By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — Drake Maye, the UNC quarterback who will be a high pick, maybe even No. 1, in the NFL draft, opted out of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

Maye’s local connection — his grandfather, Jerry Maye, was quite a pitcher for Catawba baseball at Newman Park in the early 1960s — is known by many, but the West Virginia team the depleted Tar Heels will be facing in the Charlotte bowl game also has a local connection.

Garrett Greene, West Virginia’s charismatic quarterback, is a grandson of the late Harry Greene, the legendary A.L. Brown back of the early 1960s.

The original Greene was 180 pounds of muscle and fury. There was a night in the 1962 season against Thomasville when he rushed 25 times for 246 yards as a single-wing tailback. He had touchdown gallops of 88 and 64 yards. He was snubbed for the Shrine Bowl, but he did make All-State.

After he graduated from A.L. Brown, Greene went to Frederick Military Academy, in Portsmouth, Va., and piled up staggering rushing totals.

Greene was a sensational baseball player as well as football player. He was an All-America baseball player at Wingate when it was still a junior college. He led Wingate to the JuCoWorld Series in 1966 and made the all-tournament team. He later was elected to the Wingate Sports Hall of Fame.

Greene went on to play two baseball seasons at Florida State. He graduated from Florida State in 1969, got a masters degree from Florida Atlantic University and settled in Florida.

He worked 30 years for the Florida Department of Corrections before retiring and returning to Kannapolis in 1995. In retirement, he served as an analyst with the North Carolina Bureau of Prisons for 13 years.

Greene, who died in the summer of 2022, had no sons, but he had three daughters.

One of those daughters, Catherine Blake Greene, who goes by Blake, married into another family of Greenes.

She wed Charlie Greene, the son of a college baseball coach in Florida.

Charlie Greene played pro baseball as a catcher from 1991-2003, got 75 at-bats in the majors, and is now the bullpen coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.

One of the sons of Blake and Charlie Greene is Garrett Greene, who grew up in baseball club houses.

With plenty of athletic genes on both sides of the family, it’s not surprising that he became a phenom growing up in Tallahassee.

A switch-hitting catcher who could motor, he was viewed as a potential Division I baseball player or MLB draft pick.

Greene didn’t play his first football game until seventh grade, but his love for gridiron contact eventually won out over baseball.

At Lawton Chiles High School in Tallahassee, he was initially employed as a running back because of his wheels, but when the team was struggling his sophomore season, he got a chance to play quarterback. His first two passes were interceptions, but then he got on a roll and never looked back. He broke school records, including the rushing record.

Because he stands a shade under 6 feet tall, Greene was only a three-star recruit. Florida State ignored him for several years even though he was only a few miles away, but he did get offers from SEC schools.

One of the first schools that expressed belief in Greene as a future college quarterback was Troy University. Troy’s head coach, Neal Brown, was hired by West Virginia after the 2018 season. Greene’s relationship with Brown was strong, and he committed to West Virginia.

College stardom did not come overnight for Greene far from home. COVID provided obstacles. He threw only a few passes for the Mountaineers in 2020 and 2021.

The transfer portal offered an easy way out, but Greene chose to stay and compete for the quarterback job. He didn’t win it in 2022.

But in November 2022, he came off the bench and rallied West Virginia to a dramatic victory against Oklahoma. That changed everything.

This season, he’s been the full-time starter, with outstanding results. He’s thrown for 2,178 yards and 15 TDs, including 391 yards in an exciting 41-39 loss to Houston. He’s thrown only four interceptions.

Besides the Houston game, he’s had five other games with more than 200 passing yards.

He has tailback speed and has 13 rushing TDs. He’s had three games with more than 100 rushing yards. He rushed for 154 yards and three touchdowns in a win against Cincinnati.

Greene is returning to the Mountaineers again in 2024. He’s a popular figure in Morgantown these days and can benefit financially from “name, image and likeness” opportunities.

Maye had an incredible season for the Tar Heels — 3,608 passing yards, 24 passing TDs, nine rushing TDs — but he has moved on, leaving Greene as the marquee QB for the upcoming bowl game.

The Tar Heels started the year 6-0 and reached No. 10 in the AP Top 25 before losing four of their last six.

West Virginia closed the regular season by winning four of its last five.

UNC and West Virginia haven’t played each other since West Virginia won 31-30 in the 2008 Meineke Car Care Bowl.

This will be UNC’s 38th bowl game and West Virginia’s 40th.

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North Carolina (8-4, ACC) vs. West Virginia (8-4, Big 12)

Charlotte, Bank of America Stadium

Dec. 27 at 5:30 p.m., ESPN