In your pantheon of great Julius Peppers moments while wearing the Carolina blue and traipsing across the grass or hardwood, which ones loom largest?

Was it Peppers plucking a tipped ball out of the air at Duke in 2000, galloping 27 yards to a touchdown and diving across the goal-line with a flourish? Was it big No. 49 shucking two blockers at Clemson in 2001, leaping to deflect a Woodrow Dantzler pass and then cradling the ball as he fell to the ground? Was it any number of times he spun a left tackle like a top en route to the quarterback or even pushed the tackle into the quarterback while knocking both to the turf?

In the wintertime was it Peppers in his third basketball game as a Tar Heel early in the 1999 season at Buffalo with an acrobatic dunk that was featured on ESPN’s Sports Center and had the entire team guffawing watching the snippet later on the team bus? Or at Georgia Tech, when he took off from the corner, caught a lob thrown behind him, arched his back, caught the ball and threw down a thunderdunk? Or that six-rebound, two-blocks, great-defense game against an athletic Tennessee team in the 2000 Sweet 16 en route to the Final Four? Or an 18-point performance against Maryland the next year on sevenof-10 shooting with fellow frontcourt mate Kris Lang out with an injury?

Tough choice, for sure.

Basketball was his first love.

Football was his business decision.

It all turned out quite well for Peppers, who dazzled Tar Heel fans and the ACC with his exploits in the football and basketball arenas from 1999-2001 and then went on to a lengthy career in the NFL and a certain berth in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (he’s eligible beginning in 2024).

“He really liked basketball the most,” says Mack Brown, who recruited Peppers out of Southern Nash High in the mid-1990s and got a commitment before he left for Texas after the 1997 season. “I told him football was his future, it was his best sport. I said, ‘We’ll let you play basketball, go enjoy it, but here’s where you’ll make your money.’”

Brown pauses and smiles, knowing that Peppers banked some $160 million in career earnings.

“He owes me,” he says.

Peppers grew up in Bailey, N.C., a small town located halfway between Zebulon and Wilson in Nash County. He was a threesport star and drew national recruiting interest over his eyepopping numbers and freakish athletic ability that allowed him to do backflips the entire length of a football field for 100 yards in full pads and helmet. Young Julius was nicknamed “Big Head” by his buddies because of the XXX-size hats and caps he wore, and he stuffed his feet into track shoes two sizes too small because the 18s that fit him were not available (he was second in the triple jump in the state track meet anyway).

Peppers committed to Carolina during the summer of 1997 leading into his senior season, but he continued to draw recruiting pitches from Tennessee, Nebraska, Penn State, Virginia and Florida State, among others, as he wrapped up a career that saw him rush for 3,500 yards and 46 touchdowns while playing end on defense.

“When we went to see him play, he was so much bigger than everybody, he just ran through everybody,” Brown remembers. “He could be a running back. Then he wanted to be either a defensive end or a tight end. We thought he could be a freak on defense.”

“He’s hard to tackle,” Southern Nash coach Ray Davis said. “It looks like ants crawling on his back sometimes.”

Peppers wavered momentarily after Brown departed for Texas in early December 1997, but after Carl Torbush was appointed Brown’s successor, Torbush’s first phone call after the introductory
press conference was to Peppers. Torbush reiterated that Peppers could play basketball for the Tar Heels and that he was keeping on his staff Donnie Thompson, who led Peppers’ recruiting and was the defensive ends coach.

“I just realized one of my dreams,” Torbush said. “Julius, I hope you’ll still come to Carolina and pursue yours.”

Part of the reason Peppers liked Carolina was the fact that both coaching staffs were willing to give him a shot at both sports.

“My passion was basketball,” Peppers said. “Part of the story is that I had to be somewhat convinced to try out for the football team in high school. So, when I had the opportunity to come take the football scholarship and try out for the basketball team, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.”

“I know he’s going to Carolina primarily for football, but you saw tonight he’s the prototype Carolina basketball player,” Southern Nash basketball coach Rick Ruffin said after a typical Peppers performance of alley-oops, 3-pointers and follow-shots. “You saw how unselfish he is, how athletic he is. He’s just a great athlete. And he’s a finer person. Carolina’s got itself an outstanding young man.”

As a redshirt freshman, Peppers started 11 games at end and led the team in tackles-for-losses with 10 and sacks with six. As a sophomore, he earned first-team All-ACC honors and led the nation with 15 sacks, one short of Lawrence Taylor’s record set in 1980.

Throughout his first year at Carolina, Peppers joined other football players in pick-up basketball games in Woollen Gym, sometimes joined by basketball players like Ed Cota. Cota raved to head coach Bill Guthridge about Peppers’ prospects as a basketball player.

“Ed really sold Coach Guthridge on what a good basketball player Julius could be,” says Pat Sullivan, a young assistant coach at the time who’s now on Hubert Davis’s staff. “I’m not sure how sold Coach Guthridge was on the idea. But he trusted Ed. Ed was persistent. He recognized the talent.”

As soon as the 1999 football season ended, Peppers moved to the Smith Center and joined a team led by Cota and 7-footer Brendan Haywood. Sullivan remembers an early practice when Peppers wrenched his ankle, gritted his teeth and waved off a suggestion he take a break.

“I was thinking this is the kind of toughness we need,” Sullivan says. “He brought a different element, some football mentality During that 2000 run to the Final Four, we beat Missouri and Stanford, two rough and tumble teams. We became sort of that rough and tumble team, not just that typical free flowing Carolina team. We got down in the mud a little, and I credit Julius with helping with that.”

In those early days, Sullivan stayed late after practice with Peppers to help him learn the sets and play calls. He knew what a gifted athlete Peppers was but was surprised at the nuances he brought to the court.

“Julius was a really skilled player,” Sullivan says. “You could see the rebounds and dunks and running the floor, but he had great touch. He could do anything. He was on a fast track and he picked it all up, very quickly. His total IQ for sports and basketball was amazing.”

Peppers was a key part of the rotation on the team that went to the Final Four. As the sixth man, he averaged 5.8 points and 4.6 rebounds.

“Julius was a godsend, the missing piece for us,” Guthridge said. “I hate to think how that season might have ended without him.”

Ronald Curry, another two-sport phenomenon who played quarterback on the football team, joined the basketball squad the next year, and the Tar Heels won 15 games in a row early and were No. 1. But they lost to Penn State in the second round of the 2001 NCAA Tournament with Peppers hitting 21 points and 10 rebounds.

“I’ll tell you this, I do believe if Pep would’ve just focused on basketball, he could’ve played in the NBA,” Matt Doherty said. “He had a feel for the game. He wasn’t just a rebounder or banger. He could pass the ball, make the 15-18 foot shot and had soft hands.”

“Julius is a freak of nature,” Curry told Sports Illustrated. “The best compliment you can give him is he’s such a natural at both sports that when he’s playing one, you forget he’s just as good at the other.”

After the 2000-01 basketball season, Peppers made the decision to spend his junior season—which would be his fourth and last as a Tar Heel—concentrating on football.

“I’ll miss basketball, but I think I’ll be a much better football player now that I’m training for it like a normal player,” he said. “I still believe that if I committed to basketball, I could make an impact in the NBA. But my coaches say that in football I could be another Lawrence Taylor or Jevon Kearse. I now see football as my job and my greatest challenge.”

Playing alongside Ryan Sims on the front line, Peppers had an outstanding senior year. He was first on the team in interceptions with three, in tackles-for-loss with 19 and sacks with 9.5 sacks. His only blemish was being essentially a non-factor in Carolina’s game at Texas—just one deflected pass in the stat line for Peppers as the Longhorns whipped the Tar Heels, 44-14.

That’s because Brown, then in his fourth season leading the Longhorns, and offensive coordinator Greg Davis refused to let the opponent’s best player beat them. They schemed their offense so that on every play, Peppers was blocked by the tackle opposite him as well as one more player, sometimes two.

“We double-teamed him every play,” Brown says. “It took two players, but we kept him out of it. Sometimes with the great ones, if you discourage them early they get frustrated. They’re used to making plays, and they lose their edge if you take them out of it. If you let them
get started, you’ve got yourself a mess.”

As NFL teams soon found out, however, there were very few successful ways to consistently gameplan to stop Peppers. His 159.5 pro sacks rank fourth all-time.

His NBA productivity is left to the imagination – and to the memories of Tar Heel teammates who remember Peppers as one of the most impactful two-way athletes in Carolina history.