Julius Peppers: From Media-Shy to Speaking Out

Fourth all-time in NFL sacks, Peppers is preparing for a big weekend. On Aug. 3, he will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Peppers was elected in his first year of eligibility after 17 total seasons in the NFL — 10 of them with the Panthers.

Peppers grew up in Bailey, N.C., and then starred in both football and basketball for UNC. He is one of the rare athletes to have played in both the Super Bowl and the Final Four.

It’s also rare for the media-shy Peppers to do a one-on-one interview. But with the Hall of Fame on the horizon, Peppers agreed to sit down with “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” for an exclusive, career-spanning interview in his Florida home — one of the most extensive he has given.

It turns out that Peppers, 44, has a lot to say: about what a potential NBA career would have looked like, about why as a Green Bay Packer he once held a football away from Cam Newton and about Carolina’s 2003 Super Bowl season.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. A fuller version is available on the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast.

— Scott Fowler: Let’s start at the beginning: Tell me about how you grew up and where you grew up.

— Julius Peppers: I grew up in a small town, Bailey, North Carolina. It’s about 30 miles east of Raleigh. Rural area. Not too much going on out there. A lot of tobacco fields. I spent my summers doing (that), actually — tobacco fields, cucumbers, stuff like that. So I was happy to get away from that and go to practice sometimes. … The population was a few hundred. It was a close-knit community.

— SF: Who were the primary influences in your life growing up?

— JP: Definitely, my mother (Bessie Brinkley) was the main one. My two older siblings. And coach Brian Foster, who’s been a lifelong friend of mine and became a mentor during those early days. He would pick me up and take me to different track meets and sporting events, just to show me things outside of Bailey.

— SF: Your full name is Julius Frazier Peppers. Who are you named for?

— JP: So I’m named after Dr. J., Julius Erving. And my middle name? I’m actually named after two sports legends. Walt Frazier and Joe Frazier.

— SF: And you loved basketball first? How did your sports career start?

— JP: We didn’t have a lot of organized, recreational leagues and stuff like that. So my sports career actually just started outside in the back yard, either at my house or at a friend’s house. Back then we would just call each other up. Or at school, we would say: “Look, we’re gonna play at such and such house this weekend. So meet us over there at 12 o’clock.”… I had never been on a basketball team before, until I got to middle school. And I was nervous that I was gonna get cut.

As for football, my coach, Ray Davis (at Southern Nash High), he kind of convinced me to come out to play football my sophomore year because he thought I would be good at it. He saw that I had the size. So he convinced me to come out my 10th-grade year.

— SF: Originally, though, your dream was the NBA, to be like Michael Jordan?

— JP: Right. You know, being from North Carolina, everything is MJ, right? We actually had a satellite at my home, back in the day when you had the big one outside. We could get WGN, the local Chicago station. So I used to watch all of the Bulls’ games. … And I had a heavy love for college basketball. Not just the Tar Heels; all of them.

That was back when we used to pause school to watch the ACC Tournament. Roll in a TV. Put the ACC Tournament on all day. Tim Duncan. Randolph Childress. Chris Corchiani. All of them.

— SF: When you went to UNC, you had been a running back, among other things, in high school. And you started out as a tight end?

— JP: They recruited me as an athlete. I didn’t have a position. When I got to Carolina, I was like the fourth-string tight end. Alge Crumpler (a future NFL tight end) was the starter. … I wasn’t getting any reps. And when I did, it was just mainly blocking … I wanted to try my hand at defense because they had a lot of success with defensive players at the time, with defensive linemen. I tried that and it worked out.

— SF: What was your experience like as a UNC football player?

— JP: It’s like a brotherhood for us there. I always see Dré Bly (his former UNC teammate). We talk — not all the time, but as much as possible. That was a great time in life.

— SF: Speaking of UNC football, what sort of NFL quarterback do you think Drake Maye (the quarterback who was the No. 2 pick in the most recent NFL Draft) will be?

— JP: I think he’s going to do well. He’s great in the pocket. He can run a little bit. He reminds me a little bit of — well, nobody reminds me of Patrick Mahomes. But he’s kind of got that skill set. He’s a great passer with a great pocket presence. But he also can run and beat you with his legs when he absolutely needs to.

— SF: You played two seasons of basketball at UNC, too, and had some dunks that people still remember. How would you have done if you had pursued basketball full-time?

— JP: I think I could have been a solid player (in the NBA). I think I could have had a long career. … I felt like I had comps (comparable players) that were in the NBA. I was just talking to Draymond Green about that the other day.

— SF: Would you have played sort of like Draymond Green?

— JP: I think so, yeah. He’s a good screener, a good passer. He used to score the basketball in college, but he sacrificed that part of his game in the NBA to fit into the team. So I felt like I’d be a similar player in a similar kind of role.

— SF: Without the technical fouls, probably. But you could get feisty when you played. What happened in 2015, when you were playing for Green Bay and held a football away from Cam Newton after Newton scored for the Panthers?

— JP: So, that was when Cam used to score and he used to get the football and give it to somebody, right?

So they scored the touchdown, and I took the football. And when he was trying to come and get it from me, I just held it away from him. And then I just threw it off to the sideline. It was like an intimidation kind of tactic, because I think that was the (Panthers’) Super Bowl year.

So I felt like when you were playing a team that was as dominant as they were, you had to try to chop the head off the snake. You’ve got to go for the leader and try to, like, take him down. And then you can kill the body. It didn’t work. (Laughs)

— SF: The other year the Panthers made the Super Bowl was in 2003, when you were in your second year at Carolina. What was that year like?

— JP: We were just playing football. We didn’t understand the politics of the game, the business of the game, any of that stuff. It was just young guys out there, just playing, just going for it. … Our defense was really good.

When we got to the playoffs, we were out to prove ourselves. … Nobody really knew who we were. And that first game we beat the Dallas Cowboys at home. That was after the Sam Mills speech. Then we went to St. Louis and beat “The Greatest Show on Turf.” … The iconic play from Steve (Smith) in overtime to win it. Then we go up to Philly and win the NFC Championship. Nobody expected us to win those games. It was a great run.

In the Super Bowl, some unfortunate things happened. No one was to blame. We gave what we had and came up a little bit short. … In my book, we were all champions that year. We weren’t Super Bowl champions, but I think, to this day, that we all still are champions.

— SF: You mentioned the Sam Mills “Keep Pounding” speech, which came before the Dallas playoff game. What was hearing that like?

— JP: It was definitely on the practice field, right outside of the stadium, the day before the game. Coach (John Fox) would always call somebody up to give a speech after we did the final walkthrough. So this particular time, it was Sam.

It was raining a little bit that day. And he went through it all (Mills, a former star Panthers player, was then an assistant coach for the team battling with cancer at the time). He kept telling us everything that he was going through, and how the main message was: “Keep pounding. No matter what.” It became the team mantra, and I’m honored to have been there to witness that.

— SF: Early in your career, I asked you if playing in the Final Four or the Super Bowl was a bigger deal. I remember your answer then and wonder if you’d give the same one today.

— JP: I think I said, “Final Four.”

— JP: Well, now I’d say both of them are big deals. If you’re a basketball fan, it’s gonna be the Final Four. If you love football, it’s gonna be the Super Bowl. I enjoyed both of them. Didn’t win any of ‘em, but enjoyed the experience.

— SF: Who was the toughest opponent you ever faced?

— JP: Mike (Michael VIck) is definitely at the top. Aaron Rodgers was difficult, too, in another type of way.

Mike was something that we had never really seen before. There just weren’t that many other running quarterbacks. Daunte Culpepper ran a little bit, but not really. Steve McNair was kind of running. But nobody was like Mike. … You had to defend the pass and then defend a quarterback who can run faster than your whole defense. And so it was a unique challenge. The person that’s close to him today is Lamar Jackson.

— SF: In 2012, UNC accidentally released your academic transcript online, which was a problem on several levels. Soon thereafter, you gave a $250,000 donation to UNC to support scholarships for African-American students. Why was that your response?

— JP: I don’t know the deep details of how it (the transcript) got out. At one point I knew, but it’s been so long ago, the details get a little fuzzy. … The donation part of it — I felt like that was a moment for me to flip it. … I felt like I could help somebody else out. … It wasn’t anything that I was trying to hide.

It was an incomplete transcript, because that was the time that I had left school. … I knew I was going to the draft (in 2002) and I basically stopped going to the classes. … So that’s why some of the things on there are incomplete. It looks worse than what it really is.

But I didn’t take offense to it. … I don’t really put a lot of emphasis on things that I can’t control. I couldn’t control that. It happened. So I moved forward to find a solution to it. And my solution was to make a donation to the Light on the Hill Society scholarship (fund), for somebody else to come through and take advantage of the scholarship.

— SF: What keeps you busy now?

— JP: Right now, it’s mainly day-to-day with the kids (Peppers’ three children were ages 15, 9 and 8 at the time of the interview) … I’m really like a glorified taxi driver or Uber driver these days (Laughs). I pick them up from school. Then it’s soccer practice. Track practice. Football practice. And then going to the games on weekends. So it’s mostly family stuff.

— SF: Are you OK with your own children playing tackle football?

— JP: If they want to play. It’s a little bit of a concern there, as far as head injuries and stuff like that. I don’t want them to start too young.

— SF: You’ve had quite a last 12 months. You go into the college football hall this year, you went into the Panthers Hall of Honor in 2023 and now comes the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 3 (Peppers will be introduced by his longtime friend, mentor and agent Carl Carey). What means the most to you about the pro football one?

— JP: What made it special was obviously it’s first ballot, right? Because I look at that list — the semifinalist list, when it’s down to 25 — and those are guys that I watched playing, and I admired how they played. They were professionals.

So for me to be on the ballot my first time and for (the voters) to skip me ahead of all of these guys? I was in denial about it. It’s unbelievable. … It’s hard to wrap your mind around. … So many people helped get me to this place. I’ve got a lot of people that I will need to thank.