University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Bunting's Passion Never Wavered
October 24, 2006 | Football
Oct. 24, 2006
by Lee Pace
Extra Points
Over a career of playing football from sandlot to Kenan Stadium, from Veterans Stadium to the Super Bowl, John Bunting accumulated a wondrous list of physical mishaps. Notched on his Red Cross belt are a separated shoulder, a broken forearm, broken and bruised ribs, a broken hand, broken fingers, a concussion, torn knee ligaments, hyper-extended knee and elbows, a popped tibia joint, a torn Achilles tendon, three groin tears and three hamstring pulls.
Not to mention a pulled nerve suffered during a ball-stripping drill with a potential defensive coordinator back in January 2001.
Still, though, Bunting is always talking about the "great sport of football," his "passion" for the game and how much "fun the game is to play." He's done that throughout his 70 months and 67 games as the Tar Heels' football coach and, appropriately enough, brought those phrases out Monday at the end of a press conference called by Carolina athletic officials to discuss his dismissal as the Tar Heels' football coach.
"The fun and the passion for this game is unmatched in any other sport," Bunting said, addressing the issue of motivating his players for their remaining five games of the 2005 season. "It's special in terms of the teamwork involved, the players involved, the numbers of players involved, the number of coaches involved, all of us working together, working toward success. We will try to be encouragers and work positively through a difficult situation.
"Let's go play the dad gum ball game. Let's have some fun."
Unfortunately for Bunting, the Tar Heels haven't had enough fun over the last five and a half seasons for the 1971 Tar Heel team co-captain to keep his job as the Tar Heels' head coach. Athletic Director Dick Baddour said a decision on Bunting's job had been evolving throughout the 2006 season - certainly a struggle with the Tar Heels 1-6 with old rival Wake Forest coming to Chapel Hill Saturday - and crystallized over the weekend.
"It's obvious I thought the program needed to go in a different direction, and that's the reason I made the decision," Baddour said.
Baddour and Bunting addressed the news media and dozens of football and athletic department staff members and personal friends of Bunting's Monday on the fifth floor of Pope Box in Kenan Stadium. Baddour was dressed in a dark suit and tie, Bunting in a Carolina blue button-down shirt. "I only wear ties at funerals, and this is not a funeral," Bunting said.
It was businesslike and cordial, Baddour lauding the passion Bunting had for the job and the University and saluting Bunting's efforts to shore up the program's performance in academic and disciplinary realms. For his part, Bunting thanked Baddour for allowing him to "come home" in December 2000 and pledged to hold the fort down for the rest of the season, winning as many games as possible and keeping tabs on the nucleus of what could be an excellent recruiting class. Bunting said, of course, he did not agree with Baddour's decision, "but I can accept it."
Bunting spoke of all the positive elements of the program ... a good recruiting class last year that is, for the most part, being red-shirted this year ... the Tar Heels' competitiveness during the 2004-05 seasons ... filling the offices in Kenan Football Center with tireless and bright assistant coaches ... a excellent team GPA from last semester ... before acknowledging the competitive setback of the current season. The Tar Heels have been outscored 237-105 and have lost by three touchdown-plus margins three times. Two of the teams they beat in 2001, Bunting's first season, were Clemson and Virginia; each of those opponents dominated the Tar Heels this year.
"We've had a little bit of Murphy's Law this year," Bunting said, "one thing after another, whether it be an injury here or a bounce of the ball .... We haven't been able to take advantage of some things presented to us, and on occasion we have gift-wrapped some things for our opponents, which has really hurt us."
The Tar Heels are trying to find a consistent quarterback among a transfer and a red-shirt freshman. They are playing three new receivers and three first-year starters along the offensive line. A key tight end was injured pre-season. The defense has been adequate along the front four but has struggled with injuries, youth and a lack of depth at linebacker and secondary.
"There are some great things going on in this program," Bunting said. "Unfortunately, the wins and losses this year don't justify what we've done."
A laundry list of such maladies was palatable to the administration and fan base back during the 2002-03 seasons, in which the Tar Heels were 3-9 and 2-10. Bunting noted that nearly half of his 42 losses as the Carolina head coach were during those two years.
In year six, the standards are different, and a lack of depth is, unfortunately, Bunting's problem. The 2001-02 recruiting class (last year's true seniors and this year's fifth-year seniors) has yet to produce a player who is an odds-on favorite to garner a job in the NFL. And the 2002-03 recruiting class includes six players coveted by every major program in the Eastern United States who chose the Tar Heels but are no longer in the program for various reasons; and two of those had to be re-recruited and re-signed by the Tar Heel staff one year later because of qualification issues.
The transition from NFL assistant to Division 1 CEO, bad luck and a series of murderous non-conference schedules were all obstacles Bunting had to overcome. By the time Bunting got the program on solid operational footing, there was no slack in the performance cord.
"Since the '04-'05 seasons, we have been extremely competitive," Bunting said. "This season has been a struggle."
Baddour preferred not to get into a microscopic evaluation of the program in a pubic forum, but he did say that college football is "numbers game" and that wins and losses and productivity are important. He did not outline a timetable for hiring a new coach. Who's on the prospective list? Baddour wouldn't list specifics.
Carolina's previous hires have largely been assistant coaches without head coaching experience or head coaches from mid-major programs. Since Jim Tatum (a former Carolina player whom the Tar Heels lured from Maryland), the Tar Heel head coaches have been Jim Hickey (an assistant coach elevated from within); Bill Dooley (an assistant at Southeastern Conference member Georgia); Dick Crum (head coach at Mid-America Conference member Miami of Ohio); Brown (head coach at Tulane); Torbush (assistant elevated from within); and Bunting (a Carolina alum with a background in Division III and the NFL).
Whomever that new coach is, Bunting says he would be happy to help assimilate him into the ways of the world at Carolina and Chapel Hill and explain the makeup of the current roster - the good young players signed in the last two years and why the upper classes have holes.
"There were some decisions made by me that looked good in '04 based on the '03 class are [players who are] not here now," Bunting said. "The decisions looked good then, but they do not look real good now when those kids are not here playing ball for us."
Bunting raised his voice for the only time during the 30-minute press conference during that last sentence as a point of emphasis. Then his voice went back into its normal measured tones.
"But I am very much as peace with my decisions," he said.
Send your questions about Tar Heel football to Lee Pace at leepace@nc.rr.com. Please include your first and last names and hometown. Individual replies are not possible because of volume of mail received, and names of recruiting prospects and commitments cannot be published on a school-sponsored site until the national signing day in February . The Q&A column will appear each Friday during the season.
