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I remember vividly the day the ACC screwed Chris Kupec.
Some of you may remember Chris Kupec, Carolina’s All-ACC quarterback in 1974 with a 69 percent completion rate, 12 touchdowns versus 3 interceptions for Bill Dooley’s three yards and a cloud of dust offense. To clarify, Chris was the older brother of Matt Kupec, who starred for the Tar Heels five years later.
Chris Kupec, an esteemed financial services attorney in Charlotte with a loving family, died last week at age 71. He was a tall, terrific passer with a quiet leadership demeanor and beloved by his teammates and coaches. This is a story about how unfair college athletics was to Kupec, who became an NFL prospect the next year.
In 1973, Kupec won the starting quarterback position as a junior after playing the prior year behind option QB Nick Vidnovic in the Tar Heels’ 11-1 ACC Championship season. Early in the second game of 1973, Kupec suffered a severe knee injury and was done for the season. He recovered and was the ACC’s all-conference QB as a senior, leading the ’74 Heels to the Sun Bowl.
That spring, the NCAA amended its medical red-shirt rules, allowing injured players who missed two or fewer games of a season to claim an extra year of eligibility. And the rule change was retroactive for any player who was currently on an active roster. That would have given Kupec another season to play, if not for the unforgivable selfishness of other ACC schools.
NCAA rules had to be ratified by each conference, usually a rubber stamp. But at the ACC spring meetings, the conference voted NOT to adopt the rule change, which meant that Kupec was finished after only playing one full year for the Tar Heels. If the ACC had done what was best for its athletes, Kupec would have played another season for UNC, which went 3-7-1 in 1975 without him.
I was covering the story for the old Durham Morning Herald and met with Carolina’s Faculty Athletic Chairman Gerald Barrett after he returned from Greensboro and the spring meetings. Barrett was a brilliant, but mild-mannered law professor at the time, and he was smoking hot.
“They voted it down because they didn’t want to play against Kupec for one more season,” Barrett said. “I guarantee you, when the vote comes up again next year, it will pass.” And it sure did, just as Barrett predicted.
That was my first look at the underbelly of college athletics, and as we all know 50 years later that underbelly can now fit inside an elephant. Kupec believed that, with one more season of college experience, he would have been drafted by the NFL. Instead, he went to UNC’s School of Law, which he certainly could have done eventually.
But thanks to the certain members of the ACC, it was his only option.
Featured image via USA Today Sports/Brett Davis
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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