Julius Peppers was an amazing basketball player before he was an NFL legend

Let’s remember Peppers’ basketball career at North Carolina.

Julius Peppersannounced his retirement from the NFL on Friday, which means it’s a good time to remember what a complete and total bad ass Julius Peppers was.

Peppers played 17 seasons of pro football, which is preposterous given everything we know about the physical demands of the sport. Even more preposterous: he started almost every game, only missing four games as a rookie and two games in 2007 for his entire career. Peppers was productive from the moment he entered the league to the day he left it, winning Rookie of the Year in 2002 and still tallying 11 sacks in a season as recently as 2017 as a 37-year-old.

He ends his career fourth all-time in sacks (159.5), with nine Pro Bowls to his name, and as a lock to be a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.

This was the kind of athlete who feels like he was sent directly from the future even in the twilight of his career. Julius Peppers was a freak for any era. He deserves to be recognized not only as one of the best NFL players of his time, but also among the great athletic marvels of his generation regardless of sport.

You might remember that Julius Peppers could play a little basketball, too.

Before he decided to focus full-time on football, Peppers played two seasons of college basketball at North Carolina. For all of his talent on the gridiron, basketball was Peppers’ first love growing up in Bailey, North Carolina, just down the road from his eventual home in Chapel Hill.

Peppers was a dominant high school basketball player. He was named all-state as a senior, won an AAU national title with eventual teammates Brendan Haywood and Kris Lang, and was heavily recruited by Duke. Duke! Truth be told, Peppers likely could have owned any sport he wanted to. Take this a Sports Illustrated profile in 2001:

As a senior, Peppers placed second in the triple jump at the state track meet, despite wearing spikes two sizes too small because size 18s couldn’t be found. Having watched Big Head swing a bat, Davis believes he could have been a baseball star as well. The coach still shakes his head in disbelief as he recalls a three-hour football practice on a scorching summer day before Peppers’s junior season, after which all the other Firebirds lay sprawled on the grass or huddled around the water spigot. Peppers strolled over to one end zone and began doing backflips the length of the field. No hands. For 100 yards. In full pads and helmet.

By the way, he also rushed for 3,500 yards and 46 touchdowns as a high school running back in a single-season who also played both ways on the defensive line. And I still think I’m most impressed by 100 yards of backflips while wearing shoulder pads.

It became obvious that football was where Peppers’ future was, but he wasn’t ready to give up on basketball just yet. The Tar Heels were happy to welcome him as a walk-on during the 1999-2000 campaign after football season ended. He quickly proved to be a valuable and productive member of the rotation for a team that went all the way to the Final Four behind Haywood, Joe Forte, Jason Capel, and veteran floor general Ed Cota.

Take it from then-head coach Bill Guthridge.

“Julius was a godsend, the missing piece for us,” Guthridge said. “I hate to think how that season might have ended without him.”

Peppers became an even bigger star on the gridiron the next year, but still returned to the basketball team. Matt Doherty took over as head coach and eventually made Peppers a starter. The Tar Heels returned mostly everyone but Cota — replacing him with another football player, quarterback/point guard Ronald Curry— and shot up to No. 1 in the polls after reeling off a 15-game winning streak.

There would be no magical March run. North Carolina lost to Penn State in the second round of the 2001 NCAA tournament, despite Peppers scoring a career-high 21 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.

That was it for Peppers’ basketball career. He decided to focus solely on football the next season and was eventually taken with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2002 NFL draft. Do you think the Houston Texans regret taking David Carr ahead of him?

Peppers made about $160 million playing football without counting endorsements, so it’s safe to say he made the right career choice. But those who watched Peppers play on the hardwood really think he could have carved out a role in the NBA if he put his mind to it.

“I’ll tell you this, I do believe if Pep would’ve just focused on basketball, he could’ve played in the NBA,” Matt Doherty, a former coach at UNC told ESPN in 2015. “[Julius] had feel. He wasn’t just a rebounder or banger. He could pass the ball, make the 15-18 foot shot and had soft hands.”

North Carolina still has Peppers’ old roster page up, listing him as a 6’6, 270-pound sophomore forward. Does that remind you of anyone else? In a way, Peppers’ combination of transcendent athletic ability at unprecedented size might make him the best comparison for Zion Williamson. As the next freak enters our consciousness, one of the best we’ve seen leaves.

Thanks for the memories, Julius Peppers. Throw down some alley-oops for us in retirement.