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The University of North Carolina's football program, led by Bill Belichick, is facing criticism for a lack of motivation and discipline. That is starting to reflect poorly on the university as a whole.


UNC football criticism reflects on fan base, faculty; student leader asks for independent review

<p>Professor Clemons, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me, Bethany. I'm a fan of student journalism and I really can't say no if I'm asked to do something. So yeah, well, we're really excited to have you here. Obviously there's been a lot of drama and stuff going on with Bill Belichick this week and his disappointing season. How do you feel we. Ended up in this situation based on what you claimed in a lawsuit against the board of trustees regarding Belichick's hiring process. Yeah, I think I wanna stay a little bit away from the lawsuit part. I, I think it's a minor point, uh, the process, I mean the details of the process, the way, the way I see what happened and of course as chief academic officer, uh, I was not an immediate participant in the athletics discussions, but, uh, but I think people, uh, wanted to make a big bet. uh, I think, uh, Belichick was a very large. And maybe some will say now dangerous bet uh to move athletics at UNC into a kind of a new state uh and I think sometimes when you make a bet that's almost all or nothing you might end up with a nothing and uh I won't say we're there but I think the bet has not paid off in the way that people uh were hoping. Yeah, definitely went into the season expecting a little bit more, some more wins, leaving fans disappointed too because I feel like there was a lot of hype around Bill Belichick and what he was gonna do for this program. Let's say there were some expectations set and uh they're not being met at this point, yes, so my second question for you is um how so your brother was going through a recruitment process. What similarities do you. You see in this situation with Bill Belichick into your brother's recruitment. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you some stories from a long time ago, but I wanna preface it by saying, you know, a couple of things. Uh, first of all, full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Bubba Cunningham. I think he understands college athletics. I think he has values that align to what a university does, uh, and so as chief academic officer, I just want to, to make the point. That athletics uh is not just about talent development for athletes. The university, we, we, uh, we take, I, I call them kids, young men and women 18 years of age, and it's not just about teaching subjects and developing talent, it's about character formation and I think athletics can be a big part of character formation. So when when I was a junior in high school, my brother a senior, he was recruited heavily by several SEC teams. Uh, we had to dinner at our house Emery Ballard, who was then coach at Mississippi State University, he invented the Wishbone offense. So I've, I've had, uh, I've had dinner with the inventor of the Wishbone offense, and then, and then we had Bo Ryan come who had been coach at NC State and was hired at LSU, which is where my brother eventually wound up. Uh, those interviews were about the family's comfort, not just is this the right place to do talent development, but what is the, the level at which mom and dad are comfortable turning their 18 year old child over to a system that's both going to develop them as an athlete, but I think equally importantly develop them as as a person. Uh, and, and develop their character and so I'm trying to imagine, uh, in those days if Bill Belichick had showed up, uh, at our house whether that would have been a choice my Baptist mom would have made, uh, you know, given some of the things that happened when he was in the NFL, uh, you know, I, I think paying fines for cheating, losing his quarterback for four seasons, so, so I wonder whether, uh, we need to refocus on. The values proposition that goes with athletics as as an academic institution and not uh and not an NFL uh operation. Yeah, I feel like there's been discussion about how we're they're student athletes, so they're learning and not everyone's promised a professional career in the sport after so it is important to think about the, I think that's important to remember most will not have a professional career. My brother was injured after one season. Uh, coach Jerry St, so Bo Ryan, uh, sadly, uh, uh, died in a plane accident about a month after he was at our house recruiting my brother, and Jerry Stovall took over as head coach there. He later hired, uh, Matt Brown as an offensive line coach, so my brother met Matt Brown in 1983. Uh, but my brother didn't play. He didn't even finish out his four years. They let him keep his scholarship so he could manage, uh, the team, uh, as a manager. Uh, so everybody did, they did very well by our family and it was part of a commitment that we saw and they saw as more than a professional commitment. It was a personal commitment to do right by that individual athlete. And to give them an experience that was befitting an institution of higher ed and appropriate for a young person who's who's not fully formed as an adult and and may need coaching off the field as well as coaching on the field. Yeah, so how do you see UNC getting out of the situation that they're in? There's a lot of headlines, there's a lot of sticky situations that they're in. Do you see UNC being able to get out of this? I have no idea how you get out of this. What I would hope as a former chief academic officer is that we would focus on the core values of the university. Uh, that we would look at not just the development of athletic, uh, performance and and beyond football and the other sports that we would look at character development that we would look at at the life of the mind. I mean this is a university, uh, and I think the idea that somehow we graft a 33rd NFL team onto an institution of higher education has all kinds of consequences that we need to think through together as a community transparently and we need to have this conversation. Uh, and so we, we started by asking about the lawsuit. The lawsuit is not about an individual thing. It's about having communication as a community. The money that funds the university comes from the people of the state and it comes from the tuition that students pay. It doesn't belong to the legislature or the trustees. They are dispensing a public trust. They need to do that in good faith with everyone in the conversation so that all of these values can be expressed. And not get into an all or nothing bet with other people's money that's made in the spur of the moment over something that was very exciting. I think people were very excited about it, but I think the lesson here is the way we do things needs to be thoughtful and it needs to incorporate voices who are concerned about the university writ large and not just athletics. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for joining us and answering our questions. Yeah, happy to be here. Yes, thank you. Keep up the good work.</p>

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