University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels Wrap Up First Day Of Practice
August 7, 2002 | Football
By Adam Lucas
TarHeelBlue.com
Only on Carolina football photo day can you watch Chase Page fade back and hit Doug Justice on a sharp 12-yard out route. Wednesday morning was devoted to taking the team photo (hey, you try to organize 105 college kids by numerical order in less than 15 minutes) and some laid-back sessions with the media. Players not in hot demand passed the time by getting in touch with their inner quarterback.
"See, man, everybody wants to be the quarterback," C.J. Stephens said with a smile as he watched Page work on his five-step drop.
After two days of workouts exclusively for freshmen, two-a-days begin for the entire squad tomorrow. One player eager to hit the practice field -- perhaps more eager than he ever thought he would be -- is junior defensive tackle Will Chapman, who had to sit out all of spring practice due to a torn left ACL that he suffered in the win over Clemson last season.
Chapman has been cleared to resume practicing with the team, although as a precaution he may only practice once per day instead of twice, and the training staff will closely monitor his repetitions. On days when he only practices once, he will spend that second practice time doing rehabilitation work.
"Will is ready to go," John Bunting said. "We will monitor his reps and see how he comes along. Rehabilitation has gone terrific and he is sound and ready to go."
"I've been working hard with the trainers and Coach Connors and trying to get back to where I need to be," Chapman said. "I can run straight forward, but you have to get that lateral movement back. I've been working hard on that this summer. I still have a long way to go, because running sprints is one thing, but getting on the field and running and making plays is another thing."
He made plenty of plays last year, when he rocketed up the depth chart and started the first eight games of the year. He finished his shortened season with 29 tackles, three of them for loss, and one fumble recovery.
Gaudy stats for the 6-foot-4, 272-pound junior who first came to Chapel Hill as a walk-on. Unlike most players who have to slog through three or more years without a scholarship, Chapman quickly earned a grant after only one year. In 2000, he played in every game as a backup tackle, and John Bunting rewarded that effort with a scholarship after taking the head coaching job prior to the 2001 season. That made Will a second-generation Carolina football scholarship recipient, because his father, Bill, was a teammate of Bunting's in the early 1970's.
The entire family has a sense of what it means to play football for Carolina, and as the younger Chapman looked around Kenan Stadium Wednesday morning and glanced at the offensive linemen showing off their quarterback skills, it was clear that sitting out this spring hadn't been easy.
"You miss the camaraderie with your teammates," he said. "You miss this kind of stuff. Being on the sidelines in the spring, I could barely run...Everything was pretty miserable."
The Tar Heels are happy that he won't be miserable this fall, because the former walk-on has turned into the anchor of a defensive line that has been the source of many preseason question marks. Gone are NFL draft picks Joey Evans, Julius Peppers, and Ryan Sims, and other than Chapman, this year's projected starters on the line -- Issac Mooring, Eric Davis, and Jocques Dumas -- have a combined zero starts.
But that doesn't bother Chapman, who singles out Davis as a player likely to surprise some fans this year.
"I don't have any doubts about this defense," Chapman said. "The only thing we don't have is big names. I think this defense will step up and become big-name players."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com
