Utah: Davis & Keldorf
(Note: THI is naming the greatest former UNC football or basketball player from each of the 50 states. The criteria is the player had to live in the state he represents at some point before arriving at UNC. The duration doesn’t matter, he just had to live there. College and pro careers were factored with a lean toward their UNC accomplishments.)
Bart Davis spent four years playing football at North Carolina from 1989-92 after growing up in Park City, UT. In fact, during the course of this research, he is the only former player from Utah whom THI learned played football in any capacity for the Tar Heels.
Davis, who was 6-foot-4, originally weighed 256 pounds in his first season as a defensive tackle for Mack Brown and the Tar Heels. He grew to 278 pounds as a senior and wore No. 85 throughout his career. Davis lettered in his final season in 1992.
THI was unable to get in touch with Davis, so we are offering a small part of this to the only other UNC player who lived in Utah before arriving at Carolina, and that’s Chris Keldorf.
Most UNC fans are familiar with Keldorf, who was a quarterback on Brown’s two best teams at Carolina. He was an outstanding player who helped the Tar Heels to a combined 21-3 record and final Nos. 10 and 4 national rankings in 1996 and 1997.
The 6-foot-5, 235-pound Keldorf arrived at UNC from Manhattan Beach, CA, where he grew up, but also after he had a brief stop at Utah State. That’s where Keldorf signed out of high school but quickly left after the staff there wanted him to play tight end. Keldorf knew he was a quarterback, so he left, enrolled at a junior college and transferred to UNC for the final two years of his college career.
We’ve highlighted a few players in this series representing states where they attended school before transferring to UNC. But because Keldorf spent less than two months in Utah and Davis was raised there and played four seasons at UNC. Had we successfully been in contact with Davis, he would have been the sole representative. However, he wasn’t, and the Keldorf angle is interesting enough we decided to include it.
Back to his time at UNC, Keldorf played 19 games in 1996 and 1997 completing 305 of 519 pass attempts for 3,795 yards, 35 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Keldorf made first-team All-ACC in 1996.
The Executive Vice President at Fusionetics Sports, the company’s site conducted an interview with Keldorf, and one of the questions asked what his greatest memory is from playing football at UNC.
“One of the best experiences of my life,” Keldorf replied. “The culture, history, sports landscape and overall collegiate atmosphere were life changing. During my last two years we went (21-3), ending the season ranked in the top 5 nationally. To this day, I remain very fortunate and grateful for such a unique and life changing opportunity.”
We found no former Tar Heel football or basketball players from Vermont, so the next state in the series is Virginia.