Embrace tradition while you can in sports. It may seem like it will last forever, but it won’t.
In 2003, I’ll never forget broadcasting Chapel Hill vs. Jordan for WCHL at Culton-Peerman Stadium. The Tigers quarterback, Ryan Horton, found wide receiver Charlie Nieves for a game-winning touchdown pass. It put the Tigers in the 4A State Playoffs. It was also Horton and Nieven’s senior night.
I was broadcasting the game with Rougemont resident Phil Wimberly as we interviewed Horton and Nieves during postgame. The stadium was empty as Horton and Nieves walked off the field together and into the mist that led up to the Chapel Hill locker room. It was their last home game.
They ended up more than teammates. They were brothers, but it didn’t start that way.
Both entered Chapel Hill High from middle school thinking they would be the starting quarterback for then-Chapel Hill head coach Joe Wolf. But Horton got the starting nod, when caused consternation.
At first, Horton and Nieves traded side-eyed glances during school and practices while trying to figure out how to coexist. Eventually, Nieves grew into his role as a wide receiver, even wearing golden cleats for big games. Now, Nieves is an Associate Athletic Director with the Charlotte 49ers after years at Georgia Tech.
Horton, meanwhile, is an example of something ending the way it began. After serving as an assistant coach for Isaac Marsh, the winningest head coach in Chapel Hill history, Horton replaced his mentor in 2025.
I was a member of the first freshman class at Orange High in the fall of 1987, which was also when the first Orange men’s soccer team took the pitch under the direction of head coach Pat Todd. In my first trip to Chapel Hill High, the Tigers men’s soccer team eked out a 13-0 win over the Panthers in their first meeting.
Chapel Hill and Orange have been in and out of conferences together since then, but I got a reminder of how special the rivalry is the last time they played as league rivals during the spring season of 2021.
It’s one of the top three football games I’ve ever done play-by-play for.
Chapel Hill had lost ten straight games to Orange going into the special spring pandemic year, which consisted of six regular season games. The Panthers had lost its starting quarterback after the season-opener, which forced then-head coach Van Smith to shift to a double wing offense with Jayce Hodges installed at quarterback.
It worked for that team. After losing to Southern Durham in the season opener, the Panthers defeated Northern Durham 7-6 at Durham County Stadium on the night Roy Williams coached his last game at North Carolina.
I wish I could provide time estimates from the 2021 Chapel Hill-Orange game, but that was one of the quirks from that day. It was played on a Saturday afternoon because of a torrential thunderstorm on Friday night. Just as the two teams ran through their respective banners for the opening kickoff, the rain started. Coach Derryl Britt and I waited three hours before the game was ultimately moved to Saturday.
In fact, lightning struck the scoreboard, which caused the clock to malfunction. Time was kept on the field.
With less than one minute remaining and Orange trailing 21-14, Hodges found Eric Brooks for a 49 yard pass to the Chapel Hill 22-yard line. In its double wing offense, the Panthers pounded the ball to the one-yard line, where senior Jackson Wood scored on 4th-and-goal with 25 seconds remaining.
It looked like another storybook win for Orange. In fact, it set up something different. Tiger quarterback Caleb Kelley threw a 44-yard pass to wide receiver Kyhlil Jones. On the final play of the game, Chapel Hill’s Nolan Westrom kicked a 40-yard field goal as time expired, clearing the crossbar by inches.
I can still remember the contrast between the two sidelines afterwards. Marsh, who had suffered countless heartbreaking losses to Orange, was smiling with his assistants, something quite different from his stoic nature.
On the other sideline, Orange assistant Erick Villines appeared in shock, staring at the ground sitting on a bench long after the rest of the team had gathered on the team bus.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My senior year, when Orange defeated Chapel Hill in 1990, there were two players from Chapel Hill that would go on to win Super Bowls. Bernardo Harris, who went on to UNC, was a member of the 1996 Green Bay Packers, the only World Championship that Brett Farve won. He scored a rushing touchdown in the east end zone. There was also Matt Stevens, who sadly passed away last year in Cary. After playing at Appalachian State, Steven ended his NFL career as a teammate of Tom Brady for the 2002 New England Super Bowl team.
On the sidelines for Orange that night? At quarterback, there was Scott Satterfield, now the head coach at Cincinnati. Behind him in the I-formation was Damon Scott, who would go on to become a I-AA All-American at Appalachian.
Orange won that night after Jermaine Lattie returned a fumble for a touchdown.
I can’t say that the Orange-Chapel Hill football game always delivers. Some years, it does. Often, it’s a blowout.
But it’s still around with both teams competitive. And it’s still a local rivalry.
