🏆 From Chapel Hill to the Media Booth: Building a Second Career

Joel Berry II is a college basketball commentator for the ACC Network and a financial advisor at Oppenheimer and Company. Before that, he spent three years playing professional basketball, including time in the G League, after a decorated career at the University of North Carolina under Roy Williams, where he played in back-to-back national championship games in 2016 and 2017 — coming up short in 2016, which was fuel to the fire for winning it in 2017." Raised in Apopka, Florida, in a family built around community service, Joel's path from McDonald's All American to Carolina standout to media and finance was never scripted. His work today is grounded in the same principles that shaped him growing up: impact matters more than recognition.

A Foundation of Community

Joel grew up just outside Orlando in Apopka, Florida. His parents ran a community foundation in Orlando, The Mountain Foundation, built to give local kids something constructive to do outside of school — and it still does today. His older sisters played on one of the teams in foundation's basketball league, and that's where Joel got his first taste of the game, even though his mother worried he was too small to play with older kids. What started as tagging along turned into an identity. By eight or nine, he was playing on a top AAU team, traveling to face the best competition in other states. "That's when my parents realized that basketball could end up being something that I could do," he says.

The Path to Carolina

Joel's recruitment shifted fast once college coaches came calling. He remembers his first contact period vividly: Bill Self from Kansas, Roy Williams from Carolina, and Billy Donovan from Florida all reached out. He took exactly one official visit, to Chapel Hill. "The community brought me in. Walking into the Smith Center and seeing the jerseys in the rafters, I knew I wanted to be a part of that fraternity. To be a part of that history,” he says. He committed during his junior year of high school and never looked back, going on to win three state championships at Lake Highland Preparatory School under coach Jeff Turner, a former Orlando Magic player.

Preparing for the Ordinary, Not Just the Big Moments

At Carolina, Joel played four years under Roy Williams, whose attention to detail shaped how Joel thinks about preparation. "The ones that are great are already preparing when they're in obscurity where there's no one who's watching," Joel says. Williams used to open practice with a quote of the day that freshmen were required to know cold. One stuck with Joel long before he understood what it meant: "You can't control the wind, but you can direct the sail." The lesson was about treating ordinary days with the same intensity as the big ones, because you can't control outcomes, only how you show up.

From the Court to the Media Booth

Joel played professionally for three years, before a torn meniscus put him on bed rest for eight months. That period forced a reckoning with identity that he says was harder than anything he faced on the court. "Identity is something that we all battle with," he says. Leaning on his wife and his faith, he made the decision to walk away from playing and move into commentating for the ACC Network. At the same time, he pursued licensing as a financial advisor, first at Truist and now at Oppenheimer & Co., driven by a gap he felt personally. "I come from a very minimal background when it comes to money," he says. “It was on me to help the next generation, from working individuals to athletes.”

The Weight of Being Seen: Lessons in Impact

Joel traces much of his outlook to a piece of advice his parents gave him after every high school game: whatever mood he walked out of the locker room in, someone waiting outside might be having the best moment of their life, and he owed them his full presence. That mindset has followed him into broadcasting and business. He recalls a stranger who once emailed him years after meeting him briefly, revealing that her son, a fan of Joel's who had died of cancer, had considered him a favorite player. "You never know how that impacts someone else's trajectory in their life," he says.

Legacy Over Everything

Asked what drives him, Joel doesn't point to accolades. "I want a legacy that goes beyond just what I did on the court," he says. He measures success by the stories people tell him years later, not about his stats, but about how a moment with him made them feel. That framework now extends into his work in finance, where he sees himself preparing others the way no one prepared him.

The Strength of Being Malleable

If Joel could tell his younger self one thing, it would be to stay malleable. His career didn't follow the script anyone would have written for a McDonald's All American headed to Carolina. "We at times try to take the bull by its horn and force life," he says, "rather than being able to understand, let me ask why this is happening, and try to be present with it." His broader advice to athletes facing a similar transition is blunt: build your network before you need it. "On the other side of that transition is beautiful," he says, "because now you understand who you truly are."