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Every offseason, we run historical ranking series focusing on North Carolina basketball and football.
The purpose each spring isn’t to make declarative statements, but to have fun offering a subjective look at the best teams and players ever at Carolina. This effort is to generate discourse, debate, and take UNC fans down memory lane.
This season, we are doing something a little different, combining football and basketball, as we offer our take on the Top 40 UNC football and basketball players of all time. The criteria is quite simple: The process includes playing careers with the Tar Heels and professionally, other relevant impacts they’ve had on their sports, coaching, and championships. We also gave a lean toward all UNC accomplishments.
So, this isn’t a UNC-only list, a pro-only list, or a straight up purely best ever list. Some Tar Heels on this list didn’t have great pro careers but were so good and historic at UNC, they simply had to make the cut. Some on this list weren’t stars at UNC, but had outstanding and/or highly distinguished pro careers, that it warranted their place among these 40 athletes.
We hope you enjoy the list and feel free to disagree, as we know many will.
We continue our countdown with:
No. 25: Ken Willard (1962-64)
Perhaps a bit underappreciated nationally on the college scene when he was at Carolina, Willard was a two-time first-team All-ACC selection and did make second-team All-America in 1964.
Willard came along during a period in which UNC football had struggled for a decade, and it had some tough times after he left, but the one really good team the program fielded from the time Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice left and Bill Dooley got things going again in 1970, was the time n which Willard starred for the Tar Heels.
As a senior in 1964, Willard was third in the ACC in rushing, (he led the league as a junior), was tenth in the conference in receiving yards, first in receiving touchdowns, and he was the engine behind UNC’s ACC championship run in 1963, that culminated with a 35-0 rout over Air Force in the Gator Bowl and a No. 19 final ranking in the UPI poll. During that period, the AP poll only went 10 teams deep.
Willard turned down a contract offer from the Boston Red Sox system to play football at Carolina. Although Willard was on a football scholarship at UNC, he also played baseball and led the ACC in home runs twice.
He was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1965 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, and played 10 seasons in the league. Willard made four Pro Bowl teams, ran for 6,105 yards while scoring 45 touchdowns. He caught 277 passes for 2,184 yards and 17 touchdowns, and totaled 8,289 yards and 62 touchdowns. It should be noted the NFL played 12-game schedules when he got to the league, and was up to 14 by the time he retired.
