The same team that drafted him, from which the same state he attended college, and the same state he was born and raised in. Peppers could be playing in his final NFL game on Sunday, fittingly, with the Carolina Panthers. He could pass the ball, make the 15-18 foot shot and had soft hands."
"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, a former coach at UNC told ESPN in 2015.
#JULIUS PEPPERS UNC PROFESSIONAL#
There's some who even believe he could have pursued a professional career in basketball - and succeeded. The same unstoppable force he's channeled to hunt down quarterbacks in the backfield for close to two decades in the NFL, is the same he used at North Carolina to power through alley-oops and putbacks. He was a dynamic rebounder and rim-rocker. Peppers played 56 games and started in three at UNC as a hooper, and just as he's done skillfully as an elite NFL edge-rusher over the last 17 seasons, Peppers leveraged his 6-7, 290-pound frame with grace and power. 2 pick in the 2002 NFL Draft.īut few know he also played a role in basketball for the Tar Heels - and one larger than you might expect. He became a two-time All-American for the Heels before he left school early and saw the Carolina Panthers make him the No. Out of high school, he had numerous opportunities before staying close to home - and shining - for the North Carolina Tar Heels. There was no questioning his dominance as an edge rusher. Peppers, a transcendent athlete with an array of talents, was a surefire star on the gridiron early on. Before he was spending most of his Sundays every fall tracking down quarterbacks, forcing offensive linemen to stumble and ball-carriers to fumble, Julius Peppers was emptying the breadth of his athletic gifts by making hoopers on the hardwood crumble, too.
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