University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Tar Heels Doing It Right
February 5, 2003 | Football
Feb. 5, 2003
John Bunting met the media Wednesday afternoon to talk about Carolina's recruiting haul with nothing more than a Diet Coke and a sheet of paper.
No props, no magic tricks, no rabbit in a hat.
A little showmanship could have been forgiven. After all, he had just finished watching 26 letters of intent roll off the Kenan Football Center fax, with each ring from the machine greeted with a hearty, "Music to my ears!" from the head coach. But Bunting celebrated the class, which is certain to be among the top in the country, the same way he and his staff had gone about signing it: with intensity and integrity.
High school coaches around the state, where Carolina placed a heavy emphasis on once again controlling the North Carolina borders, and the nation noticed his efforts. Jimmie Williams has been at East Wake High School for eight years, a school that produced former Tar Heel standout Greg Ellis and this year saw highly touted defensive lineman Terry Hunter ink with the Heels.
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"These kids and our staff talk about four or five years of school work and degree over and over again. That's important. Some people sometimes lose sight of the importance of that, getting a degree from the University of North Carolina. So retention is something that was very important to every one of these student-athletes. That was a big point of emphasis by my staff."
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It's really no surprise that Bunting would recruit that way. After all, he has made a career and a life out of being nothing but up front with people he comes in contact with. But in the recruiting world, it's a bit of a novelty.
That approach carries over to the rest of the Carolina staff. Assistant head coach Jim Webster was the primary recruiter for Isaiah "Puff" Thomas, a burly lineman out of Winston-Salem's Carver High.
"Coach Webster did an outstanding job recruiting Isaiah," Carver coach Keith Wilkes said. "I knew Coach Webster from when he had been at East Carolina, and the thing that was important to me was that he always looked after players and made sure they would graduate. As a recruiter, you have to get to know the kid during the process, and Coach Webster did that. A kid has to really feel that the coach has his best interests at heart, and Carolina did a really good job establishing that relationship."
Football recruiting is a vicious cycle. Peruse any list of this year's top classes and you'll see that the best programs usually get the best players. The usual suspects almost always make up the top ten, and elbowing into that exclusive company is very difficult.
Those cold facts can sometimes lead to some shenanigans on the recruiting trail. And even though that might be a shortcut to success, Bunting eschewed that approach. That's good news for Tar Heel fans, because gimmicks have a way of flaming out eventually. Carolina's approach, however, appears to be timeless.
"The big thing was that Carolina wanted to recruit the right way and with class," Williams said. "They feel like they can get the kids they want and do things the right way and keep the coach and the mom in the loop and do the things you're supposed to do. They did it with a lot of passion and they did it right.
Even more passion was needed because the UNC coaches couldn't just sit back and point to a bowl trip or a gaudy record. Carolina is coming off a 3-9 season, a fact consistently pointed out by their rivals on the recruiting trail.
"We had some people tell Isaiah that he shouldn't go to Carolina if he wanted to win," Wilkes said. "Some people trashed them."
It didn't make a difference to Thomas, and it didn't make a difference to Hunter, either.
"Terry very much wants to be a part of getting the program back to where it was when Greg [Ellis] was there," Williams said. "He likes the pro aspects that Coach Bunting brings to the table and he likes the fact that Bunting can groom him for the pro level if Terry's talent level is good enough. Terry has talked to a lot of guys who committed there and went on visits there and they all feel like together, they can get this turned into a top 10 program."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
