University of North Carolina Athletics
James Spurling, Longtime UNC Athletics Staff Member, Passes Away
February 5, 2026 | Football, General
James Spurling, whose selfless nature, honesty, commitment to teamwork and dedication to all things Tar Heels wove him through the tapestry of Carolina for more than five decades, passed away suddenly this morning. The long-time Director of Kenan Stadium and the Kenan Football Center and Massey Award winner was 68.
JAMES SPURLING: ONE OF ONE
By Lee Pace
James Spurling's lifelong connection to the University of North Carolina began with a simple act of kindness. Would there have been any other way?
As a teenager in the late 1970s, Spurling worked construction for his father and got extra hours pumping gas and doing odd jobs at a service station on Airport Road in Chapel Hill. Ernie Williamson, a former Tar Heel football player and at the time the first executive director of The Rams Club, stopped in one day and said he had a flat tire on his tractor at home and asked if he could borrow an air tank.
The owner of the station had a brusque reply: "Maybe you should go ask where you buy your gas."
Spurling was embarrassed that a customer had been treated rudely and, as an avid Carolina fan, was also a little awed that the man in front of him had played football not only for the Tar Heels but the Washington Redskins in the NFL. He struck up a conversation with Williamson and offered to visit Williamson's home that evening and help him repair his tractor. That accomplished, Williamson offered to pay Spurling, but he refused.
"Son, you ever been to a Carolina football game?" Williamson asked.
"No, sir, but I'd love to," Spurling answered. "My eyes got big as half dollars when he said he'd take me to a game."
And so began a long-standing relationship between Spurling and Tar Heel athletics—the football program in particular—that lasted until early Thursday morning when Spurling passed away after complications developed from a short-term medical condition. He was 68 years old and is survived by three sisters.
"What I will remember most about James was his easy smile, sincerity, connection with people, high standards and honesty," says Carolina Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham. "His selfless nature, honesty, commitment to teamwork and dedication to all things Tar Heels wove him through the tapestry of Carolina for more than five decades."
As word spread Thursday of Spurling's death, former Tar Heel players, coaches and support staff members commiserated over their loss and what Spurling meant to the program.
"He was the glue behind the scenes for Carolina football since the '90s," says Dré Bly, a Tar Heel All-America cornerback in the late 1990s and later an assistant coach. "You called James for anything, and he always delivered. He knew everybody in the Chapel Hill area. Any issues we had from the smallest to biggest things, he always had a solution."
"Mr. Spurling was the father to many players that have come through UNC," adds Marquise Williams, a quarterback from 2011-15. "I'm going to miss him."
"He'd give you the shirt off his back," says Jason Tudryn, a member of Larry Fedora's staff in the 2010s.
"He was one of one," says Jason Andrews, a videographer in early 2000s. "He was the caretaker of Carolina football and such a joy to work with."
Spurling as a young man worked a year as a police officer in Creedmoor and then took a full-time job at Eastgate BP. He had a chance to buy the station in 1982 and could cite 40 years later his exact monthly payment on the loan: "It was $3,508 a month. I was scared to death. But I paid that 20-year note off in 17 years."
Eastgate BP was a gathering spot back in the day for locals to not only buy gas and get an oil change but to chew the fat and catch up on local news. Various and sundry from town and gown would convene every morning to commiserate about politics, the weather and Tar Heel sports. Among the regulars over the years were Williamson, UNC Chancellor Bill Aycock and Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Paul Rizzo.
"Mr. Spurling's station was centerpiece of town," says Hampton Corley, who grew up in Chapel Hill and whose father, Glenn, was a prominent architect. "Men met there and talked about town business. He kept tabs for gas sales and people settled up at the end of the month."
It was over more than two decades at Eastgate BP that Spurling's amiable personality, servant heart and soft Granville County drawl endured him to legions of locals and those who popped into town from time to time, among them prominent university benefactors like Maurice Koury and Charlie Loudermilk. Shawn Hocker, now a prominent orthopedic surgeon in Wilmington, and Jeff Saturday, a former NFL All-Pro center, were among the football players who were hired for off-season and summer jobs.
"It was not so much a job as it was a course in developing relationships," Hocker says. "James' place was the cultural hub of the town. When I left, I realized I'd learned from the master. Those years helped cement who I am."
"Eastgate BP was a 'Who's who' of university and town leaders who'd come through every day," adds Saturday. "It was a home-away-from-home for a ton of folks. James always had a smile on his face and was there to listen. It was like the town barbershop. The news traveled first through Eastgate BP."
When Hocker was rejected when he first applied to med school, Spurling was there with a rub on the shoulder and uplifting word. When Saturday went undrafted by the NFL out of college before later catching on as a free agent, Spurling was there to sooth his emotions and promise him things would turn out.
"In my darkest hour, James was there for me. Few people in my life have made an impact like James has," Saturday says.
Spurling sold the station in 2005 and was looking for something to do. John Bunting, the Carolina head coach at the time, told him there was a part-time receptionist job opening at Kenan Football Center. Spurling applied, was hired, and soon after, applied for the recently vacated position of Kenan Stadium facility director.
Dick Baddour, the athletic director at the time, remembers Spurling going through the standard interview process and the Athletic Department sending his application to the UNC Office of Human Resources with the recommendation he be hired.
"H.R. didn't want to approve it because they didn't think he had enough experience and training," Baddour says. "They said while he had owned and operated a service station, and, by the way, the most popular one in town, he did not have the qualifications. So we had our H.R. person sit down with him and completely understand the skills and abilities needed to run a first-class service station. Turns out those traits were directly in line with our job. We wrote it up with a strong recommendation to hire, and they went along with us.
"I wrote a note on the recommendation to hire saying he will, without question, be one of the most outstanding hires in the department. That proved to be true. And he has pleased five head football coaches, which may be his grandest achievement."
Make that six coaches now that Bill Belichick was hired in December 2024.
“I am deeply grieved at the news of James Spurling’s passing this morning," Belichick said. "His work for the football program was invaluable, his dedication to the university was unequaled, and, above all, his character as a person was exemplary. He was irreplaceable, and we already miss him greatly. May this exceptional man rest in peace.”
Spurling's title was "Director of Kenan Stadium," and in that role was responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the Kenan Football Center and stadium and managing construction and renovation projects. Every supplier and contractor went through Spurling. He unlocked the gates at dawn from a jangly key ring that numbered as many as 72 keys and constantly patrolled for wayward trash. It was a seven-day-a-week job at times. He helped Tar Heel fans spread loved ones' ashes on the playing field.
Often he went beyond the call of duty. In Maurice Koury's declining years, Spurling routinely picked him up in a golf cart from his parking spot before football games and drove him to the elevator entry into the north side premium seating facility that bore the names of John Pope and Koury himself. Carol Folt, the UNC Chancellor from 2014-19, joked that she'd kidnap Spurling to move with her to the University of Southern California, so pleased was she at his attention to the details of her viewing box for football games and Spurling getting the facility spick and span for May commencement exercises.
He always had time for a story and to ask about a visitor's family. He was liable to encounter a man and his wife or girlfriend and say, "Where's the seeing-eye dog? This gal wouldn't be with you if her eyesight was any good." The Carolina students serving in various manager, videographer and office support roles called him "Mister James."
"I've loved every minute I've been here," Spurling said in 2016. "This is a special place. The people who generated the history of this program and the history of this stadium are still here in spirit. I think my friends like Ernie and Maurice are looking down and saying, 'Man, that stadium is as pretty as it ever was.' What I care about is having people come in here and say, 'James, this place looks great.' That's the neatest thing."
Spurling's work was lauded with various awards such as the 2009 Ernie Williamson Award, given to an Athletic Department employee for outstanding service, and the 2015 C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award, one of the most coveted distinctions earned by faculty and staff on the Chapel Hill campus as a whole. Paul Rizzo, known by Spurling as "Pappa Rizzo," and his wife Sydna endowed a full football scholarship in Spurling's name.
But nothing matched the day in October 2021 when Spurling arrived at a surprise ceremony to name the West Concourse of Kenan Stadium in his honor.
"What you have done for this place will never go away, and now your legacy will live forever," said Mack Brown, the Carolina head coach at the time who befriended Spurling at Eastgate BP when Brown first arrived in Chapel Hill in 1988. "We love you, we appreciate you. I'm glad that for many, many years people will know the story and the person, James Spurling."
Cunningham and Hocker delivered remarks that afternoon as well.
"It's been said that you cannot live a perfect day until you do something for someone who cannot help you in return," Cunningham said. "James does that every day for hundreds of people. This is an opportunity to celebrate what he has meant to Carolina, and, specifically, to Carolina football."
Hocker reminisced about his days at Eastgate BP, about Spurling's insistence on having good manners in answering the phone to scolding the boys for wolfing down too many of the store's Moon Pie inventory.
"I couldn't be prouder to see James parlay that into a larger arena with the football program," he said, then mentioned Brown's coming back to Chapel Hill in 2018 and having seven former players from the 1990s in some degree of assistant coaching or administrative support role. Then he nodded toward Spurling.
"Some of that glue that brings us together is this man in front of us."
Saturday was on live TV with ESPN Thursday morning when his phone lit up with texts from teammates that his old friend was gone. He couldn't believe it at first.
“I was stunned,” he says. “How do you process that? James was so special. He was the Tar Heel, and I would put that word in boldface italics. There was no greater representative of our university than that man. He was selfless and cared so much about other people. During tough times, he was the guy who was your greatest advocate and greatest cheerleader. James is gone way too soon. I’m going to miss my friend.”
And that servant heart ran from helping Ernie Williamson fix a tractor tire back in the 1970s to more recent times and accommodating Tar Heel fans who'd wander into Kenan Stadium.
Once he arranged to unlock the gate on a weekend so a young man could bring his girlfriend in and propose marriage. Spurling was watching from his office high above the field as the fellow knelt down to pop the question. In the thick of it all, the automatic sprinkler system turned on and doused the couple with water. It took just the blink of an eye for James Spurling to grab some towels and rush to the field to dry them off.
A memorial service and tribute to James Isreal Spurling are in the works. They will be announced on Goheels.com when available.
