RALEIGH — Retired NFL star Julius Peppers, retired NBA player Muggsy Bogues and current North Carolina football coach Mack Brown headline this spring’s class of inductees to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
The 12-person class announced Wednesday also includes former Boston Red Sox player Trot Nixon and college basketball TV analyst Debbie Antonelli. The class will be formally inducted May 1 to the hall, which is housed at the North Carolina Museum of History.
Peppers played at Southern Nash High School and later at UNC before a 17-year NFL career, much of that spent with the Carolina Panthers. Bogues rose to fame as a 5-foot-3 point guard at Wake Forest and later with the Charlotte Hornets during a 14-year NBA career.
Brown built the Tar Heels into top-10 national status from 1988-97, then left for Texas during a 16-year run that included a national championship. The winningest active coach in Bowl Subdivision history, Brown returned to the Tar Heels last year and led them to a bowl win.
The rest of the class includes late longtime UNC track and field/cross country coach Dennis Craddock; Charles Kernodle, the Burlington Williams football team doctor for more than 60 years; former Greensboro Page basketball coach Mac Morris; retiring Wolfpack Club executive director Bobby Purcell; former Charlotte athletics director Judy Rose; former Raleigh-based preps sports writer Tim Stevens; and former NFL player Donnell Woolford.
