University of North Carolina Athletics
One on One With Dick Baddour - Part II
February 20, 2001 | General
Feb. 20, 2001
Recently, UNC Athletic Director Dick Baddour sat down for an in-depth interview with TarHeelBlue.com. Among the topics Baddour discussed in Monday's Part I were: what drew him to the University of North Carolina, his philosophy on hiring head coaches (particularly recent hirings in football and men's basketball) and the dymanics of being an athletic director at a Division I school.
Today we bring you Part II of our comprehensive interview with Carolina's AD.
What is the most rewarding aspect of being the Director of Athletics?
DB: Two things. First, facing challenges. For instance, when you have competing interests such as the use of resources--budget, facilities, etc.--developing solutions for people to be successful, creating a win-win situation. Second, is having a relationship with the people with whom I work, such as our coaches, the staff and most importantly, the student-athletes. To know a Lorrie Fair, to know what she went through in terms of her preparation for the Olympics and to give up opportunity to go professional, to see her compete here and win a national championship and then invite her to my Rotary Club meeting and have her speak and represent our program is a rewarding experience. To watch Tripp Phillips compete at the highest level in men's tennis and hear him say, `Mr. Baddour. It is an honor to represent the University of North Carolina.' That's rewarding. Or to hear David Bomar talk about his positive experiences here and know that he shares that with his dad, brother and sister, who had similar positive experiences.
How hard is it to balance competitive success with the mission of the University?
DB: It's never hard to balance those decisions on a day-to-day basis. You simply don't make decisions that would compromise the integrity of the institution, whether that be in the recruiting process or whether it be in an eligibility issue. They're not always easy to deal with publicly. We've had some recent cases where we had to make a decision and we knew we would be criticized for making that decision, but the decision best served the institution. People will never know all the ins and outs, but that's a case where we made a call from a value or integrity standpoint. It had a consequence from a competitive standpoint. It gets more difficult with winning and losing. You don't make a choice to lose. But if you have a program such as we had in football where it's hard to see a clear direction that maintains success, then that's tough. In that case, it's not so much balancing values or winning at all costs, as much as making a decision about whether we have put our program in the best possible position to be successful. In that case, I did not believe we were in the best possible position to be successful, so I felt like we had to make a change. That can happen in other sports as well as with administrative personnel.
Being successful competitively is part of the equation, is it not?
DB: Yes. When we talk about our goals and we talk about the academic side of things and a commitment to academic excellence--and by the way, graduation rates are not the only measurement--it's a question of `Do our student athletes have the opportunity to take full value of the academic experience?' We talk about integrity, doing things the right way, and conducting ourselves in the right way. We talk about the experience of the student athlete. And when we talk about winning, I'm not going to make excuses about wanting to have winning programs. I don't think we should be embarrassed about wanting to have a winning program. The fact is we expect to be successful and have been. When we are not successful, it draws attention to us, also. We had a reputation of not dismissing coaches, which is good, but there certainly have been exceptions. We have been reluctant to dismiss coaches and will continue that practice. We won't just act on a whim. We will only do that when we feel there is not much chance for the program to be successful. I think that is the appropriate standard for the institution.
What's the biggest challenge in 2001 facing a department that wants to be successful in 28 varsity sports?
DB: The biggest challenge is resources, the financial resources to be successful across the board. Some schools might say facilities. Actually, we've got very impressive facilities, but we still need to improve some of them and we will always need to maintain them. The biggest eye-opener for me coming into athletics 14 years ago was the amount of time and energy that goes into facilities, their maintenance and improvements. We are in a good situation now, but we have to be careful that we do not fall into decline. We have to continue to improve and build facilities. You can look at examples of other schools where facilities have not gotten much attention over time and their overall programs decline.
For instance, I think with beautiful Kenan Stadium it's time for us to be looking into the future about what Kenan Stadium is going to look like 15, 20 years from now. The chancellor and I are going to appoint a task force that's going to conduct a study to examine those issues--how many seats do we want to have, do we have video scoreboards, what is the east end going to look like? So we need to be planning these kinds of things.
The major challenge we have is to financially support our 28 programs. We finished fifth in the Sears Cup standings last year, which we're very proud of, but if you compare budgets with the top 10 programs, we would be last. We cannot continue to operate that way.
The answer we believe is the new fundraising campaign, of which athletics will be a part. This is wonderful for us and we will have three priorities. Our goal will be approximately $150 million. Our main focus will be the endowment of the scholarship program. The Educational Foundation has done so much for Carolina athletics, but costs continue to rise and Title IX issues remain constant. The reason we have great facilities is because of the support of the Educational Foundation and the membership's love and devotion to the University.
Our second priority is to endow sport programs, and if we are successful in doing that, then there will be an endowment that will always ensure our programs remain competitive. I don't expect to endow the programs completely, but we can go a long way toward ensuring the success of the program.
What's the biggest challenge facing, not just you as athletic director at North Carolina, but facing athletic directors across the country?
DB: Resource management, the arms race that people are talking about--facilities, coaches, salaries, Title IX issues. Another large challenge is running programs in a way that brings credit to academic institutions. Athletic directors spend an enormous amount of time talking about that, developing programs so that the athletic program and the institution are less vulnerable to negative publicity. But that's what we ought to be doing for individuals we recruit to our institution. I think the worst thing that we can do to young people is to put them in an environment where they don't have the opportunity to be successful. We recruit students and put demands on them athletically and socially. We must then accept an obligation to provide the resources needed to be successful. It doesn't mean we'll do their work. But it means--whether it's tutoring, extra counseling, more structured time, teaching time management or efforts in stress management--we'll do whatever we have to do. And, I think on the social side, we have to alert them and educate them to the pressures that they're going to encounter. While we would like to think they are just like any other student, they're not. People say, `Let's treat all athletes like any member of the student body.' But those days are gone. There's more attention drawn to athletes, therefore, the institution and the individual must accept the responsibility that comes with the visibility.
What are the overriding principles that guide your decision making?
DB: The ultimate question you have to ask is what is best for the University of North Carolina. I think the most difficult thing that I have to do is to balance institutional concerns with individual interests. If you have a young person in trouble on Franklin Street, the first inclination might be to dismiss them from the team. We're also an educational institution and we accept some of the responsibilities that I just described. There is also a presumption of innocence. When you're a student-athlete, sometimes, that presumption goes the other way. So, you have to balance those issues. You have general philosophical policies that guide you, but it gets down to dealing with things on an individual basis. I think it's very important that the director of athletics and the chancellor, and other university personnel have a strong working relationship and that we work together.
If you could make one thing happen right now- the first thing you would want to do next- what would it be?
DB: I would have this fundraising campaign be a success. The future of a broad-based program here depends on it.
What's your biggest priority?
DB: My biggest priority is to put this program in a financial state where it can remain very competitive, that can attract the most outstanding coaches and the most outstanding student athletes. We've got the institution to do that. I don't have to worry about the strength of the English department, communications department, or the business school. We've got the ingredients here, we've got the facilities here. We need to continue to work on them as I said. We've got to give our coaches the resources they need to be successful. That's our biggest challenge.
