Professional Sports
| Club | League | Sport | City | Established | Championships |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carolina Panthers | NFL | Football | Charlotte, North Carolina | 1995 | 0 NFL Championships, 1 Super Bowl Appearance/Conference Title, 3 Division Titles |
| Carolina Hurricanes | NHL | Hockey | Raleigh, North Carolina | 1997 | 1 Stanley Cup, 2 Conference Titles, 3 Division Titles |
| Charlotte Bobcats | NBA | Basketball | Charlotte, North Carolina | 2004 | none |
| Charlotte Hounds | MLL | Lacrosse | Charlotte, North Carolina | 2011 | none |
The Carolinas have three professional sports teams in the Big Four major leagues. Supported by the both states, the three teams are all based in NC, two in Charlotte and the third in Raleigh. All of the sports teams are fairly recent additions; the oldest team, the NFL's Panthers, was established in 1995, while the youngest, the Bobcats, was added to the NBA in 2004. Of all the teams, the Hurricanes are the most successful, being the only team with a championship. The New Orleans Hornets are the only former team in the big four leagues, playing in the NBA and were based in Charlotte from 1988 to 2002.
The Carolinas are home to a number of NBA superstars, such as Chris Paul, James Worthy, John Wall, and Michael Jordan (from NC) and Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O'Neal, Ray Allen, and Raymond Felton (from SC). Six of these players are All Stars, four are NBA champions, and John Wall and James Worthy were the Number 1 draft picks in the 2010 NBA Draft and 1982 NBA Draft, respectively. An abnormal amount of basketball players come from here, on par with the big cities like New York and Los Angeles. While the Bobcats do little to generate buzz in the Carolinas, they are home to three of the most successful collegiate men's basketball teams in the NCAA, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State Wolfpack and the Duke Blue Devils. All three schools are fierce rivals who have combined to win 11 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships (UNC has 5, Duke has 4, NC State has 2).
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Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or sports:
“Many young girls are ... becoming trained nurses, whose gentle ministrations in the sick-room, skilled touch, patient watchfulness and unwearied vigils, are as great factors in the care of the sick, as are the professional physicians.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because then there’s living proof. They can sit around and say, “See? It doesn’t work.” I don’t want to be their living proof.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)