Signing day

Reggie Bullock caught the attention of University of North Carolina head men’s basketball coach Roy Williams the first time he saw him. Joshua Lovick caught the attention of East Carolina scouts the first time they saw him.

Both will sport their jerseys a year from now.

Bullock and Lovick signed national letters of intent Wednesday to play basketball for the Tar Heels and baseball for the Pirates, respectively, and made their signings public during a ceremony Thursday at the Kinston High School Performing Arts Center.

“I’ve been waiting for this for two years,” Bullock said. “I’m actually going to get the chance to put on Carolina blue and go out there and do what I do.”

Bullock’s childhood dream was to play in Chapel Hill while Lovick’s was to just play baseball. Lovick had never really given the thought of playing in Greenville a chance until ECU scouts and coaches saw him play in a tournament in Charlotte over the summer, where they offered him a partial athletic scholarship on the spot.

“I never really pictured myself at East Carolina when I was younger,” Lovick said. “Maybe that’s just because I overlooked it because it was so close.

“But as I see it now, it’s really where I should be.”

Both Bullock and Lovick are a part of a senior class at Kinston High that has had success at athletics.

While Bullock — considered one of the 10 best players in America, according to several recruiting services — only plays basketball, Lovick is also a tight end on the football team that has enjoyed a turnaround in the past two seasons.

Both also have attitudes of humility and unselfishness, characteristics that attracted their respective future head coaches to them, along with their athletic abilities.

“He just basically has the whole package of what I’m looking for when I look at a basketball player,” UNC head coach Roy Williams told The Free Press via phone. “He really has the whole package.”

Bullock, who chose the Tar Heels as a sophomore over Wake Forest and Indiana, will take with him to Chapel Hill a 6-foot-6, 190-pound sharp-shooting frame with the ability to defend, handle the ball and be productive around the rim.

Lovick, who will be primarily a catcher for the Pirates, hit .590 with two home runs and drove in 26 runs as a junior.

Each stated that closeness to home and academics also played a role in their decisions. Bullock wants to major in communications while Lovick, who also had interest from UNC-Wilmington and the College of Charleston, is looking for a possible career in dentistry.

“The fact that they offer all that stuff made it that much easier,” Lovick said of his decision.

Just like Williams and ECU head baseball coach Billy Godwin thought when they first saw Bullock and Lovick, their current head coaches thought the same.

Bullock was in the seventh grade when Kinston head coach Wells Gulledge saw him play for the first time at Rochelle Middle School, then saw him play again in a recreation game at Holloway Center.

“He just went nuts in there one night,” Gulledge recalled, “and he’s just in the seventh grade. He was head and shoulders above everyone else.

“I told my wife that night … we’ve got a kid coming in that’s going to be a big-time player. And I think he proved everybody right.”

On Lovick, Kinston head baseball coach Jason Wade said: “He’s been great for me and he’s going to go right in and play. There’s not going to be another person on ECU’s roster that’s going to outwork him.

“I expect him to make an immediate impact his freshman year.”

Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or rherman@freedomenc.com. An extended version of this story appears at freepresspreps.com.