No one writes Carolina football like my old friend Lee Pace.

I have known Lee for 40 years and am proud to say I gave him his first job when he came back to Chapel Hill seven years after his graduation from UNC. Unlike most Tar Heel fans who grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, Pace favored football over basketball, mostly for personal reasons.

He said as a grade-schooler in Hendersonville, he would punt a football around his backyard while listening to Carolina games on the radio on fall Saturdays. He has gone on to cover teams coached by Bill Dooley, Dick Crum, Mack Brown, Carl Torbush, John Bunting, Butch Davis, Everett Withers, Larry Fedora and now back to Mack.

He has written several books on Carolina, none better than Football In The Forest, the coffee table tome designed by his lovely and talented wife Sue (to whom I introduced him in 2009). His Extra Points columns began with a privately owned printed newsletter and now appear on GoHeels.com, the official website of UNC athletics.

There is nothing better on the site, perhaps any site, than Lee Pace’s Extra Points.

Pace has the advantage of having great writing skills, a passion for the sport he covers, insider and trusted access to the program, a Univac’s knowledge of Tar Heel history and the powerful power of observation. And, oh yes, he is the sideline reporter and this season of COVID the second banana to Jones Angell on the UNC radio network.

His column on Carolina’s runaway win at Miami was packed with all of the above: records he ticked off as they fell during the historic game, such as the most points scored by the Tar Heels (62) and margin of victory (36) against a ranked opponent; most total yards (778) by the Tar Heels and ever allowed by Miami; the ways (3) Sam Howell accounted for touchdowns by passing, running and receiving, to name a few, and numbers that did not break records that will live on in the hearts of UNC fans forever, too numerous to list here.

Pace’s descriptions of how those records and numbers were achieved are even better than the actual doings. And the quotes he gets to back all of that up demonstrates that he is not only a top chronicler and superb writer but a football reporter like no other.

Way to go, Pace, keep ‘em coming.

 

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
None