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James Moeser has taken some hits as chancellor after the football season ended
and he fired Carl Torbush as coach.
Some were delivered on newspaper editorial pages, others by faculty members who
see his decision as a bad call that violates the University's long-held value
that it is better to lose with integrity than win at all costs.
At a Dec. 8 Faculty Council meeting, Moeser faced more of that kind of
criticism while trying to explain and defend what he hopes to accomplish with
the football program. One professor stood and said that the "bad judgment" he
had displayed in firing Torbush and trying to hire Virginia Tech Coach Frank
Beamer had cost him much of the good will that faculty members had extended to
him when he became chancellor four months ago. The professor cited the low
graduation rates and criminal records that Beamer had allowed his Virginia Tech
players to amass.
Moeser said Beamer's record is not nearly as bad as the outside media
portrayed. He also suggested that Carolina is not without blemish when it comes
to athletes who have an arrest sheet. Players on the Nebraska football team had
problems, too, but they were addressed with new policies that were put in place
to put an end to them. Moeser was Nebraska's chancellor before coming to
Carolina.
That being said, Moeser said, "I do not mind being held to a higher standard.
We should be held to a higher standard. We're better."
Moeser couched the discussion of the football team in the wider context of the
goal of becoming excellent in every endeavor.
He said he had made it his work since coming here to become a student of the
University and to understand and appreciate its values and culture. The goal of
becoming the best public university in the country will be achieved -- not by
some mythical competition with other universities in which a victor will be
declared at some point in the future -- but in a quest for excellence that uses
existing values and culture as the map on how to reach it.
It is more of a journey than a destination, Moeser said, "a competition with
anyone other than ourselves and our own imaginations of what we can become."
Moeser said the one thing that has surprised him the most since becoming
chancellor was the expanse and depth of excellence that already exists here.
The decision to fire Torbush, he said, was predicated on the goal of reaching
for excellence on the football field in Kenan Stadium. But Carolina will
continue to win the right way, he said.
"As long as I'm chancellor, Carolina will never have a win-at-all costs
mentality," Moeser said.
But there will be an expectation that athletic and academic programs alike will
achieve their potential.
Moeser said universities all over the country are struggling with the same set
of conflicting demands and expectations in regard to their sports programs.
There is no doubt that old values are being challenged, if not corrupted, by
the increasing commercial and financial pressure within big-time college sports
programs.
But, Moeser said, "The tail of this institution will never wag the dog."
Moeser told Faculty Council members that he would always be honest with them
even if they would not always like what he said. He also said he accepted -- as
well as expected -- their criticism. "If we always agreed there would be
something wrong with the faculty," Moeser said. "Faculty (members), by very
definition, are people who think otherwise."
Faculty Chair Sue Estroff stayed out of the debate on the football team but
made reference to another championship season for the women's soccer team when
she said, "Welcome to Carolina, where men are men and women are champions."
On Dec. 3, the women's soccer team won the NCAA championship, the team's 16th
championship in the past 19 years. During his opening remarks, Moeser had also
referred to the success of the women's soccer team and suggested it had perhaps
become the "paragon" of the University's athletic programs.
Moeser also pointed out that women account for 60 percent of the athletes who
compete under the University banner, and sports programs for women account for
15 of the 28 sports programs the University offers.
But it is no less true that only the men's football and basketball teams make
money for the University that can be used to subsidize all the others.
While the outside media have concentrated on his efforts to hire a football
coach, Moeser said he had gone about other things, including the recruitment of
a top-level philosophy professor from Johns Hopkins University.
"Dream on," another professor said when Moeser suggested that maybe The News
& Observer would pay as much attention to the philosophy professor he had
hired as it has the football coach situation.
"We may be hard-pressed to get 60,000 people to hear a lecture on Kant," Moeser
joked in response.
The search ends with Bunting
The search for a new football coach ended Dec. 11 with the selection of
John Bunting, an assistant coach for the New Orleans Saints who played
linebacker for Carolina from 1968 to 1971.
University Athletic Director Dick Baddour announced the decision at a 5 p.m.
news conference.
"The more people I talked with talked about his coaching ability, his
leadership ability and his ability to motivate young people to play," Baddour
said. "He knows how to lead. He will not accept losing."
The 50-year-old Bunting played linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles from
1972 to 1982 before he began his coaching career. He described being coach at
Carolina as his "dream job."
"When I took a look through that window in the head coach's suite and saw that
field, my blood ran hot. I got goose bumps. I feel that it's a privilege to run
out and play on that field."
Bunting was given a five-year contract with a base salary of $160,000, Baddour
said.
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