That August day in 1973 already was blistering hot, and it was about to get a whole lot hotter.
A new class of freshman football players was on the University of North Carolina practice field, scrimmaging against the first-team defense. And the frosh were getting manhandled.
Football was especially rough and tumble under coach Bill Dooley. His teams played run-it-up-the-gut football that was more about attrition than artistry. May the toughest guy win.
On this day, veterans were shoving the fresh-faced newcomers after every play, calling them “punks” and other, more colorful, names.
Graduate assistant Mike Mansfield didn’t like what he saw. He stepped into the huddle and whispered that the next player was to “punch the hell out of the guy” who pushed him. Anyone who didn’t join in the fight, he added, would run after practice.
Bill Span, a freshman offensive lineman from Virginia Beach’s Cox High, was the first pushed – and first to respond with a sock into the face mask of a senior.
A massive brawl ensued.
“Gentlemen, I love your enthusiasm,” Dooley said after the players were separated.
That’s one of many great stories that will be told today when about 100 former UNC football players from the 1970s gather in Virginia Beach. Span, who helps run a business branding company in Kirkland, Wash., organized the event.
They will reminisce about a golden area of Carolina football – in 11 seasons under Dooley, the Tar Heels won three ACC championships, went to six bowl games and finished 11-1 in 1972.
And they will hoist some cold ones, too, in remembrance of three teammates – Mansfield, Mike Voight and Brooks Williams – who can’t be there.
All three hailed from Hampton Roads. All starred with the Tar Heels. And all three died far too young.
The reunion Web site is named for Voight – www.mikevoight.com – one of UNC’s greatest players. He was one of four brothers who were high school stars in Chesapeake.
Voight was a state champion in track at Indian River who had more than 5,000 all-purpose yards in football. He rushed for 3,971 yards, then the fifth-most yards in NCAA history, in his four years at UNC. He was twice named ACC Player of the Year and was eighth in voting for the 1976 Heisman Trophy.
He played one season in the NFL before his hip was crushed in a car wreck on U.S. Route 58 just outside of Emporia.
At Chapel Hill, he was nicknamed the “Space Cowboy” because he loved the Steve Miller Band song and wore long, flowing hair. “Mike would party with anyone,” Span said. “He was just the coolest guy.”
After the accident, Voight returned to Hampton Roads, where he cared for his parents, taught in Chesapeake schools and coached at Oscar Smith High. Voight was 58 when he died of a heart attack in 2012.
Although feted in some circles as a superstar, Voight was frustrated with his football career. He didn’t win the Heisman, wasn’t an All-American and didn’t make it in the NFL.
“I was always almost there,” he told The Virginian-Pilot in the 1990s.
His older brother, Raleigh Voight, said “Almost There” is chiseled into his headstone at Norfolk’s Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Mansfield was a state champion wrestler at Norview High who quarterbacked the football team to within a touchdown of a the 1967 state title.
Bob Tata, who coached Norview football for nearly two decades, marveled at Mansfield’s physique. “He was like a Greek God,” Tata said. “He’s a quarterback built like a linebacker.”
He played both at UNC – he was the starter at quarterback before moving to linebacker, where he was All-ACC and honorable mention All-American.
After a year in the World Football League, he returned to UNC, then followed Dooley to Virginia Tech. Later, he opened health clubs in Greensboro, N.C., and St. Augustine, Fla. He built a comfortable life with his wife, Jennifer, and sons Myles and Connor in Greensboro.
“Mike was always the picture of health, always in the best of shape,” Span said.
Last April, while working out on a punching bag in his back yard, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was 63.
A Cox High graduate, Williams was an All-ACC tight end who, unlike Mansfield and Voight, carved out a pretty nice NFL career.
He played seven seasons in New Orleans, New England and Chicago before moving to Florida, where he was a star on the two-man beach volleyball circuit and worked in real estate.
He died in 2008, after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was 53.
I knew Mansfield well enough to grieve when I heard of his passing. I played with his brother, Rob, on a Babe Ruth League baseball team coached by their dad.
Mike Mansfield took a personal interest in me before the summer of my sophomore year at Norview.
I was a community league linebacker and kind of small. When Mansfield heard I planned to play another year of community league football, he sought me out. “Forget that community league crap,” he said. “Try out at Norview. You’ll make it.”
I took his advice, made the junior varsity team and finished the year on Norview’s varsity. Mansfield, running back Robert Salone and linebacker Mike Leidy led Norview to a 9-1 record that season.
Even though I ran into Mansfield from time to time in later years, I regret that I never thanked him.
Span said his five years in Chapel Hill were the best of what has been a very good life. He captained sail boats in the Caribbean and Pacific and taught thousands how to deep-sea dive in Hawaii. Actors Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were among his clients.
When a hurricane washed away all of his diving gear in 1992, he headed to Washington, where he has prospered in business. Yet, not a week goes by that he doesn’t think of his college days.
“The bond we formed was never-ending,” he said. “When we get together, it will be like it never stopped.”
Span said this reunion won’t be a wake. The Tar Heels partied hard in the 1970s, he said, and will do so again today.
It begins at Chick’s Oyster Bar, then continues by boat to a “Bombadier Beach Party” in front of the old Duck Inn. A flyer for the party says: “Must be able to swim. No lifeguards on duty. Clothing optional.”
Two boats with bikini-clad captains will ferry former players to the party.
“When we were at Carolina, we could party hard because we played hard and practiced hard,” Span said.
Voight played especially hard – he suited up the last seven games of his junior year with a broken sternum. He wore padding to protect the injury, but each tackle brought immense pain.
“Mike Mansfield was the toughest guy I ever knew,” Span said. “But Mike Voight, he was the bravest.
“It’s not the games that stick with you. It’s the friends, the relationships.”
And the stories.
Harry Minium, 757-446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com