Sports Legends of the Carolinas
Over nearly 30 years at The Charlotte Observer, columnist Scott Fowler has built an unparalleled rolodex of hardwood heroes, gridiron greats, hall-of-fame coaches, and sports media luminaries throughout the region. Now, thanks to access fans won’t get anywhere else, Fowler sits down with icons from the area — including Muggsy Bogues, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jay Bilas, and more — to hear the unfiltered, untold stories of their journeys to becoming Sports Legends of the Carolinas.
Episodes
December 17, 2024 • 49 mins
Former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly serves as the season finale of Season 3 of "Sports Legends of the Carolinas."
Drafted No. 9 overall out of Boston College by the Panthers in 2012, Kuechly had such a remarkable eight-year NFL career that you still see his No. 59 jersey every Sunday at Panthers' home games. Kuechly was the AP’s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2012, the AP’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 and one...
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October 30, 2024 • 48 mins
A three-time Olympic gold medalist, Heather O’Reilly was also one of the all-time greats at one of the all-time greatest dynasties in college sports -- the UNC women’s soccer team.
O’Reilly helped lead UNC to two NCAA championships, in 2003 and 2006. She was already a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team while in school at Chapel Hill and played on that squad for 14 years, from age 17 to age 31. Besides winning gold medals with...
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October 10, 2024 • 41 mins
NASCAR hall of famer Rick Hendrick is an ultra-successful businessman in the automotive world. But what he’s known for in sports circles is a NASCAR dynasty that is celebrating its 40th year in existence of 2024 and ranks as the winningest team in Cup Series history. Hendrick’s 14 Cup series season titles have come with five different drivers: Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.
Hendrick is al...
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September 25, 2024 • 44 mins
Jim Nantz is one of the most famous sports broadcasters in America. Since being hired by CBS Sports in 1985 at age 26, he’s become a 5-time national sportscaster of the year and has provided the play-by-play soundtrack for many of the most iconic moments in sports. Nantz has called multiple Super Bowls, Final Fours and the Masters.
The Nantz family also has deep roots in North Carolina. Nantz, 65, not only was born in Charlotte, bu...
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August 21, 2024 • 41 mins
As the oldest head coach in college football’s top division, UNC’s Mack Brown now anticipates the question about when he’s going to retire long before recruits or their parents pose it. “It gets asked before they say hello now,” Brown said.
Brown will turn 73 on Aug. 27th, two days before the Tar Heels’ 2024 season opener at Minnesota. Now that Alabama’s Nick Saban has retired, Brown stands alone as the only Division I head footba...
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July 24, 2024 • 39 mins
Julius Peppers, a fearsome pass-rushing defensive end, was one of the greatest Carolina Panther players ever. We caught up with Peppers at his home in Coral Gables, Fla., where he lives with his wife and children. He is preparing for a big weekend -- on Aug. 3rd, Peppers will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was elected in his first year of eligibility after 17 total seasons in the NFL -- 10 of them with the Panth...
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July 17, 2024 • 32 mins
It’s almost time for the Summer Olympics to take over the sports world, as it does every four years.
The opening ceremonies are July 26th in Paris. And so for the first time in the three seasons of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” we went poolside to have a a candid conversation with Olympic swimmer and two-time gold medalist Cullen Jones.
Formerly a star college swimmer at N.C. State, Jones previewed the Paris swimming competiti...
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June 26, 2024 • 55 mins
In North Carolina’s mountains, a football coach named Jerry Moore led Appalachian State to new heights two decades ago.
Now 84, Moore coached the Mountaineers from 1989-2012 and built a dynasty in Boone, N.C. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, he directed the Mountaineers all the way to the top of the mountain, winning three straight national titles at the FCS level. Those were the first three NCAA football championships any institution from ...
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June 5, 2024 • 54 mins
Long before he became one of the biggest names in footwear, Stan Smith dazzled on the tennis court.
Smith, 77, is a tennis hall of famer who won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the early 1970s and was once ranked as the world’s No. 1 tennis player. He grew up in California but has lived for more than 50 years in Hilton Head, S.C., where he remains very active in the community and in his Smith Stearns Tennis Academy.
But if you’...
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May 22, 2024 • 34 mins
Jimmie Johnson is, without question, one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. Three drivers rank at the very top of the all-time NASCAR Cup series champion standings, each with seven season titles apiece. They are Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Johnson.
Of those three legends, Johnson is the only one who won five titles consecutively, from 2006-2010. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte in January...
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May 15, 2024 • 47 mins
Muggsy Bogues remains the shortest player ever to play in the NBA, at 5-foot-3. Bogues stayed in the league for 14 years, most notably as the point guard for the exciting Charlotte Hornets teams of the 1990s that also starred Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning and Dell Curry. At age 57, he still lives in the Charlotte area today.
We sat down in Bogues’ home, inside a memorabilia room full of keepsakes from his career. We discussed Bogu...
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May 1, 2024 • 45 mins
While Dell Curry is now known in public mostly for being the father of two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steph Curry, he had his own stellar NBA career.
Known for his three-point sharpshooting at a time when the NBA was far less enamored with that long-distance shot, the elder Curry had a 16-year NBA career that included 10 years as a player for the Hornets from 1988-98 -- the team's first 10 seasons. Curry earned the NBA’s Sixth M...
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April 17, 2024 • 57 mins
As the NFL Draft approaches, the Carolina Panthers can only hope to hit a second-round home run like they did with Muhsin Muhammad.
The Panthers hold two high second-round picks — the 33rd and 39th overall — in the draft that starts April 25. In 1996, Muhammad was a promising wide receiver out of Michigan State that Carolina nabbed with the 43rd overall pick.
“Moose,” as most everyone calls him, went on to play 14 NFL seasons, incl...
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April 3, 2024 • 43 mins
Ahead of the Women's Final Four, in this special rebroadcast episode (originally aired on October 5th, 2022), Scott Fowler sits down with legendary USC coaching legend Dawn Staley.
Dawn Staley, star of this week’s episode of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” has had one of the most sensational careers in women’s basketball history. Currently the head women’s basketball coach at South Carolina, Staley’s Gamecock squads won national...
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March 27, 2024 • 42 mins
Alonzo Mourning would have become the greatest player in Charlotte Hornets history — if he had only stuck around.
Mourning played his first three NBA seasons with Charlotte after the Hornets drafted him No. 2 overall in 1992. He quickly turned into an intimidating, 6-foot-10 star for a Charlotte team on the rise. His scowl could scare you. His dunks could dent the hardwood. But a salary dispute led to the Hornets trading Mourning i...
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March 11, 2024 • 72 mins
In Gastonia, Leonard Hamilton remembers restaurants he wasn’t allowed to come inside due to his skin color. He sat in the balcony of a movie theater because Blacks weren’t allowed to sit downstairs. He drank from one water fountain; whites drank from another.
With the help of faith and family, Hamilton rose from those circumstances to a coaching career that has now spanned more than 50 years. At age 75, Hamilton has directed the Fl...
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February 28, 2024 • 62 mins
The siren song of a bouncing basketball led Bobby Cremins all over the Carolinas.
Cremins crisscrossed both states during his hoops journey. He played basketball under Frank McGuire at the University of South Carolina in the late 1960s. He left for North Carolina to become the head coach at Appalachian State at age 27. At the end of his career, he would coach at the College of Charleston.
It was in between those two jobs where Crem...
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February 14, 2024 • 45 mins
Richard Petty is 86 years old now, and his seven NASCAR Cup championships and record 200 wins at the sport’s highest level came long ago. But Petty is still going strong in Level Cross (pop. 3694), which sits right in the middle of Charlotte and Raleigh. Petty lives a stone’s throw from the house where he was born, and that house sits right next to the Petty Museum that houses an incredible amount of his stuff.
Nicknamed “The King”...
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November 15, 2023 • 45 mins
From 1987-89, Steve Spurrier was the head coach at Duke, leading the Blue Devils to an ACC Football Championship in 1989. As a player, he won the Heisman Trophy in 1966 at the University of Florida. Coach Spurrier then returned to Florida as its coach in 1990.
Known as an offensive mastermind, Spurrier led the Gators to multiple SEC titles, as well as the national championship in 1997. Spurrier has deep connections to both Carolina...
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November 1, 2023 • 60 mins
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 National Player of the Year. He was als...
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