>> Man, it was awesome for me.
I came from a small town in New Jersey, southern New Jersey.
I had traveled, you know, up and down the east coast because I had family in Florida
and also lived in New Jersey so Charlotte was actually that middle ground.
So coming here, I didn't know much about Charlotte then, this was 2001, 2002.
Didn't know much about Charlotte and I came on campus, it was one of the campuses
that I visited taking kind of a college tour of North Carolina.
Man, I was blown away.
Charlotte then, it was still kind of to me it still had a small city feel,
but it had the potential.
The people were amazing; they were nice, a lot different than what you would get
in the upper east and the northern states.