bailey, North Carolina native participated in track, basketball, and football at Southern Nash high school earning 1997-98 NCHSAA Male Athlete of the Year.
This 2001 Sports Illustrated article by Tim Crothers sums up Peppers athleticism.
The coach still shakes his head in disbelief as he recalls a three-hour football practice on a scorching summer day before Peppers's junior season, after which all the other Firebirds lay sprawled on the grass or huddled around the water spigot. Peppers strolled over to one end zone and began doing backflips the length of the field. No hands. For 100 yards. In full pads and helmet.
Ray Davis, Southern Nash football coach
from Tim Crothers’ 2001 Sports Illustrated article
His freakish ability meant he was recruited to the point that Peppers even had his own mail slot at school. Duke and other schools wanted him for basketball, and North Carolina sought him out as a football player or specifically an athlete. Peppers rushed for 3,501 yards and 46 touchdowns at tailback in high school.
Peppers shares that he started at North Carolina as a reserve tight end. He red-shirted his freshman season in 1998 before asking to be moved to defense. Peppers was named Freshman All-America by The Sporting News after leading UNC in tackles for losses and sacks during the 1999 season.
Carolina finished 3-8 that football season. About two weeks after the conclusion of the football season, Peppers made his debut on the hardwood. It was a bit of a winding road to basketball.
As he describes to the Charlotte Observer’s Scott Fowler1, Peppers tried out for the JV basketball team with coach Phil Ford. He wasn’t interested in playing for the JV team, so he sort of gave up the idea of playing collegiate basketball.
Peppers continued to play pickup ball at Woolen Gym where current players like Ed Cota and Peppers’ former AAU teammates Brendan Haywood2 and Kris Lang also played at times.
Cota convinced the coaching staff to let Peppers try out again, and after that try out, he was invited to join the varsity team. Peppers’ basketball debut involved playing one minute in an 18-point win over College of Charleston in early December of 1999.
From 1999 to 2001, North Carolina football (three seasons) and basketball (two seasons) combined to play 104 games. Peppers played in 91 of those 104 games or about 88 percent of all Carolina football and basketball games over those five seasons.
Peppers was a key contributor as the Heels made an improbable run to the 2000 Final Four. As an eight-seed3, Carolina beat Missouri (9 seed), Stanford (1 seed), Tennessee (4 seed), and Tulsa (7 seed) en route to its then 15th Final Four appearance. The Heels run ended in a loss to Florida in Indianapolis.
The stat lines from Peppers don’t exactly jump off the page. If you watched the games, it told a different story. His presence limited Stanford’s front court to 7-of-29 shooting, and he converted a huge three-point play before halftime to give Carolina a lead.
Peppers played almost the last eight minutes of game time in the Sweet 16 win over Tennessee after teammate Brendan Haywood fouled out. He was damn near everywhere in this game, just watch:
By the fall, Peppers was back on the gridiron. His 15 sacks lead the nation and he earned first-team All America status by CNNSI.com and CollegeFootballNews.com.
He set a new school record and was third in the country with 24 tackles for loss. Peppers scored two touchdowns that season, including this 27-yard interception return at Duke:
About 49 days later, Peppers was catching alley-oops4 from his football teammate and point guard Ronald Curry in the Smith Center. Peppers played in 25 basketball games during the 2000-01 season.
Carolina won 18 games in a row that season, rose to the top-ranking in the country, and won a share of the ACC regular-season title. The ranking faded, and Tar Heels were knocked out in the second round of the NCAA Tournament by Penn State.
In what would be his last collegiate game, Peppers scored 21 points and pulled down 12 rebounds. Again, the numbers won’t do it justice. He was a force on the court.
Look at some of these dunks.
The following football season, Carolina went 8-5 overall and finished the season with a win over Auburn in the Peach Bowl. Peppers was an unanimous All-America, the National Chevrolet Defensive Player of the Year, and won the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Lombardi Award.
The most impressive play, burned in my brain, from that season was this interception at Clemson. Peppers deflects the pass, falls to his knees, and lunges to catch the ball.
There was a good amount of Heisman Trophy talk around Clemson quarterback Woody Dantzler entering that game. Dantzler put up 935 total yards in the two games before playing Peppers and Carolina. The Heels won that game 38-3.
Peppers did not join the basketball team that season to prepare for the NFL draft. The Bailey, NC native was selected second overall by the Carolina Panthers.
Peppers played 17 seasons for three different teams: Carolina Panthers (10 seasons), Chicago Bears (4 seasons), and Green Bay Packers (3 seasons). He had 556 solo tackles, 161 assists, 159.5 sacks, 21 fumble recoveries and 11 interceptions.
A member of both the NFL’s All-Decade Teams of the 2000s and 2010s, Peppers’ 159.5 career sacks rank fourth on the league’s all-time list. He is the only player in NFL history to record at least 150 sacks and 10 interceptions.
His ability was flat out silly.
He could snatch the ball out of mid-air and no one could catch him.
Peppers had a fascinating career at North Carolina. In football, he was recruited by Mack Brown, but played for Carl Torbush and John Bunting. He is one of only a few select basketball players to play for two different head coaches too (Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty).
To me, the most interesting thing about Julius Peppers is his demeanor.
He is described as media shy. He doesn’t want or seek attention. He plays the background, and he literally played the background in Nelly’s 2002 Hot in Herre music video5.
Peppers will be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend as part of the class of 2024. Selfishly, I still wonder if he could have played in the NBA or even if he played the 2001-02 Carolina basketball season, would the Heels still finish 8-20?
Because Julius Peppers is the best athlete I’ve ever seen.
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Fun interview. I love how Peppers references Fire and Ice (Rodney Monroe and Chris Corchiani), Tim Duncan and Randolph Childress, and Michael Jordan. It’s refreshing to hear someone still appreciate players from old school ACC basketball.
Haywood tells a great story about playing AAU basketball with Peppers and learning about him as a football prospect.
Ken Pomeroy recently ranked the most difficult and easiest paths to the Final Four. The 2000 Carolina team was the third most difficult path, although it makes sense considering the Heels were an eight-seed.
Wake Forest head coach Dave Odom signaling for the timeout is tremendous in this clip.
I’ve never felt more old than writing this sentence.