Former Panther Captain Munnerlyn lost his purpose. High school football brought it back
The NFL got done with Captain Munnerlyn before he got done with the NFL.
Munnerlyn was an undersized success story for most of his life — a 5-foot-9, seventh-round draft choice out of South Carolina who played cornerback in the NFL for 10 years. Seven of those years were with Carolina, where Munnerlyn became a favorite of fans and coaches. He still is No. 1 in franchise history in pick-six interceptions, with five.
But when Buffalo released him just before the 2019 season and no one else gave him a tryout, Munnerlyn was 31 years old and didn’t have a job anymore. His NFL success story was over.
By his own admission, the former Gamecock and Panther floundered. Sometimes, Munnerlyn didn’t get up until 3 or 4 p.m., unclear whether it was day or night. He was “very depressed.” He got divorced. He lost his purpose.
“I didn’t have structure,” Munnerlyn said. “And I had had structure since I was four years old.”
On Friday, Munnerlyn was introduced as the new head football coach at Julius L. Chambers High in Charlotte. With high school football, Munnerlyn has found a new purpose, he said — helping young men figure out what comes next in their own lives, while winning a bunch of football games on Friday nights.
Munnerlyn beat out around 100 other applicants for the Chambers job, according to school officials. He said he plans to hire former Panthers defensive teammate Charles Johnson to help coach the defense, and that he likely will have at least another former NFL player he’s not ready to name yet helping him out, too.
“I want to win now,” Munnerlyn said at his opening news conference, once the school’s band and cheering squad had given him a rousing welcome inside the Chambers auditorium. “I’m not that type of guy to say, ‘Yo, I need a couple years.’ No, I want to win now. And all I think it takes is some structure. Show these guys some structure. They’ve got the athletes. You’ve got tons of athletes over here. They just need some structure, and the right person in place.”
Will Munnerlyn be that right person? I’d bet on him. He was an endearing and effective Panther player — an underdog who was honest, funny and came up big in a lot of big moments for some excellent Carolina defenses. That he generally said what he thought was a reportorial bonus.
Once in 2016, when Munnerlyn was with Minnesota and the Vikings had just beaten Carolina 22-10, the cornerback noted afterward that the Vikings “weren’t really worried” about starting Carolina wide receiver Devin Funchess.
“Me personally, I don’t think he is that good, No. 17 (Funchess). So we weren’t really worried about him,” Munnerlyn said then.
Even now, Munnerlyn sticks by the statement.
“Listen, I didn’t think he was that good,” Munnerlyn said Friday.
It should be pointed out that Munnerlyn lasted 10 years in the NFL, compared to Funchess’ five.
Former Panthers head coach Ron Rivera used to get a big kick out of Munnerlyn. Rivera liked the way Munnerlyn would get after it, both physically and verbally. Munnerlyn was one of the few defensive players confident enough to get into chirping matches with Cam Newton during practice and then be able to back it up with strong play (Thomas Davis and Josh Norman could do it, too).
But that’s all in the past. Munnerlyn, still only 36 years old, is now looking toward the future.
Chambers made it to four straight state championship games from 2018-21 and won two of them, but has gone a modest 22-12 over the past three seasons.
The former cornerback certainly isn’t the first former Panther to pivot to high school coaching. Former offensive tackle Jordan Gross is the head coach of his alma mater in Fruitland, Idaho. Three former Panthers legends — Greg Olsen, Luke Kuechly and Jonathan Stewart — are deeply involved in coaching the middle school football team at Charlotte Christian. Brad Hoover, Carlton Bailey, Muhsin Muhammad, Thomas Davis — the list of former Carolina players who do or did coach at the high school level in the Charlotte area goes on.
“Back in the day, it wasn’t like that,” Munnerlyn said. “When you were done with the NFL guys, you’d never hear from them again.”
Munnerlyn got the coaching bug as a volunteer assistant coach at Charlotte’s Myers Park under head coach Chris James over the past two seasons. “It gave me that itch,” Munnerlyn said. “The night before the game, I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about the game plan.”
Although Munnerlyn said he had an opportunity to work full-time with the Buffalo Bills in some coaching capacity this season, he wanted to return to Charlotte. Four of his five kids live in town. The Chambers job appealed to him on all sorts of levels and only irritated him on one.
The former Gamecock standout wasn’t initially too high on Chambers’ predominantly orange color scheme. It could easily be mistaken for Clemson, after all.
“When I saw the colors, it kind of made me a little sick,” Munnerlyn said with a laugh.
On Monday, Munnerlyn said he would be reporting for work at Chambers. He will be working inside the school, seeing his players every day, just like his own high school coach did back in Mobile, Alabama. He will know what time he’s supposed to show up and what time lunch and workouts are supposed to be.
If it sounds regimented to you, it sounds wonderful to the coach who his players already call “Coach Cap.”
“Too much free time is dangerous,” Munnerlyn said.
Munnerlyn said he plans to bring structure and discipline to the Chambers program. And he will be glad to have a full schedule and a set of rules himself.
“I think a lot of former NFL players, we lose structure,” he said. “I was on the way to losing it, and I got it back.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
