University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: T-Time!
November 14, 2025 | Football, Featured Writers, Extra Points
It was 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17, with the Carolina football team whiling the afternoon away before its game that night against the California Bears in Berkeley. Tyler Thompson, a third-year outside linebacker, had some time between walk-throughs and before the team pre-game meal. He noticed a handsome Kawai Grand Piano in the lobby of the team hotel.
"Tyler's always loved the keyboard," says his mother, Renee Providence. "Going back to high school if we would be traveling somewhere, he'd always look for a piano in a hotel and play it."
Dressed in navy sweatpants and a Carolina blue T-shirt, Thompson's fingers danced across the keyboard, the sounds of Experience by the Italian pianist and composer
Ludovico Einaudi wafting through the open spaces and then giving way to Ylang Ylang by the French musician Vincent Fenton.
"I love the piano, it's one of my favorite extracurricular activities," Thompson says. "I can take a step back, not worry about anything. It's an escape, a sense of peace. Anytime I see a piano, I want to play it."
Growing up in Cary, Thompson took piano lessons at around age nine, but when he got good at football and basketball, the music took a back seat to athletics. An early dorm assignment when he came to Chapel Hill in 2022 was Ram Village, a complex of three buildings on South Campus. One of the buildings has a piano.
"I thought, 'Why not?'" Thompson says. "A piano was there where I lived so I thought I could play if I got bored or stressed."
Renee says she and Tyler's father, LeVar Thompson, tried to accommodate all of young Tyler's interests as a boy, including private piano lessons.
"We kept him active with anything he wanted to try," she says. "He played every sport but lacrosse. He liked the keyboard. It was his idea to learn the piano, then sometimes you had to push him when it was actually time for a lesson. He'd rather go outside and play. But he liked it and got better.
"Fast forward, now he really appreciates it. It's a positive to release stress and relax."
And it's another chapter in the story of "T-Time!," the nickname Renee anointed her son with when he was growing toward the 6-foot-4 measurement he stands at today and was a prolific dunker of the basketball at Panther Creek High. She's produced Carolina-colored football jerseys with T-Time! across the No. 40 jersey on the back and has copyrighted the name.
"His junior year, he decided to focus more on football and didn't play basketball his senior year because he wanted to be an early enrollee for college," she says. "So T-Time! carried over to football."
And T-Time! is having quite the breakthrough year as a redshirt sophomore. His specialty is rushing the quarterback in passing situations from his edge position on the defensive line. That night in Berkeley, Thompson had two tackles-for-loss and forced one fumble. Through nine games, he's had seven sacks, one pass breakup, one QB hurry and two forced fumbles.
Against Stanford last Saturday, Thompson and Melkart Abou Jaoude spent the game in the Cardinal backfield, each notching three sacks. Watching from the stands in Kenan Stadium was Sean Crocker, a Tar Heel cornerback from the early 1990s and now the head coach at Panther Creek.
"It's been fun and gratifying to watch him develop this year," Crocker says. "You won't find a kid who works harder than Tyler. In high school, he was a defensive end who ran with the skill guys and was leading every sprint, trying to win. It was a matter of maturing and getting a couple more skills for his toolbox to make him a better football player."
"Tyler's worked really hard on his pass rush," Tar Heel Coach Bill Belichick says. "He's gotten a lot stronger. He was maybe 15 to 20 pounds lighter than he is now. And that's all really good weight. He's explosive, he's strong and his fundamentals and techniques rushing the passer have been something he's refined and worked on. He's a great football player, and he's gonna continue to reap the benefits on Saturdays."
Thompson is Exhibit A in "the process" that Belichick references often. He's taken to coaching from defensive line coach Bob Diaco, to the strength and conditioning program run by Moses Cabrera and the nutrition regime from Amber Rinestine-Ressa. He's learned from players who passed before him like Kaimon Rucker. And he's bided his time.
"Patience is definitely something that's important when it comes to going to any level of football, whether that's going from middle school to high school, high school to college, college to NFL," Thompson says. "You're going to have guys in front of you that are older, that have been here, that have done it. Just being patient and controlling your processes and just getting better one percent within yourself, I think that's what's very important."
All of that prelude leads to the snap of the football, with Thompson wielding his natural speed and quickness, his strength and his technique to whiz around offensive tackles toward the man with the football.
"It's really just effort and violence," he says.
And when it's over, there's always the respite of the piano and tickling the ivories to the sound of the French ballad Je te laisserai des mots, as Thompson has done for all to see in an Instagram story. Incidentally, he was given a guitar for Christmas. There could be more episodes to the T-Time! adventure to come.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) has been writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner since 1990 and reporting from the sidelines on radio broadcasts since 2004. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.
"Tyler's always loved the keyboard," says his mother, Renee Providence. "Going back to high school if we would be traveling somewhere, he'd always look for a piano in a hotel and play it."
Dressed in navy sweatpants and a Carolina blue T-shirt, Thompson's fingers danced across the keyboard, the sounds of Experience by the Italian pianist and composer
Ludovico Einaudi wafting through the open spaces and then giving way to Ylang Ylang by the French musician Vincent Fenton.
"I love the piano, it's one of my favorite extracurricular activities," Thompson says. "I can take a step back, not worry about anything. It's an escape, a sense of peace. Anytime I see a piano, I want to play it."
Growing up in Cary, Thompson took piano lessons at around age nine, but when he got good at football and basketball, the music took a back seat to athletics. An early dorm assignment when he came to Chapel Hill in 2022 was Ram Village, a complex of three buildings on South Campus. One of the buildings has a piano.
"I thought, 'Why not?'" Thompson says. "A piano was there where I lived so I thought I could play if I got bored or stressed."
Renee says she and Tyler's father, LeVar Thompson, tried to accommodate all of young Tyler's interests as a boy, including private piano lessons.
"We kept him active with anything he wanted to try," she says. "He played every sport but lacrosse. He liked the keyboard. It was his idea to learn the piano, then sometimes you had to push him when it was actually time for a lesson. He'd rather go outside and play. But he liked it and got better.
"Fast forward, now he really appreciates it. It's a positive to release stress and relax."
And it's another chapter in the story of "T-Time!," the nickname Renee anointed her son with when he was growing toward the 6-foot-4 measurement he stands at today and was a prolific dunker of the basketball at Panther Creek High. She's produced Carolina-colored football jerseys with T-Time! across the No. 40 jersey on the back and has copyrighted the name.
"His junior year, he decided to focus more on football and didn't play basketball his senior year because he wanted to be an early enrollee for college," she says. "So T-Time! carried over to football."
And T-Time! is having quite the breakthrough year as a redshirt sophomore. His specialty is rushing the quarterback in passing situations from his edge position on the defensive line. That night in Berkeley, Thompson had two tackles-for-loss and forced one fumble. Through nine games, he's had seven sacks, one pass breakup, one QB hurry and two forced fumbles.
Against Stanford last Saturday, Thompson and Melkart Abou Jaoude spent the game in the Cardinal backfield, each notching three sacks. Watching from the stands in Kenan Stadium was Sean Crocker, a Tar Heel cornerback from the early 1990s and now the head coach at Panther Creek.
"It's been fun and gratifying to watch him develop this year," Crocker says. "You won't find a kid who works harder than Tyler. In high school, he was a defensive end who ran with the skill guys and was leading every sprint, trying to win. It was a matter of maturing and getting a couple more skills for his toolbox to make him a better football player."
"Tyler's worked really hard on his pass rush," Tar Heel Coach Bill Belichick says. "He's gotten a lot stronger. He was maybe 15 to 20 pounds lighter than he is now. And that's all really good weight. He's explosive, he's strong and his fundamentals and techniques rushing the passer have been something he's refined and worked on. He's a great football player, and he's gonna continue to reap the benefits on Saturdays."
Thompson is Exhibit A in "the process" that Belichick references often. He's taken to coaching from defensive line coach Bob Diaco, to the strength and conditioning program run by Moses Cabrera and the nutrition regime from Amber Rinestine-Ressa. He's learned from players who passed before him like Kaimon Rucker. And he's bided his time.
"Patience is definitely something that's important when it comes to going to any level of football, whether that's going from middle school to high school, high school to college, college to NFL," Thompson says. "You're going to have guys in front of you that are older, that have been here, that have done it. Just being patient and controlling your processes and just getting better one percent within yourself, I think that's what's very important."
All of that prelude leads to the snap of the football, with Thompson wielding his natural speed and quickness, his strength and his technique to whiz around offensive tackles toward the man with the football.
"It's really just effort and violence," he says.
And when it's over, there's always the respite of the piano and tickling the ivories to the sound of the French ballad Je te laisserai des mots, as Thompson has done for all to see in an Instagram story. Incidentally, he was given a guitar for Christmas. There could be more episodes to the T-Time! adventure to come.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) has been writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner since 1990 and reporting from the sidelines on radio broadcasts since 2004. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.
Players Mentioned
Defensive Line
/ Football
Rush
/ Football
Linebacker
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