Official Site of the Tar Heels · Feb 15, 2020
Tar Heel Trailblazer: Willie Cooper
Even now, nearly 56 years since he last donned a North Carolina uniform, Willie Cooper still thinks about what could have been.
He wonders what might have happened had he – a member of UNC's 1964-65 freshman team and the first African American to play basketball for an ACC Carolinas school – made varsity as a sophomore, two years before Charlie Scott. He also ponders if he made the right decision to quit the sport when it seemed as if he had a chance to find out.
"I have grappled with this all of my life," Cooper said. "When you want to be a basketball player as bad as I did and then you're not able to do it, there's kind of a void there."
That, however, doesn't mean it hasn't gotten better.