April 4, 2005

Tommy Thigpen was in the trenches as the Tar Heels rebounded from 1-10 his freshman year in 1989 to 9-3 with a Peach Bowl victory as a senior.

Today the Tar Heels' All-ACC linebacker (1990-92) remembers the gadget plays Duke ran in the final minutes of a 41-0 win in 1989. "We pledged walking off that field, we would never lose to Duke again," he says. "And it took them, what, 13 years to get the Victory Bell back?"

He remembers being in the thick of a goal-line stand that forced eventual national champion Georgia Tech into a game-tying field goal the next season. "We grew up a lot in just one year," he says. "We never took our eye off the goal."

Today Thigpen goes to work daily in an office that overlooks that very playing field. "My first couple of days back, my head was in a cloud," he says. "It took a while to get grounded. To come back and coach at your alma mater is a dream come true."

Thigpen was hired in January from Illinois to become the Tar Heels' new linebackers coach, replacing John Gutekunst, who has joined the offensive staff to tutor the tight ends. Thigpen today at 34 is an amalgam of many coaches he's played under or coached with in his career--an important core of them coming from Mack Brown's staff at Carolina in the early 1990s.

"From Mack, you learn to `wow' people, that first impressions are so important," Thigpen says.

"From Carl Torbush, you learn a work ethic and how to treat people fairly.

"From Terry Lewis, you learn the gift of gab, of making people feel good being around you.

"From Donnie Thompson, you learn about tough-love, about being a strict disciplinarian.

"You take little pieces of everyone and blend them into the whole."

Now Thigpen is siphoning the experience and wisdom from head coach John Bunting at a linebacker position where Bunting, too, was All-ACC (1971) and where he played and coached his way to the Super Bowl (as a player in 1981 and a coach in 2000). Bunting has been hands-on with the linebackers to some degree since his taking the head coaching job at Carolina in 2001, usually working with half the linebackers on fundamentals during the early stages of practice.

"Some guys say you've got the hardest job on the staff if the head coach played and coached your position," Thigpen says. "But I welcome his input. He's an encyclopedia of knowledge about defense and linebacker play. He's done it himself at the highest level. He's a great learning tool for me."

Thigpen is effusive in the quality of individuals he's coaching at linebacker--citing Larry Edwards coming in at 6 a.m. to watch film and Chase Rice arriving early or hanging late for one-on-one drill work.

"That's when you turn the corner, when guys are doing the extra things without being told to do them," he says. "They're obsessed with getting better because they want to play and they want to win."

The Tar Heels have seven linebackers who can and will work into the mix next fall. Doug Justice is the starting middle linebacker with Victor Worsley the backup. Tommy Richardson is first team at the weakside ahead of Rice. Jeff Longhany is first team at strong ahead of Edwards. Durrell Mapp is showing up as a weakside linebacker and special-teams enforcer.

"I want to be two-deep at every position, and I think we're going to have that," Thigpen. "The twos are pressing the ones at every position. I'd like see one guy get maybe 40 plays and the younger guys get 30. Once you get to two-deep, you can keep your energy and intensity level up over a longer period of time."