“Glory Days” series: UNC edition

I wonder if Nick in the Ultras could cover this.

I don't know. Let's find out from the man himself, Mick Mixon, former voice of the Carolina Panthers, former analyst for the Tariel Sports Network, football, men's basketball, and one of the all-time front men for bands that play on the side porch of the Carolina Inn Chapel Hill. My friend, Mick Mixon, how are you, sir? You were supposed to text me a reminder that I was coming on. You're in the penalty box, two minutes, roughing. What have I interrupted your day now? What were you doing? At my daughter by marriage and my son by marriage's house.

The dryer's not venting properly, so your call came in when I was on my hands and knees trying to science out this one of life's most vexing questions. I apologize for that. No, it's all good.

Steeler's wheel is all good. We never covered that. I've never been a front man and never wanted to be.

I've always just been on the back line trying to lay a little drum beat down. But AG, I've missed you. And I was telling Natalie, my daughter-in-law, that I was going to be on the radio and she said, why? And I said, two great questions. What this basically says is that it's the middle of the summer and hosts like my cherished friend Adam Gold are desperate for content.

Well, I'm not arguing that at all. We sort of backdoored into an idea for content by talking about the glory days. We actually just had the passing of Dick Sheridan, which is really the that was the entry point for this, because that was the best era of North Carolina State football. And I thought, well, if we do that, we can do one for each school. And I thought that Mick Mixon, you know, would like to come off the John Deere and maybe just kind of just relax for a little bit and talk about the old days.

I hate that I interrupted you in dryer venting, because that is a major could be a major problem for a household. Yeah, you don't want that. I think we got it fixed, though. But I mean, I hadn't thought about Sheridan in a while, but he was he was intimidating. I thought I mean, not in a mean spirited way, but he was just so serious. And I was interviewing him one time, I think a hurricane had ripped through Garden City and somebody Charles Chandler or Al Featherston or somebody had mentioned to me once that coach Sheridan had had a house down at Garden City. So I begin to this pregame interview, chatty, friendly, like I should not have been because we he probably viewed it as we were not friends. I asked him how I said, coach, you know, the whole state is concerned about the storm and I hope your Garden City property survived it did okay, no damage. He drew his thumb across his throat in that cut motion and said, start the interview over and don't ask me about that. Wow. That's a setback right out of the gate. All right, let me ask you about.

Oh, there probably are two different answers to this. If I had to ask you what the best stretch of North Carolina football was, which would you say? And it really it's kind of the modern era of football.

I don't want to go back into into the 60s or, you know, the Charlie Choo Choo justice era of maybe the early 70s. But what do you think the best era of UNC football was? One more quick thing, five seconds about coach Sheridan. I'm a ACC man. My dad went to state and I went to dig Divencio's basketball camp as a little boy growing up Chapel Hill.

Of course, Tar Heel said, wait, follow them all. But any NC State fans thinking of mixed idiot for asking coach Sheridan about the Garden City and destruction there would be correct, of course. Coach was right and I was wrong. I should not have begun the interview that way. But I was young and dumb.

And there you go. Adam, when Matt Brown, when Matt Brown went one in 10 twice in 1988 and 1989 and and then but then started to. To sew from the crop, the seeds that had been planted with him sending an assistant coach or going himself into every high school in North Carolina, whether they had a prospect or not. That 1990 Matt Brown coached UNC team was one of my favorite teams of all time. They went six, four and one. The one was a tie against Georgia Tech that you may remember.

I think you were on the planet way back in 1990, a young little little AG went behind the years, but that was the start of something really special. And so I would say from then on through when coach left to go to Texas, wouldn't you? I mean, those teams had the swag they had to get all to get. I mean, they look they look great getting on that airplane.

They look great warming up. I mean, they had draft picks and never could quite. Florida State had a little bit different DNA than the rest of the league back then. Never could quite get, you know, get over that, get through the crepitus of the Seminoles and their reign of terror. But those Matt Brown teams, I mean, I remember Chris Kjeldorf, I remember you interviewing Chris Kjeldorf and just talking to him, thinking this is Manhattan Beach, California. Are you kidding? This is what this is what North Carolina has never had, which is an NFL caliber quality quarterback.

Why he why it didn't work out for him in the pros, I'm not really sure, but he could sling. And that 96 North Carolina team that beat Clemson opening day, Kjeldorf threw 25 touchdown passes that year. I mean, I put that team up against up against a great many in the history of the league. And those that run had three 10 win seasons, another nine win season and an eight win season in that stretch.

And it really did it went one in 10, one in 10. And then all of a sudden, they were just cranking out not only great seasons, but also so many NFL draft picks. And it seemed like everybody was a defensive lineman during that stretch or a linebacker, which is kind of the opposite of what we've seen today.

And that's not that they didn't have good, good players. One of my favorite players, you know, me, I grew up as a Jets fan. I'm a recovering Jets fan now. There's no reason to be a Jets fan anymore. But Leon Johnson was one of my favorite players ever, who wore a Jets uniform.

And he was one of the great players, great offensive players who played at UNC, Johnson and Johnson, Curtis Johnson and Leon Johnson 1000%. And don't forget the secondary I mean that 96 team. So Clemson comes in opening day to Chapel Hill, I'm pretty sure Neil on green was the quarterback.

And they had it rolling, not debo rolling, but they were good, nationally ranked. And so new on green, first and 10 Clemson from the minus 20, minus 25. He fades back, throws a dart up and out to the near side. Boom, Robert Williams, quickie Williams lays out tips the ball away and complete. Second and 10 up and out to the left side, 15 yard out cut Dre blackens out of nowhere lays out boom, knocks it away, tips it away. Three and out Clemson has to punt North Carolina's up, I think maybe 10 to nothing. And the players are on the sideline, the North Carolina players are kind of joking around and laughing and having fun and the coaches are insane. They come over to Dre black Robert Williams, Kjeldorf and them.

What are you guys doing? Get serious. This is Clemson and Kjeldorf is reported to have looked at the coaches and says with a big old smile and said, coach, relax, they're not that good. Isn't that incredible? Athletes have a way of just putting it in, just kind of all in perspective. And he was probably right. I know. He probably was right. Mick Mixon is joining us here on the Adam Gold show.

Who's the best player you ever saw wearing North Carolina uniform in football? What are you doing to me? Why do you do this? I'm remembering now why coming on your show caused me to feel like I was bleeding from somewhere. That is so untrue.

That is not true. What are you doing? Why? I thought we were friends. We are friends.

There's no right or wrong answer here. I mean, the best player is probably Lawrence Taylor, but it might be it also might be Julius Peppers. I don't know. I mean, I hate superlative questions like this. Maybe because I don't do a very good job answering them.

It's just hard to quantify art. So who's the best? What's the best restaurant in the triangle? Who's the best cookout? Who was the best looking cheerleader back then?

I think so. A couple of names come to mind. You know, Marcus Jones was Marcus Jones would wreck every front that you threw at him. Jason Stanisek was under. I mean, Jason Stanisek, one of the best college players looked like an intern in the film room who had won a contest to come in and play one play at quarterback, but he could function.

I mean, just run that. I remember the 93 Southern Cal, the Disney classic Jason Finley Stanisek made Southern Cal look like they had never practiced. So, I mean, you know, you mentioned Julius Peppers. And of course, I mean, you know, yeah, Lawrence Taylor.

There's a tendency to try to answer this question based on what they did after college. But I mean, and I think Dre Bly deserves mention. I'm just thinking about kind of the weight of what some of those guys were able to pull in turning that program around. Bly was the only two time consensus All-American in UNC football history. So, I mean, he was. He was an incredible player.

He came in. I think he was in the same draft as Tory Holt. And those two guys, you know, obviously played on the same team. They both played with the Rams. But that was, I mean, Bly was a tremendous player and was until recently part of the coaching staff.

Real quick about Peppers, because you obviously not only watched him at UNC, but we all watched him with the Panthers and he just went into the Hall of Honor. What do you remember most about him, including on the basketball court? A donkey had left-handed cuff dunk at Buffalo on a snowy night at Buffalo late in the game, where to see that amount of weight, that girth elevate.

I mean, his chin was about at the rim, as I remember. It's one of the few times in my life working with Woody Durham that I ever almost tried to out Woody Woody by yelling. I mean, I just jumped up and grabbed Woody by the left arm.

I just couldn't help myself. I mean, seeing Julius dunk like that, my golly. But Julius and he is very smart.

He's not just, you know, we're going to give 110% and hope we win. Julius is well-read. He knows the lyrics. He knows not just songs, but who wrote them and what the writer was trying to say. I used to love talking to him when we'd interview him and I'd say, look, Julius, I know what you're capable of. I'm on to you. So don't give me any of these three-word answers, just jazz.

And he'd smile, big old smile and say, yeah, okay, Meg. All right. Yeah, he was obviously a special player. I love the, maybe the second half of his career, he became just an incredible leader. And I know he's doing a lot of stuff. Obviously he doesn't play anymore, but he's doing a lot of stuff for charitable endeavors in Charlotte.

He has become really a guy who is very ingratiated in his community. All right. I'm going to let you get back to the dryer, Mick Mixon, and then on your tractor, I'll text you a picture of the next time I'm working in the field. I look forward to seeing it, AG. Seriously, man, I cherish your friendship.

I love giving you a hard time and you do the same to me, but we've driven a lot of miles together figuratively and I respect you a lot. And if you ever get desperate for content again, just give me a call. Okay.

You'll be first on the list now. But I do apologize for not giving you the heads up text even yesterday because you know what, you could have been knee deep in lint and I know how important that stuff is. Yeah.

I used to work on dryers, but I gave them up for lint. Oh, wow. We're going to end on that, huh? Okay. That's fair. All right, man. I'll talk to you soon.

Mick Mixon, the absolute best. Oh my gosh. That's also how he would end basically every conversation. Okay. Fine. All right. Fine. Best dad jokes. My gosh. That is so good.