WASHINGTON – Along with North Carolina stars Brice Johnson, Marcus Paige and Justin Jackson, Gainesville native Kanler Coker took his turn trimming a piece of the Verizon Center nets Saturday night to celebrate North Carolina's ACC championship over Virginia. For Coker, a Flowery Branch High graduate, it was a turn of events both a dream come true and the result of what has proven a happy detour.
“Awesome,” said Coker, a Tar Heels guard. “It’s hard to describe. I’m so happy for the team.”
Less than a year ago, he was a quarterback on the UNC football team trying to fight his way up the depth chart while dealing with painful injury. He is now a walk-on on the seventh-ranked basketball team, a part of the team he grew up dreaming of playing for.
“I obviously don’t play like I want to, but, you know how that is,” Coker said. “But, overall, it’s been an awesome experience.”
Basketball was Coker’s favorite sport as a child, but, believing he had a higher ceiling with football, he chose to give up basketball. A three-star prospect first at North Hall High and then at Flowery Branch for his senior season, Coker signed with North Carolina and began his career in 2012. He served as a backup, seeing action in three games in 2013 and 2014. However, an elbow injury that bothered him during his entire UNC career eventually led him to give up quarterback during spring practice in 2015.
“I told my coach I couldn’t really throw anymore because I’d been dealing with this since I’d gotten there,” Coker said.
Coaches asked him to consider moving to wide receiver, but Coker decided against it. He was interested instead in playing basketball for coach Roy Williams. Coker had grown up a North Carolina fan and dreamed of playing for Williams. A point guard, he was talented enough to receive interest from Clemson and Ole Miss, among others, before deciding on football.
Football coach Larry Fedora said he would talk to Williams, who let Coker scrimmage with the team and participate in four practices over the summer before deciding to add him to the roster. The one problem for Coker and his family – playing basketball meant that he couldn’t receive the medical scholarship which he could have received had he decided to stop playing football and be done with intercollegiate athletics of any sort.
“It was something that I had to really pray about and talk to my family a lot,” Coker said. “Because, being from Georgia, out of state, it’s not very cheap.”
Coker’s parents, recognizing that it had long been his dream to play basketball for the Tar Heels, acquiesced. Coker said he isn’t completely sure how the tuition is getting paid.
“My dad said me and him would work it out,” he said.
Coker had a more powerful motivation urging him to play basketball – the memory of his late brother Keaton, who died from brain cancer in July 2014 at the age of 18, shortly after his high school graduation. After Kanler enrolled at UNC on a football scholarship, Keaton held out hope that his brother could fulfill his dream to play basketball for the Tar Heels, according to a Gainesville Times report last December.
“It was a no-brainer,” Kanler told the Gainesville Times. “I think about Keaton smiling down from heaven, and I knew he’d be proud. It was motivation for me the whole time.”
In his memory, the Coker family established the Thumbs Up Mission, which provides retreats free of charge to families with a parent who is fighting an advanced stage of cancer.
“We try to cater to the families and let them know it’s good to come together,” Coker told the Gainesville Times.
Coker has one more season remaining with the Tar Heels. His primary job is playing on the scout team, prepping the regulars by portraying upcoming opponents. He has also played in 11 games for a total of 14 minutes.
He was out for the tournament because he broke the fourth metatarsal in his right hand about three weeks ago. He said he could be out another two weeks, which would bring him back for a possible Final Four appearance.
“We had three goals going into the season, one being to win the ACC regular season, so we got to check that off last weekend,” Coker said. “Then win the ACC tournament, so we got to check that off (Saturday night). We’ve got one more, and you know that one.”
Coker’s life journey has already included the most profound sadness and the achievement of a life’s dream. Why not a national championship?
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