UNC’s women’s team shook off the worst loss in program history (a 51-point beatdown at the hands of UConn) and an upset loss last week to Clemson to claim a 56-37 win over the Hokies and give Tar Heel coach Sylvia Hatchell her 600th win at  Carolina.

Hatchell is now 872-308 in her career, and 600-228 at UNC. Only two other coaches – Debbie Ryan at Virginia and Kay Yow at NC State – have won 600 or more games at an ACC school.

I’m sure many Carolina fans would be surprised to know Hatchell is the 4th all-time winningest basketball coach in women’s Division I history, trailing only Rutgers’ C. Vivian Stringer, legendary Texas coach Jody Conradt, and the standard-bearer of women’s hoops, Pat Summitt of Tennessee. Both Stringer and Hatchell should reach the 900-win plateau next season and pass Conradt to vault into the top three.

The legacy of basketball coaches at UNC is simply beyond compare – from Frank McGuire to Dean Smith to Sylvia Hatchell to Roy Williams. Those four coaches have combined for nearly 3,000 career wins.  Congratulations to Coach Hatchell and the Carolina women.

Former UNC WR Hakeem Nicks continued his beast mode playoff performance from last week with another two touchdown performance to lead the New York Giants over the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers 37-20. Like last week against Atlanta, Nicks had another big catch and run for a touchdown, this one going for 66-yards. Nicks ended up with seven receptions for 165 yards and two touchdowns. Besides the big run, Nicks also caught a Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half because he is a freaking big receiver with hands that are capable of crushing small animals. Nicks has come up huge in two games during these playoffs. Can he do it at San Francisco next week and get the Giants to the Super Bowl?

On Saturday, former Tar Heel cross country and track star Shalan Flanagan won the US Olympic trials marathon in Houston to secure a place in the 2012 Olympics in London. Flanagan finished in 2 hours 25 mins and 38 seconds which eclipsed her previous personal best from the New York Marathon by three minutes. This was Flanagan’s second marathon after having spent most of her post-UNC career running 5000 and 10000 meters and cross country. Flanagan won bronze at 10000 meters in the 2008 Beijing Olympics but after than began to mix in marathon and half marathon races with cross country and 10,000 meters with a possible eye on running the marathon in the London Olympics.

Go Heels! Go America!

Beginning of 2011

Beginning of 2012

A year ago Butch Davis was still the head coach despite the black NCAA cloud hanging over his program, Dick Baddour remained AD with no clear indication of whether he would retire and Woody Durham was in the middle of basketball season.

During the past year, Woody hung it up and was replaced by Jones Angell. Dick Baddour resigned to make room for a new AD to hire the next football coach in the wake of Butch Davis being fired. Bubba Cunningham took over for Baddour and ultimately hired Larry Fedora.

UNC athletics is the very bastion of stability. Coaching changes do not happen in many sports because most sports at UNC are wildly successful. Dick Baddour had been AD for 14 years and before him John Swofford had a similar lengthy tenure. Woody Durham had been the radio voice for 40 years. While AD and football coaching changes are not unusual, it is not every year a school had both those jobs change hands and sees its primary radio voice retire giving way to a new generation.

The jury is still out to varying degrees  on all three of these new faces but for the most part I think we can all be fairly happy with the direction of things heading into 2012 than perhaps we were when 2011 kicked off.

** John Henson was named ACC player of the week after averaging nearly a double-double in UNC’s pair of season-opening wins.

** The Bubba Cunningham era began at UNC on Monday as the new AD took over for the soon-to-be-retired Dick Baddour. The Daily Tar Heel has a nice look at Baddour’s 45-year career in Chapel Hill.

** Bryn Renner did in fact suffer a concussion in the first half against NC State, but is fully recovered and ready to go for Thursday’s game at Virginia Tech, according to Caulton Tudor of the N&O.

** Cornerback Todd Harrelson has left the football team and plans to transfer, according to Everett Withers.

** In an obligatory Tire Fire update, Michael McAdoo’s lawsuit against UNC and the NCAA was dismissed by the judge. Not wholly unexpected since he was smacked down in the hearing by the NCAA and then signed a free agent contract with the Baltimore Ravens before being put on injured reserve.

**There’s yet another ACC soccer title in Chapel Hill, but it’s not the women this time. UNC’s men’s soccer team won the ACC soccer championship with a 3-1 win over Boston College on Sunday. Carolina’s Ben Speas was named tournament MVP and the Heels captured an ACC title for first-year coach Carlos Somoano.

**UNC’s #1-ranked field hockey team advanced to its 3rd-straight Final Four and 16th overall with a 5-1 win over Michigan. The Heels will face UConn on Friday in Louisville in one national semifinal, while Maryland and Old Dominion are in the other semifinal.

There were a few issues of interest in the press conference.

The first is how Bubba will handle the football program particularly the future of Everett Withers. The answer  is not so good for Withers.

“He’s the interim coach,” Cunningham said. “Obviously, we need a full-time coach at some point. Through our conversations with the chancellor, we’re all about excellence and we need to find outstanding coaches that lead us to championships – BCS championships, ACC championships, national championships – and so my charge in the next few months will be to analyze the program, make a decision on where we are and then what’s the best fit for us going forward.”

In addition to this quote, Bubba seemed to indicate that he was leaning towards bringing in his own hire to fill the football coaching job. At this point Wither is not auditioning for the UNC job but to possibly be hired as a head coach somewhere else once the season is over.

Another aspect of Bubba’s remarks that hit home is his message to the student-athletes at UNC. Bubba made it clear he would be an advocate for them and the most important thing is for them to develop as athletes and students. Granted that is standard fare for an AD to say. However given what UNC has gone through with the NCAA, advocacy for student-athletes and emphasis on academics are important points to hit. Bubba also said he would be responsible for the student-athletes in his charge. It is a shame the last head football coach didn’t take a similar view with his players.

Bubba indicated he would not be attending the Committee on Infractions hearing in two weeks and the NCAA issues did not deter him from the job. He did say he has reviewed the NCAA documents and understands the issues. Bubba will certainly end up dealing with the fallout in terms of penalties and hiring a new football coach with that uncertainty hanging out there but he will be able to enter the new job mostly separated from the scandal.

The old saying says “talk is cheap” so while all this is good Bubba will not have much of a honeymoon. He will have to make successful moves out of the gate starting with the football hire.

At an emergency Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning, a motion to approve Cunningham passed unanimously. The terms of his deal that run through June 2017, are a $525,000 base salary, $40,000 in expenses and bonuses based on football performance, men’s and women’s basketball performance and APR scores.

Cunningham will replace Dick Baddour, who asked on July 28 that a search for his replacement begin after 14 years in the position and just one day after the university announced the firing of former head football coach Butch Davis.

The 49-year-old Cunningham takes the position just two weeks before the university is set to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis following NCAA and university investigations into the Tar Heel football program.

The question of whether UNC would be willing to pay more for an athletic director gets answered upfront. Dick Baddour was making $295,000 base salary. Bubba will see $130,000 more plus an expense account and performance bonuses. Tar Heel Blue’s Adam Lucas already has a column posted introducing the new AD with a press conference forthcoming where we will hear directly from Bubba himself.

Here is Bubba’s bio from Tulsa’s official web site to give you an idea of his experience and resume. In my opinion and one shared by most people at this point, UNC has scored a solid hire here. Granted this is not a “big time” BCS AD like Duke got with Kevin White or even NC State with Debbie Yow. However there is plenty of evidence to suggest Bubba is a rising star among athletic directors. During his six years at Tulsa, the Golden Hurricanes won 34 Conference USA titles and was highly regarded by everyone who worked with him, including the local media whom he met monthly for brunch. As for coaching hires, which is really the first standard we judge ADs by, Bubba hired Brady Hoke when he was at Ball State and Todd Graham at Tulsa. Both coaches were very successful at those schools with Hoke to San Diego St. then Michigan. Graham is now at Pittsburgh. Graham posted three ten win seasons in Tulsa while Hoke took over a struggling Ball St team that finished 12-1 in his final year before leaving for Ann Arbor.

Bubba is 49-years old which means he has plenty of time to grow into the role he has shown tremendous potential for. His age means he can have a long tenure at the helm of the UNC athletic department which would put him in a position to hire Roy Williams’ replacement some time over the next ten years. The overall reception for Bubba seems to be positive, even among the always fickle message board crowd who have embraced the hire.

Two other important notes. One, hiring a big time AD doesn’t always mean success. As much Kevin White is a “big time” AD having come from Notre Dame to Duke, he also made some very questionable hires for football coach there. That is to say no one is perfect and there is risk involved with any candidate whether they are from a BCS school or a smaller school like Tulsa. Secondly, while this will fall on deaf ears, it should be noted that since Holden Thorp’ poor execution and timing with firing Butch Davis, I am not sure we could have asked things to go any better. The football team is 5-1 and should win at least seven games, possibly more. The AD search was handled extremely well and for all Thorp’s missteps in the way Davis was fired, he knew enough to get out of the way and let the experts in collegiate athletics handle the search. So if you want to go one being pissed at Thorp because you continue to be butthurt of Davis being fired, go ahead. However I am hard pressed to see how UNC is worse off. The season is going well and two weeks before the COI hearing UNC has a solid AD hire in place who can get a jump on setting the football coaching position by the end of the season. Granted there is no honeymoon for Bubba facing a coaching hire and NCAA penalties but for as bad as things looked in early August, they are in great shape now.

We will have full rundown of Bubba’s press conference later in the day. Until then, join me in welcoming Bubba to Chapel Hill.

Via WRAL:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees have called an emergency meeting via conference call Friday morning at 9 a.m.

The call is “to discuss a personnel matter” according to a press release distributed Thursday afternoon.

A news conference is expected to follow the meeting at 11 a.m.

According to the release, a portion of the meeting will be closed door.

Lawerence “Bubba” Cunningham’s name has been uttered in more UNC circles this week than ever before as rumors of the school’s interest in him to replace Dick Bddour as director of athletics have surfaced.

On Thursday, Cunningham missed his monthly media luncheon, “Brunch with Bubba” according to the Tulsa World.

Obviously UNC will officially announce what has been rumored on Inside Carolina since Monday that Lawrence “Bubba” Cunningham will be named athletic director. The word was last night Bubba was in Chapel Hill and since he missed his monthly brunch with the local media in Tulsa this looks like a go. That is unless Wade Hargrove media masters dictate otherwise. /eddylandreth’d

The University of North Carolina is in the final stages of hiring Lawrence “Bubba” Cunningham as its new athletic director, ending a nearly seven-week search to replace Dick Baddour.

A source with intimate knowledge of the search process informed Inside Carolina that Cunningham, the current Tulsa athletic director, arrived in North Carolina and met with school officials, including the search committee, on Wednesday.

Inside Carolina first reported Cunningham as a serious candidate for the open position on Sept. 23. Cunningham has not been available for comment.

A Notre Dame graduate, Cunningham has been in his current position since 2005. He served as Ball State’s athletic director for three years prior to taking the Tulsa job after working for 15 years in the Notre Dame athletic department, serving as associate director of athletics for external affairs from 2000-02 and associate athletics director for finance and facilities from 1995-2000.

Bubba(and that is how he will be referenced here at THF) was a candidate for the Kansas AD job last year but did not take it. That possibly had more to do with the fact Kansas had all sorts of messy things going on that involved the words “federal indictment” and “ticket fraud” which may have given Bubba pause. Sure, UNC has the whole NCAA issue but that is the sort of challenge a guy like Bubba would love to take on. We hope anyway.

Rampant speculation and common sense would indicate that should the final details be ironed out over the next 24 hours then look for an official announcement on Friday. UNC has its basketball media day scheduled on Thursday so nothing is going to happen which will overshadow that. That is assuming everything goes smoothly and Holden Thorp doesn’t start doing his Thriller dance in front of Bubba.

The 13-member committee, meeting in a Carolina Inn ballroom, quickly motioned to go into closed session after a brief call to order by chairman Lowry Caudill.

The committee began the interview process in late September and interviewed several candidates as recently as last Monday in an all-day session.

“We’re very deep in the process,” Caudill told Inside Carolina after the closed-door meeting. “We began back in August and we started with collecting applicants. We’ve got a big pool of applicants and we’ve been working our way down to those we wanted to interview. We are interviewing candidates and starting to make decisions around the candidates.”

…

Caudill indicated that were “still some interviews” that would take place, while adding that he could not provide an accurate number of candidates interviewed due to the length of the list. Thorp instructed the committee to recommend a slate of candidates for him to choose from once they had narrowed down their choices.

Multiple sources confirmed to Inside Carolina that three candidates are going to be recommended to Chancellor Holden Thorp with a clearly stated order of preference. The leading candidate, according to sources, is current Tulsa athletic director Lawrence “Bubba” Cunningham.

When asked if any candidates were recommended to Thorp on Monday, Caudill replied: “We have candidates that we are very, very comfortable with and at some point we’ll be bringing them formally to Chancellor Thorp.

ACC Now also spoke to Lowry Caudill who indicated additional dates were added to the search committee schedule extending out until October 26th and that interviews were still ongoing.

I have my doubts as to how many serious interviews for the job are still happening and when I say “serious” I mean people who actually have a prayer of being hired for the position. However who knows what kind of requirements may be hanging out there about how the process is to be handled. As the IC report indicates , Tulsa AD Lawrence “Bubba” Cunningham appears to be the lead candidate out of three names what have been/will be given to Thorp. The final decision rests with Thorp but there is no way in Hades a chancellor thoroughly beaten up by his handling of Butch Davis’ dismissal is going to own this decision alone. Thorp is going to extend an offer to whomever the committee says is the top choice and the process will move from there.

Publicly, Caudill appears to be tapping the brakes on how quickly this could unfold whereas if you read the message board insider rumors it is happening much faster than that. As always the truth is somewhere in the middle but this would not be the first time UNC indicates publicly a hiring process is at one point when in reality it has progressed to its conclusion. Besides, all indications have been that UNC wanted this wrapped up by mid-October which is fast approaching. Add to that the benefit of having a new AD named before Thorp, Dick Baddour and Everett Withers appear before the NCAA Committee on Infactations, the easy money is this happens much sooner than later. UNC needs to be able to point to the next guy when talking to the NCAA on October 28th so, barring some complication like the top candidates getting cold feet, I expect UNC will name Baddour’s successor very soon.

A day after news broke that South Carolina AD Eric Hyman was UNC’s top choice to replace Dick Baddour with the words “mutual interest” being batted around, Hyman has now stated he wants to stay in Columbia.

South Carolina Athletics Director Eric Hyman issued a statement Wednesday night that suggests he isn’t going anywhere.

“I am honored to be considered by my alma mater, North Carolina, but my work here has not been finished and I love being a Gamecock,” he said in the statement.

We have no way of confirming if the South Carolina notice of allegations had any impact on this but it would not surprise me. Granted South Carolina’s troubles with the NCAA were known but like in UNC’s case, the notice of allegations really solidifies the violations in the view of the public. With those allegations coming out the same day UNC was responding to their own NOA, it did set up a weird situation where UNC was considering bringing an AD from a school under the NCAA gun on the heels of their own NCAA troubles. While I think it could have been maneuvered around from a PR standpoint, Hyman would have also been seen as abandoning the Gamecocks at the worst possible time. That sort of thing might end up playing worse than the NCAA angle.

When you consider that aspect of it, Hyman probably made the right choice.