Sports Legends of the Carolinas

As a child growing up in Gibsonville, N.C., Torry Holt occasionally pulled tobacco for $5 an hour. Holt would later grow up to make millions in the NFL after starring at N.C. State, where the wide receiver was named the ACC’s Player of the Year in 1998. Our interview subject this week for “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” Holt once scored five touchdowns in a single game for the Wolfpack against...

This week on Sports Legends of the Carolinas, Alex Zietlow interviews Coach Mike Krzyzewski, or Coach K. Mike Krzyzewski served as an astonishing basketball coach for 47 years and has impacted the game and this state forever. In his 42 years coaching the Blue Devils, he led the team to 5 national titles, 13 Final Fours and 1,202 wins — the most all-time. As if that was not enough, Coach K was Team...

Thomas Davis is one of the most popular players in Carolina Panthers history, as well as one of the toughest.  The Panthers’ all-time leading tackler, Davis is also the only player in NFL history to successfully come back from three ACL surgeries on the very same knee. Not only that, he played in Super Bowl 50 following the 2015 season after breaking his arm only two weeks before. Now age 40, Davi...

Not too many former college football players can point to a Heisman Trophy sitting in their TV room and persuade you to pick it up to feel its weight, but former South Carolina running back George Rogers can. As we anticipate Saturday night’s season opener between South Carolina and North Carolina in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, one of the greatest Gamecock athletes of all time is the star...

Erin Matson was arguably the best field hockey player in NCAA history. While at UNC, she led the Tar Heels to four national championships, and three times she was named the national player of the year. Then came a startling twist -- at age 22, only one month after graduation, Matson was named the head coach of the very UNC team she had been starring for, replacing Karen Shelton.  Shelton won 10 NC...

Bobby Richardson, this week’s star of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” was a notable New York Yankee who never really left his South Carolina hometown. Born and raised in Sumter, S.C., about 110 miles southeast of Charlotte, Richardson still lives there today, with his wife Betsy, in a house he built in 1960. He turns 88 years old in August but still has a remarkable memory, especially for the t...

Bill Polian made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015, honored as one of the NFL’s most extraordinary general managers. The subject of this week’s “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” interview, Polian was a team-builder with a gift for pinpoint player evaluation and crisp contract negotiation. He revitalized the fortunes of three different NFL teams — Buffalo, Carolina and Indianapolis. He...

Chris Paul has done nearly everything there is to do on a basketball court. He grew up in Winston-Salem, starred at Wake Forest, was drafted No. 4 overall in the 2005 NBA draft and then went on to become a 12-time NBA all-star and a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA. Paul has only one major hole in his basketball résumé -- an NBA championship. After being traded to Golden State in the su...

As a once-in-a-generation quarterback at Appalachian State in Boone, N.C., Armanti Edwards led the Mountaineers to FCS national championships in 2006 and 2007 as well as an extraordinary road win over then-No. 5 Michigan, often called the biggest upset in college football history. Lightly recruited out of Greenwood, S.C., Edwards would become the first two-time Walter Payton winner as the FCS Nati...

This week on Sports Legends of the Carolinas, Alex Zietlow interviews Coach Mike Krzyzewski, or Coach K. Mike Krzyzewski served as an astonishing basketball coach for 47 years and has impacted the game and this state forever. In his 42 years coaching the Blue Devils, he led the team to 5 national titles, 13 Final Fours and 1,202 wins — the most all-time. As if that was not enough, Coach K was Team...

Debbie Antonelli, a 1986 NC State graduate, has been a major influence in the women’s college basketball circles for 35 years and has served as an analyst for ESPN in numerous capacities. Her announcing career also includes calling games for CBS, Fox Sports Net, Big Ten Network, NBATV and Westwood One, as well as WNBA games. The Cary, N.C. native became the first woman in nearly 22 years to call a...

In 1994, Jeff Gordon won his first race in NASCAR’s signature series, taking the checkered flag at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway at age 22. Gordon would win 92 more times after that, becoming racing royalty and a NASCAR hall of famer. Now he’s our latest subject of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” the multimedia project in which we interview sports stars about their journeys to i...

George Shinn, who conceived the Charlotte Hornets and brought the NBA to Charlotte, remains a busy man at age 81. Shinn was the Hornets’ original owner and — because of Charlotte’s great attendance and merchandising success, also indirectly had a hand in the NFL deciding the Queen City was worthy of a pro football franchise. The young boy from Kannapolis who finished dead last in his high school g...

Tyler Hansbrough needs no introduction to UNC fans. Hansbrough finished his UNC basketball career in 2009 with a national championship and as both the Tar Heels' and the ACC's all-time leading scorer, with 2872 points. Hansbrough then played seven years in the NBA and for three years after that in China. Now, at age 37, Hansbrough is figuring out what comes next in a life that was so devoted to ba...

Cedric Maxwell, the second interview subject for the 2023 season of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” was an All-American big man who led the 49ers to the 1977 Final Four. That remains the school’s only Final Four appearance, and Charlotte might have won it all that year but for a controversial non-call at the buzzer against Marquette. In Maxwell’s four years at Charlotte, the 49ers had a remarka...

Kicking off Season 2 of Sports Legends of the Carolinas, this week's guest is Greg Olsen, who lit up opposing defenses for nine years as a Pro Bowl tight end for the Carolina Panthers, and has had an extraordinary start to his second career: calling color for the NFL on FOX. Olsen lives in Charlotte with his wife Kara and their three children — Tate, Talbot and T.J. He is almost as well known in t...

To tie a bow on the first season of Sports Legends of the Carolinas, Scott Fowler sits down with visual journalist Jeff Siner, Charlotte Observer executive editor Rana Cash, and lead podcast producer Kata Stevens to revisit their favorite moments from this season of legends. This special bonus episode of Sports Legends of the Carolinas is free for all listeners in its entirety. Sports Legends of t...

Steph Curry, the all-everything point guard for the Golden State Warriors, is still in the prime of his career and already a “Sports Legend of the Carolinas.” In this deeply personal retrospective, the eight-time All-Star, four-time NBA champ and two-time league MVP offers Scott Fowler never-before-heard details about Curry's high school career for the Charlotte Christian Knights; leading Davidson...

This week on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” we welcome legendary former University of North Carolina men’s head basketball coach Roy Williams. Over nearly 50 years of coaching at various levels, Williams won three national titles; then retired in 2021 as the only head coach in college basketball history to win more than 400 games at two different schools. On Part 2 of our conversation, William...

This week on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” a guest who earned that descriptor throughout a basketball coaching career that spanned half a century at various levels of the game: former University of North Carolina men’s head coach Roy Williams. Williams won three national titles as the head coach of the Tar Heels, and retired in 2021 as the only head coach in college basketball history to win...

Charlotte Smith, this week’s guest on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is about to enter her 12th year as Elon’s women’s basketball coach. On Part 2 of our conversation, the all-time winningest coach at the school looks back at the road to her “blessed place,” Elon; getting posterized in the movie Juwanna Mann; and the immense strength she has found in asking for help.  Sports Legends of the Car...

Charlotte Smith, this week’s guest on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is about to enter her 12th year as Elon University’s women’s basketball coach. But the all-time winningest coach at the school is arguably better known for her own college playing career, thanks to making one of the most remarkable shots in NCAA tournament basketball history — a buzzer-beating three-pointer that won the 1994...

Jay Bilas, this week’s guest on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is ESPN’s leading college basketball analyst, and in many ways, the conscience of the sport. On Part 2 of our conversation, the 58-year-old Bilas looks back at his acting career, the toughest opponent he ever faced on the hardwood, and the leap of faith that made his broadcasting career a reality.  Sports Legends of the Carolinas i...

Jay Bilas, this week’s guest on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is ESPN’s leading college basketball analyst, and arguably the preeminent voice in the entire sport. A former Duke basketball player who started for the 1986 Blue Devils team that made it to the NCAA finals, Bilas' journey to national prominence included far more than basketball: He got a degree from Duke Law School after his playi...

Phil Ford, one of the best players in University of North Carolina basketball history, is this week’s guest on “Sports Legends of the Carolinas.” The 1978 National Player of the Year, Ford held UNC’s scoring record for 30 years until Tyler Hansbrough broke it in 2008. In Part 2 of our conversation, Ford reflects on following in the footsteps of fellow "Sports Legend of the Carolinas" Charlie Scott...