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From Australia to UNC: Tom Sheldon’s long journey to become a college football punter

CHAPEL HILL

About the only things Tom Sheldon knew about North Carolina were that Michael Jordan played basketball there and that in football the Tar Heels, in his words, “had a good season last year.” That was it.

“I couldn’t have told you whereabouts in America it was or anything,” Sheldon, an Australian native who has been in America for a little more than one month, said earlier this week. “I had to jump on Google and learn a bit about it pretty quickly.”

Sheldon had just finished another UNC football practice. He was days removed from his first college football game, his debut as the Tar Heels’ 27-year-old freshman starting punter.