During the summer, I stumbled across a graphic on social media that caught my eye. It showed every program to have been ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press College Football poll, which debuted in 1936. Since then, there have been more than 1,200 polls, featuring 45 different teams in the top spot.
Timeline of Every AP #1 Team (1936-2025) ?
1267 polls, 45 different schools pic.twitter.com/rdHj9d3iUU
— CFB Tracker (@MatchupTracker) July 26, 2026
You can see dynasties come and go through the years: Florida State’s reign of terror in the 1990s, Pete Carroll’s great USC teams of the early 2000s, Nick Saban’s Alabama death machine in the 2010s and the recent dominance of Georgia.
Then there are the surprises: Missouri’s rise to No. 1 in 2007, which lasted all of one week; Minnesota, Boston College and Northwestern topping the poll in its early days; and doesn’t it seem like a million years ago that Dak Prescott led Mississippi State on a five-week run atop the poll?
Finally, there’s one school which sticks out like a sore thumb. Between the stately gold of Notre Dame and the bright maize of Michigan, a blue UNC logo occupies one spot in 1948. The Tar Heels, believe it or not, were once that good. In fact, Carolina was so competitive on the gridiron that, prior to the 1957 national title in men’s basketball, football was comfortably the top sport on campus among supporters.
So let’s hop in the time machine and see just what led to UNC residing at No. 1, why that residence ended so quickly, and how the 1948 season as a whole turned out.
The fall of 1948 opened full of hope for North Carolina football. Under head coach Carl Snavely, the Tar Heels had put together an outstanding 1947 season, finishing 8-2 overall and 4-1 in the Southern Conference. UNC had defeated Georgia 14-7 on opening weekend, but suffered setbacks at the hands of Texas and Wake Forest to drop to 1-2. After that, Snavely’s team went on a rampage, outscoring its final seven opponents 189-33 and finishing No. 9 in the final AP Poll while receiving seven first-place votes. Included in that winning streak was a 13-7 road win at William & Mary (which would end the season ranked No. 14 and would not lose another conference game), a 35-7 win at Florida, a 41-6 drubbing of NC State and a 21-0 shutout of Duke in Durham.
Three Tar Heels were named first team All-Southern Conference: tackle Len Szafaryn, end Art Weiner and halfback Charlie Justice. Justice also received second team All-America honors for a second consecutive season and was named the Southern Conference’s Most Valuable Player, beating Maryland halfback Lou Gambino by one vote.
Like many young men of his era, Justice was making up for lost time in college after serving four years in the armed forces during the Second World War. Born in 1924, Justice enlisted in the Navy during what would have been his college years and played on the football team at the United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, about 35 miles northeast of Baltimore. His speed in the open field so impressed the Bainbridge officers that they gave him a nickname, one which would stick for longer than anyone could have predicted: “Choo Choo.”
Following his discharge from the Navy, the 22-year-old Justice was offered a pro football contract. He opted instead to play in college and immediately drew interest from schools such as Duke and South Carolina. The Asheville native wanted to stay close to home and spurned Duke by suiting up for the Tar Heels.
As a freshman in 1946, Justice became an immediate contributor as Carolina finished 8-2-1 overall and earned a Top 10 ranking. In his first collegiate game, a 14-14 tie against the VPI Gobblers (known today as the Virginia Tech Hokies), Justice started at both punter and punt returner, while also providing one of the highlights of the day on offense.
“Justice lived up to his advance notices on broken-field running,” wrote The Daily Tar Heel’s Bob Goldwater, “as he slashed off right tackle and speeded 68 yards to paydirt, aided by beautiful blocking.”
By the end of the 1946 season, Justice was proving reason enough by himself to watch the Tar Heels — even for opposing fans. In a late-season game at Virginia, The Daily Press of Newport News, VA observed that a “near capacity crowd of 22,500 spectators turned out to see Charlie (Choo-Choo) Justice, Carolina’s great freshman tailback, race up and down the field, and they got their money’s worth.”
Justice finished with three touchdowns in the 49-14 blowout win, including a 54-yard jaunt in the first quarter and a 45-yard burst on an injured leg in the third. The Daily Press had seen enough: it referred to Justice as a “swivel-hipped, lightning-like running demon.”
All of this is to say that Justice and the Tar Heels were known commodities entering the fall of 1948. And they started that campaign with a bang, throttling the Texas Longhorns 34-7 in front of a packed Kenan Stadium. Texas had shut out Carolina the season before in Austin and finished 1947 ranked No. 5.
A jubilant UNC team lifts head coach Carl Snavely off the Kenan Stadium field following a 34-7 thumping of Texas. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
Not content to sit on their laurels, the Tar Heels then marched between the hedges and defeated Georgia 21-14 in Athens. The Bulldogs would go on to win the SEC, appear in the Orange Bowl and finish with a top 10 ranking.
That win provided the coda for what had been an intense leadup. The Daily Tar Heel reported “rudeness and unfriendliness” on the part of Bulldog fans and several cases of automobile vandalism, including one at the expense of a confident UNC supporter who had dressed his car up by writing in white shoe polish, “Carolina 34, Texas 7 — Georgia, you’re next.” Georgians were less than impressed with the trash talk: they smeared quick-drying red enamel over the polish.
The day of the game, “some 500 carefree Carolinians” met outside a hotel in Athens and then embarked on a rare road-game parade, marching through the streets of downtown and showing “the none-too-friendly town of Athens some real school spirit.”
Justice was spectacular in both wins, scoring a combined five touchdowns. His pair of scores against the Longhorns prompted The Daily Tar Heel’s Dick Jenrette to declare that the victory “probably will go down in the record books as the greatest opening game in Tar Heel history.” The next week in Athens, Justice accounted for all three of Carolina’s scores (two on rushes and one on an 83-yard punt return) and helped the Tar Heels overcome a halftime deficit.
Setting a new standard for understatements, Snavely called Justice “a great little ball player and great to have on our team.”
UNC head coach Carl Snavely (left) and All-American Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice (right). (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
With the year’s first AP Poll set to publish the week following the Georgia game, Tar Heel fans awaited its release with keen interest. They were not disappointed: UNC debuted at No. 2, behind only defending national champions Notre Dame. Oddly enough, Carolina actually received five more first-place votes than the Irish, yet sat a spot behind them nonetheless.
Perhaps feeling just a bit slighted, Snavely’s team went back on the road and came away with another decisive victory, defeating Wake Forest 28-6 in front of 27,500 fans in Winston-Salem and avenging the second of its two losses from 1947. The Demon Deacons were on their way to an impressive season of their own and would finish ranked No. 20 in the AP Poll.
Despite the victory, The Daily Tar Heel noted the Deacs’ rough play throughout the contest, particularly against Justice. “Justice, who weaved, feinted, and ran in his best fashion in the early stages of the game, fell victim of an out-of-bounds tackle in the first half,” wrote Jenrette. The hobbled All-American would give way to fullback Hosea Rodgers for the bulk of the running in the game’s latter stages, though “Choo Choo” still put up a fine statline: 70 yards on nine carries, for an average of 7.7 yards per rush.
Now 3-0 with three notable wins, the Tar Heels had once again established themselves as one of the nation’s top programs. And the following week, the players and fans finally received the validation they were looking for: the Associated Press had voted UNC No. 1 overall, just inching past Notre Dame into the top spot. Voters apparently weren’t impressed with the Irish’s 26-7 win at Michigan State the weekend prior: UNC gained two first-place votes, while Notre Dame lost 16.
Up next for UNC was a home date with rival NC State. The Tar Heels had stomped the Wolfpack in Raleigh the previous fall, but the 1948 game would prove to be tougher sledding. Carolina’s high-powered offense fumbled twice in its own territory in the first half, but the defense stopped the Wolfpack both times — including once inside the one-yard line. The halftime score stood at 0-0, with NC State having run 57 plays to UNC’s 16.
Carolina finally broke through in the second half, with Rodgers running in the game’s opening score from 50 yards out late in the third quarter. In the fourth, Justice showed off his all-around capabilities by tossing a long touchdown pass to Weiner, who caught it at the NC State 28-yard line and broke through what Jenrette dubbed “a futile tackle attempt” by a Wolfpack defender. UNC won the game 14-0, though Jenrette wrote that “most of the fans were a bit disappointed that the Tar Heels didn’t win by a bigger margin.”
AP voters felt the same way. Unmoved with the sloppy win over what turned out to be a poor NC State side (the Wolfpack finished 3-6-1 overall and 1-4-1 in the Southern Conference), the next edition of the poll dropped UNC two spots from No. 1 to No. 3. Michigan vaulted into the top spot after a resounding 28-0 win against No. 3 Northwestern in Ann Arbor, with the Wolverines taking home a whopping 74 first-place votes. Sitting at No. 2 was Notre Dame once again, which only earned 23 first-place votes to UNC’s 32. The previous week had seen the Irish wallop Nebraska 44-13 in Lincoln.
The setback didn’t appear to affect the Tar Heels very much the following weekend: Snavely’s team decisively dispatched visiting LSU 34-7 at Kenan Stadium. Justice was back to his old tricks with three total touchdowns: one rushing and two passing. After opening the scoring on the ground in the first quarter, “Choo Choo” took to the air in the third. He found Bob Cox for his first passing touchdown, tossing the ball to Cox in the flat and then watching Cox “literally running over” an LSU defender on his way to the end zone, per Jenrette. Justice then found Ken Powell with a dart between two Tiger defenders for his second passing touchdown, increasing UNC’s advantage to 27-7. But Jenrette claimed the highlight of the day wasn’t a touchdown; it was a “bullet-like” pass from Justice which Weiner snagged one-handed, a play which Jenrette hailed as “one of the best catches ever seen in these parts.”
“In all, it was a great day for the Tar Heels,” Jenrette wrote, “one that will enhance this university’s reputation as a football Mecca.”
Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice runs out onto the field. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
A crowd of 50,000 people turned out to watch UNC face Tennessee on the road the day before Halloween. Not only was the crowd the largest to watch a UNC game to that point in the season, but it was also the largest in Tennessee program history. The Associated Press wrote that Knoxville “bulged at the seams” that day.
The Vols were led by head coach Robert Neyland, a man so legendary that the university eventually affixed his name to the stadium where this game was being played. But 1948 was far from Neyland’s best year: Tennessee had opened the season with a 21-6 home loss against Mississippi State and an uninspiring 7-7 tie at Duke (who, ironically, were led by their own future stadium namesake: head coach Wallace Wade). Still, hopes were high for an upset.
Justice did his best to dash those hopes early on, throwing two touchdown passes in the first quarter, the second of which went to Weiner from 12 yards away. UNC led 14-0 as the clock neared halftime, but it appeared Tennessee found a lifeline after Hal Littleford fielded a Justice punt on his own 10-yard line and took it back 90 yards for a touchdown. Unfortunately for the Vols, officials called back the play due to a clipping penalty during the return, a decision which Ted Smits of the Johnson City Press said “drew a mighty chorus of boos.”
Tennessee finally got on the board in the third quarter and cut the lead in half after star J.B. Proctor “wandered over from the university infirmary,” according to The Daily Tar Heel’s Billy Carmichael III, and found teammate J.W. Sherrill downfield, who evaded tacklers before prancing into the end zone.
It set the stage for what Smits described as a “tensely dramatic” finish. Carmichael used slightly different verbiage, detailing the game as a “wild and woolly undertaking.” A key Justice error kept UNC from pulling away: after Carolina’s Bob Kennedy had pulled down an interception for the Tar Heels at midfield, Justice gave the ball right back after the Vols’ Bob Lund picked him off at the one-yard line.
Despite six total turnovers (three interceptions and three lost fumbles) by the offense, UNC’s defense buckled down and kept the 14-7 lead intact. The Vols managed only 42 rushing yards and were called for eight penalties, hamstringing the struggling offense. Tennessee fans didn’t forget about the most consequential of those eight penalties: “At the end of the game, it was hard to tell who was the more unpopular — the Tar Heels or the officials,” Carmichael wrote. “Both were being booed by the majority of the fans with equal vigor.”
The following week’s AP Poll kept the Tar Heels at No. 3, but shuffled the deck in front of them: Notre Dame had vaulted back into the top spot after dealing Navy a 41-7 defeat in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. Michigan’s 28-20 home win against unranked Illinois was not convincing enough to keep the Wolverines atop the college football world.
UNC was still sitting pretty, but the ugly tussle with the Vols and the slog against NC State two weeks before had shown some cracks in the foundation. The next weekend in Chapel Hill, Carolina finally stumbled. William & Mary, 27-point underdogs before the game, played the Tar Heels to a 7-7 tie before what Jenrette described as “43,000 stunned spectators” at Kenan Stadium.
Under an early November drizzle, the visitors took a 7-0 lead in the second quarter after recovering a Rodgers fumble at the UNC 23-yard line. The Tar Heels wouldn’t punch back until late in the third, and needed some lucky breaks to do even that. After a Justice incompletion on third down near midfield, the All-American was forced to line up to punt. But William & Mary roughed Justice on the kick, giving the Tar Heels 15 free yards and a first down. The drive nearly ended again after Rodgers fumbled at the 10-yard line, but Powell was first to the ball and recovered it for what turned out to be a 10-yard loss. Yet another roughing penalty against William & Mary essentially negated the loss, moving UNC up to the 5-yard line. Rodgers made no mistake this time, rumbling into the end zone to tie the game at 7-7.
Carolina wasn’t able to find another breakthrough, ensuring the game would go into the books as the team’s first non-victory since Oct. 11 of the previous year — a span of 392 days. UNC had dominated statistically, achieving 17 first downs to just one for William & Mary. But the visitors took advantage of more sloppy play from the Tar Heels, intercepting four passes and recovering three fumbles. The Carolina passing attack as a whole struggled, with four passers combining to complete just seven of 26 attempts.
Despite hardly showing a pulse offensively, William & Mary played what Jenrette called “a near perfect game” and “simply made no mistakes.”
“Never was Carolina able to recover a fumble or intercept a pass anywhere near the Indian goal,” he wrote. Indeed, UNC recovered only one fumble and intercepted only one pass, its two takeaways paling in comparison to William & Mary’s seven.
The next week’s AP Poll punished the Tar Heels for their insipid performance. UNC tumbled to No. 6 in the country, its lowest ranking of the year, while No. 3 Army, No. 4 Cal and No. 5 Penn State all vaulted ahead. Carolina, which a few weeks prior had received 52 first-place votes, now accrued just seven. Meanwhile, Michigan and Notre Dame traded places at the top yet again: the Wolverines were back at No. 1 following a 35-0 shellacking of hapless Navy in Ann Arbor, while Notre Dame had throttled Indiana 42-6 in Bloomington. The win was not seen as anything special: the Hoosiers were approximately 76 years away from becoming a powerhouse.
UNC All-American Art Weiner hauls in a pass. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
The Tar Heels took that disappointing result personally. The next week, Snavely’s team traveled north to face Maryland in Washington, D.C.’s Griffith Stadium. Once again, Carolina drew a crowd: 36,000 spectators, a new record for the most fans to ever watch a football game in the city. Those fans were treated to an explosive UNC performance, as the Tar Heels romped to a 49-20 win. After the turnover-filled slog against William & Mary, Carolina finished the game with no giveaways of any kind, prompting Jenrette to observe, “The Tar Heels seemed to have mastered their fumbling difficulties, and the passing was the best at any time this season.”
Meanwhile, it was the UNC defense which took advantage of Maryland mistakes. The Tar Heels recovered four Terrapin fumbles and intercepted three passes, two of which were returned for touchdowns by UNC’s Bill Maceyko. Justice was back to his old tricks, throwing two touchdown passes and catching another from Rodgers, capping off a Carolina run of 35 unanswered points after falling behind 7-0 early.
Jenrette described the win as “probably the best performance of the season for Carolina,” though in an interesting flip of the script from the William & Mary game, it was Maryland which dominated statistically: 355 total yards to UNC’s 179. Justice managed just 22 yards on the ground on 15 carries.
The win didn’t keep Jenrette from relaying some sobering news to his readers: Clemson had beaten Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, practically assuring the unbeaten Tigers of a Southern Conference title. “But the day was still a glorious one for Carolina,” Jenrette assured Tar Heel fans. Indeed it was: in a sidebar describing the postgame celebrations in Washington, The Daily Tar Heel’s Chuck Hauser wrote a headline which is sure to catch the eye of a modern reader: “Capital Is Stormed By Tar Heel Victors.”
In the following week’s AP Poll, UNC rose one spot to No. 5, leapfrogging Penn State. The Nittany Lions likely wondered what they had done wrong: they were coming off a 47-0 trouncing of Temple. The top four of No. 1 Michigan, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Army and No. 4 Cal remained unchanged.
UNC’s Walt Pupa (left) and Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice (right) in the locker room of Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
Up next was the final home game of the season against Duke. The Blue Devils were a middling squad in the Southern Conference, but Tar Heel fans were still eager to see their hometown team one more time: a record crowd of 44,500 filed into Kenan Stadium that day. The Daily Tar Heel’s Herb Nachman made note of the incredibly steep prices hawked by scalpers for tickets on the 50-yard line: “a high of $60.”
Those fans saw UNC win its third straight game against the Blue Devils, thanks in large part to Justice, “the mighty man of the Carolina backfield,” per Jenrette. “Choo Choo” broke a scoreless tie in the third quarter with a 43-yard touchdown run (in which his jersey was ripped by what The Daily Tar Heel’s staff photographer dubbed “eager, but ineffective” Duke defenders), then doubled the advantage with a 13-yard pass to Weiner. Weiner would haul in another touchdown pass, this time from Rodgers, to cap a stellar afternoon.
But the story was Justice: he rushed for 120 yards on just 14 carries (an average of 8.6 yards per carry), completed five passes for 47 yards and averaged 45 yards on eight punts. “In general,” Jenrette wrote of the 20-0 victory, Justice “kept the Dukes in hot water all afternoon.”
UNC climbed one more spot in the next week’s AP Poll, leapfrogging Cal to No. 4. Penn State had lost at Pittsburgh that weekend, dropping the Nittany Lions all the way to No. 18. Cal, meanwhile, had fought off a scare from unranked Stanford in the Big Game, winning 7-6 in Berkeley. Michigan, Notre Dame and Army held steady at Nos. 1-3.
Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice (#22) and Art Weiner (#50) lead the Tar Heels onto the Kenan Stadium sideline. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
UNC ended the regular season in style at Virginia, trouncing the Cavaliers 34-12 in Charlottesville. As was the case two years earlier, UVA’s Scott Stadium was filled to capacity “for the express purpose of watching the Choo Choo perform,” wrote The News & Observer’s Herman Blackman. The fans were not disappointed, as Justice accounted for four total touchdowns in a spectacular performance: the first on a pass to Rodgers, the second on an 80-yard run, the third on a pass to Cox and the fourth on a 53-yard punt return.
“The brilliant tailback certainly filled All-America billing today,” wrote Blackman. “He was simply great.”
Carolina had finished the regular season with a 9-0-1 record and 4-0-1 mark in the Southern Conference. It was not enough to nab the league title away from Clemson, which finished 5-0-0, but it was enough to bump UNC up to No. 3 in the final AP Poll. Army, which had won three consecutive national titles from 1944-46, had suffered a shocking stumble: a 21-21 tie against winless Navy in Philadelphia, ruining the Cadets’ chances at yet another championship.
Michigan reigned supreme at No. 1, amassing 192 first-place votes. The Wolverines were off the weekend of Nov. 27 after a hard-fought 13-3 win at No. 18 Ohio State the weekend prior, practically cementing them as national champions. Notre Dame, meanwhile, wasn’t about to move down after thrashing Washington 46-0 in South Bend.
Elsewhere, Justice was in the running for an individual honor: the Heisman Trophy. A shoo-in for first team All-America honors, Justice now had the chance to take home what would be the first Heisman in UNC program history. His competitors were a who’s who of gridiron greats: Penn center Chuck Bednarik, Oregon quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and SMU running back Doak Walker.
The announcement was made three days following UNC’s win against Virginia: Walker had won the award with 778 total vote points, well ahead of Justice’s 443. It’s hard to argue with Walker’s credentials: 542 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, 15 catches for 278 yards and two touchdowns, 304 passing yards and five touchdown passes, 10 punt returns for 169 yards and a touchdown, three interceptions, 35 punts and 22 extra points. Today, the national award for the most outstanding running back in college football bears Walker’s name.
Carolina had no time to mope about Justice’s runner-up finish. The Tar Heels had another game to play: they had accepted a bid to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans to face No. 5 Oklahoma on New Year’s Day, 1949.
An estimated 85,000 fans traveled down to Louisiana for the game, which was played in what Chuck Hauser of The Daily Tar Heel described as “perfect football weather.” But the football itself, from a Tar Heel perspective, was far from perfect. Justice threw an interception at the Oklahoma 10-yard line on the first drive of the game, and the Sooners’ Myrle Greathouse returned it 76 yards to the UNC 14. Oklahoma scored shortly thereafter.
Carolina punched back later in the first quarter after recovering an Oklahoma fumble to set up a touchdown run from Rodgers. But the normally reliable Cox shanked his extra point attempt, leaving UNC still trailing 7-6. The score stayed that way into the final seconds of the first half when, as The Daily Tar Heel’s Larry Fox brilliantly put it, “the second act of the three-part tragedy was staged.” Carolina had the ball on the Oklahoma 8-yard line when Justice threw to Weiner in the end zone. The All-American leapt and stretched as far as he could, but the pass fell through his hands and incomplete. UNC came away from the scoring chance emptyhanded.
The third act of the tragedy came in the third quarter, when Oklahoma’s All-America quarterback Jack Mitchell attempted just his third pass of the game. He lobbed one up to right end Frank Anderson, who battled with UNC’s Bill Flamisch for the pass.
“At first, it looked as if Flamisch had the ball firmly in his grasp,” Fox wrote. “But it bounced out into the hands of Anderson.” Anderson ran the reception to the UNC 10-yard line, and two plays later Oklahoma scored again to lead 14-6. Carolina failed to get past the Sooner 40 in any of its ensuing possessions. A somber Hauser mused that the Tar Heels “completely lost the flash with which they began the game, and played a brand of ball that did not touch their regular season exploits.” Nevertheless, according to Hauser’s account, Oklahoma’s players admitted that “Charlie Justice was the most spectacular ball player they had seen.”
All was not lost in Chapel Hill, though: the undefeated basketball team, relegated to Page 3 of The Daily Tar Heel by their more popular gridiron counterparts, had beaten Maryland 55-47 before 4,000 fans at Woollen Gym.
Disappointing ending aside, 1948 had been yet another fantastic season for Snavely’s Tar Heels. The team’s final record of 9-1-1 was the best of his four-year tenure in Chapel Hill, and the final ranking of No. 3 marked Carolina’s third consecutive Top 10 finish. Not to mention that brief No. 1 ranking, the highest on record for the program. With Justice still having one more year left in his college career, there was no reason to think UNC wouldn’t reach those heights yet again.
That, of course, did not happen. The 1949 Tar Heels began the year 4-0 and ranked as high as No. 6, but promptly lost three of their next four games, including a 35-6 home loss to Tennessee and a 42-6 thumping at the hands of top-ranked Notre Dame in front of 67,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. UNC did finish the season 7-3 overall and won the Southern Conference, but fell to Rice in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, 27-13.
Justice had yet another outstanding season and finished as Heisman runner-up yet again, far behind the Irish’s Leon Hart. That would end Justice’s UNC career, one which is still yet to be equaled in the eyes of many: his 4,883 yards of total offense were a program record which stood until 1994. He rushed for 28 touchdowns, threw for 25 and returned five kicks for scores. To this day, he is one of only two Tar Heels ever to return a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns in the same game. UNC amassed a 32-9-2 record in Justice’s time with the team; he earned two first team All-America honors, two Southern Conference MVP awards, was named the 1949 Southern Conference Male Athlete of the Year and, later, a member of the league’s 75th anniversary all-time team. He was also named the winner of UNC’s Patterson Medal in 1950.
Justice played in the 1950 College All-Star Game and was named MVP, rushing for 133 yards in a win against the reigning NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles. He was drafted by the Washington Redskins and has since been named to the franchise’s Ring of Fame.
Today, Justice is immortalized around Kenan Stadium in multiple ways. His No. 22 jersey is honored by the program, and both 22-yard line marks are painted blue in his honor. A massive statue of Justice greets passersby next to the Kenan Football Center, a facility which was approximately 50 years away from being built when “Choo Choo” suited up in Chapel Hill. The “Asheville Ambler,” as he came to be known, died in 2003, but not before he reunited with Hugh Morton, the photographer whose collection houses so many images of Justice’s exploits.
Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and Hugh Morton (Image via Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
In the picture, Justice is wearing an authentic jersey from the 1948 season, one recovered many years later by university president C.D. Spangler. The white digits still show some dirt stains, no doubt earned after Justice had ripped off a long run.
That 1948 campaign, brilliant though it was for both Justice and the team at large, carries its share of regrets. What if UNC had managed to hold onto the ball against William & Mary and make good on its many scoring chances? What if Weiner had pulled in that pass against Oklahoma? Could Carolina have finished with an 11-0 record, and perhaps won the program’s first national championship?
Larry Fox summed it up best in his Sugar Bowl dispatch. “These were the plays that could have made the difference,” he wrote, “but once again as is the case with all post mortems of athletic events, the big two-letter word ‘if’ steals the show.”
UNC’s Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice. (Image via the Hugh Morton Collection of the UNC Libraries)
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
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