Memorial service for Panthers founder Jerry Richardson scheduled for March 18
The memorial service for Carolina Panthers founder Jerry Richardson will be held at 11 a.m. March 18 in Spartanburg on the campus of Wofford College.
Richardson died March 1 at age 86. While he spent the final decades of his life living in Charlotte, his roots at Wofford also run deep. He was a star football player at the college and has given his alma mater hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to fund various projects. He also ran his restaurant empire out of Spartanburg, which is about 75 miles from Charlotte, for years.
A statue of Richardson resides on the campus and the Jerry Richardson Indoor Arena — where Wofford plays its home basketball and volleyball games — is named for him. The Carolina Panthers have held their summer training camp at Wofford for decades and have continued to do so even after Richardson sold the team.
Richardson masterminded the creation of the Panthers in the early 1990s, and the team began play in 1995. He owned the Panthers until 2018, when he sold the team to current owner Dave Tepper.
The memorial service will also be live-streamed at https://wofford.edu/jjrcelebrationoflife.
This story was originally published March 7, 2023 at 1:12 PM.
