Rams Club members identified some of the most memorable nicknames in Tar Heel athletic history. These are the stories behind those names.

Billy Cunningham: “The Kangaroo Kid”

“No one came to me and said, ‘What do you think about this?’ Bob Quincy was the public relations man at Carolina when I was there, and all of a sudden that nickname was placed on me. It went on for quite a bit. Periodically, I still run into people who refer to me in that manner.”

One of the most iconic photos from that era is Cunningham in front of the Bell Tower, holding a stuffed kangaroo. Even more than 60 years later, he grins begrudgingly when asked about it. “It was definitely a strange one,” he says. “I was young and obedient.”

“Leaky” Black

“It came from my middle name, Malik. It started out as something my Aunt Conda and Grandma called me when I was younger growing up in Mount Pleasant, N.C. All of my cousins and I had a nickname, and that was mine. It just stuck.”

Kaimon Rucker: “Ruck the Butcher”

“It happened when I made my first start during my freshman year. I made a tackle against Boston College and the ESPN announcers were talking about me. Coach Cross said I was as aggressive as a bowling ball of butcher knives. The next thing I know, it caught on fire.

“But we know we couldn’t say the whole thing every time, because it was too long. My dad and I talked about it, and we decided to shorten it to The Butcher. We incorporated half of my last name and smashed it together, and that’s Ruck the Butcher. It really started to spread around the middle of my sophomore year.”

Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough

One of the most popular—and perfectly descriptive—nicknames in Tar Heel history was born in the Smith Center weight room. That’s where an otherwise quiet freshman named Tyler Hansbrough displayed the ferocity that would eventually make him Carolina’s all-time leading scorer.

“Those workouts from Jonas are tough,” Hansbrough said. “To get through a workout and to motivate myself, I was screaming at myself. That’s when Jonas started calling me ‘Psycho T.’ He said, ‘You’re psycho. You don’t talk at all and then you come in here and start yelling.’”

But Sahratian has nuanced taste in nicknames. His own creation, Psycho T, eventually became so mainstream that he ditched it and more frequently calls Hansbrough “T-Bone,” which was the big man’s nickname back home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice

Born in Asheville, Charlie Justice was a dynamic high school player who averaged 25 yards per rush during his senior season at Lee H. Edwards High. But it wasn’t until he
spent four years in the Navy that he acquired his nickname. While watching him play for the football team at the United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, an officer remarked to a reporter, “He runs like a runaway train. We should call him, ‘Choo Choo.’”

Justice went to Carolina on the GI Bill and finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1948 and 1949. His tenure as a Tar Heel, 1946-49, eventually became known as the
Justice Era, as the Tar Heels made two Sugar Bowls and a Cotton Bowl during his career.

The nickname became a part of the American lexicon—Justice appeared on the cover of Life magazine as a Tar Heel—when Johnny Long recorded the song, “All the way, Choo Choo.”

Kenny “The Jet” Smith

The lightning-fast Tar Heel point guard is one of the few nickname recipients who actually had his moniker before he arrived in Chapel Hill. As a point guard at the legendary Archbishop Molloy High in Queens, Smith was one of the most sought-after prep recruits in the country. Even before he earned a slot in the McDonald’s All-America Game in April of 1983, a New York sportswriter—exactly who has been lost to history—had seen Smith play a high school game and wrote that he raced up the court “like a jet.”

The reference stuck, and Smith was already “The Jet” by the time he enrolled at Carolina.

Walter “Sweet D” Davis

Unlike Smith, Davis earned his nickname after arriving in Chapel Hill. “My teammates at North Carolina started Sweet D,” Davis said.

It was fitting, because Davis’ smooth style of play made him one of the best players in Tar Heel history. His 1,863 career points remains tenth all-time at Carolina.

Eric “Big Grits” Montross

Luke Maye’s regional-clinching jumper wasn’t the only historic event that happened on the weekend of March 26, 2017. It was that same weekend that Eric Montross was bestowed with the nickname, “Big Grits.”

Montross was part of a group of program staff that went to breakfast at the Blue Plate Diner in Memphis while the Tar Heels were in town for the regional. On this particular day, the seven-footer placed a breakfast order for grits. But then he specified that he wanted “big grits.”

No one is quite sure what the Hoosier State native meant by that order—perhaps he just wanted a large order of grits. But his word choice was the source of much hilarity for the group’s waitress, whose name was Katrina. She and Eric had some good-natured back and forth over the remainder of the meal.

When the group was leaving, though, Katrina made the comment that would cement her legend forever. As Eric approached the cash register, Katrina stuck her head out of the kitchen in the back of the restaurant and shouted, “See ya later, Big Grits!” across the Blue Plate Diner.

Like day-old grits on the bottom of a pot, it stuck instantly. It has become a signature phrase on the Carolina Insider podcast and Montross is now regularly greeted with, “Hey, Big Grits!” by Tar Heel fans.

Michael “Air” Jordan

The 2023 movie “Air,” a fact-based drama, casts some light on the origin of the Air nickname. As has been well documented, longtime Carolina sports information director Rick Brewer was instrumental in referring to Jordan as Michael instead of Mike while the Wilmington native was playing for the Tar Heels.

But it wasn’t until Jordan became a professional that he became Air Jordan. “When Michael was coming out of NC in 1984, the very first deal we had to make, even before his Bulls deal, was a shoe deal,” said Jordan’s longtime agent, David Falk, in a 2020 interview. “Michael wanted to go with Adidas. I thought Nike could do the best job for him. Michael told me he didn’t want to go. He literally wouldn’t agree to go on the plane. But his parents forced him to go on the plane and we had a great meeting.

“We had a follow-up meeting in Washington with (Nike executive) Rob Strasser and a guy named Peter Moore. I told Rob if he really wanted to sign Michael, he had to treat him like a tennis player and create a brand around him of shoes and clothing. Strasser says, ‘We might consider giving him his own line of shoes and clothes. What do you want to call the line?’ I looked at him like he was brain dead and said, ‘I want to call it Michael Jordan.’ He felt Michael had no credibility as a 21-year-old basketball player to suggest that he was a designer of his own line. He said, ‘We may be willing to do it, but you have to come up with a name. And it cannot be Michael Jordan.’

“It came to me in less than a minute. I said, ‘OK, we’re going to call it Air Jordan.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because Nike’s just developed these new running shoes that have Air technology that is supposed to cushion your feet and it’s a double entendre in the way Michael plays basketball—in the air.’ In five minutes, Peter Moore sketched the very first Air Jordan logo which was the basketball with the wings on it. And the rest is history.”