Jason Capel's first game as a basketball player at North Carolina was on Nov. 13, 1998, at the Smith Center.
He was a freshman in the starting lineup on opening night, and he made a splash with seven points, 10 rebounds and five assists. The opponent was Appalachian State.
On Saturday, Capel will coach for the first time in Chapel Hill. He'll return to the Smith Center in a different role — as the coach of Appalachian State.
He said he's looking forward to going back.
"I haven't been there a lot since I graduated," said Capel, who last attended a game in Chapel Hill in 2005, when he went to see and support the players who were freshmen when he was a senior for the Tar Heels.
"It's definitely going to be fun to take my team there, the team that I'm coaching, to the place that I played. A lot of what we do on and off the court is modeled after North Carolina.
"Of course, we understand we're going there to wrestle a bear. It's a tall order. But we have a chance to get better from it and grow as a team. That much I'm definitely looking forward to, and it's going to be fun to go in there and play."
Well, for the most part.
"I say it's going to be fun now," Capel said, "but if they go on a 20-0 run, it's not going to be very darn fun."
He said that he has no mixed feelings about coaching against North Carolina, where he started all four seasons, starting in 1998.
"There aren't," Capel said.
"It's more of being proud. It's more of a testament to coach (Dean) Smith and being a part of that coaching tree. To have a chance to run your own program and go back and compete against what you learned and all the guys that came before me — such as Buzz (Peterson), who put me in this position that I'm in right now. So it's a sense of pride and I'm looking forward to going back, taking my team there and us having a chance to compete against those guys."
Capel, a native of Fayetteville, said he grew up as a Tar Heels fan. His older brother, Jeff III, played at Duke, but Jason said "there were only two teams that I wanted to play for — either North Carolina or a team my dad (also Jeff) was coaching."
Capel, who played for Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty, was a two-time All-ACC selection. He was part of a Final Four team in 2000, and he led the Tar Heels his senior season with 15.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.9 steals.
"I learned more than just basketball at North Carolina," Capel said. "It was as much about how to conduct yourself, how to carry yourself. It helped prepare me for life after basketball.
"You face everything there. You are under such a microscope as part of that program. The coaches there, the guys that I played for, did a great job of molding us to go on and be successful. I benefitted from that. I had some very good times there, some tough times, but that's life. I learned a lot about myself, enjoyed the experience, met my wife there and made friendships that will last forever."
Capel was hired by Peterson as an assistant at ASU in 2009.
The next year, Peterson left for UNC Wilmington, and Capel was named the head coach of the Mountaineers. At the time, Capel, then 30, was the youngest Division I head coach in the country.
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