Willie Cooper's story as UNC's first black basketball player began in Elm City

Posted Feb 27, 2015
The story of Willie Cooper Jr. neither begins nor ends with him becoming the first black basketball player at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a member of the Tar Heels freshman team in 1964-65. During tryouts for the varsity team at UNC in 1965, Cooper decided he would give up basketball and the chance to play for Carolina’s young head coach Dean Smith. (Wilson Times)

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