University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Final Judgment
September 13, 2011 | General
Sept. 13, 2011
By Adam Lucas
The faces and the people at Thursday's press conference quickly revealed the story of the day.
The University of North Carolina has press conferences on a regular basis. Staff and head coaches from other sports usually don't attend any of them. It's only when there is major athletic department news, like a hiring, that you might see Mike Fox or Anson Dorrance or Karen Shelton at what is ostensibly a football-related press conference. They have their own sports to operate, their own programs to oversee.
But all three of those were in attendance at the Friday Center. So were dozens of others from the department. All were wearing the same grim, this-is-going-to-hurt expression.
That's when you knew. This wasn't going to be just a press conference about Wednesday's announcement that Butch Davis had been removed as head football coach. This was going to be about more than that, about an athletic director who had spent 44 years in the employment of Carolina, including the last 14 years as the head of the athletic department.
Dick Baddour resigned on Thursday, stepping aside so his successor can orchestrate the search for a new head football coach. It was not what anyone wanted. But it was, in Baddour's estimation, the right thing to do.
"I was so proud of him today," said field hockey coach Karen Shelton, whose program has won six national championships. "You know how painful that was for him. But he has always put the University first in his actions and in his thinking. I feel like, in many ways, he is my hero. Because of him, I will always be compelled to take the high road."
Here is the paradox of Dick Baddour: in the modern age, athletic directors are largely judged on the performance of men's basketball and football. Under his direction, those sports accumulated a pair of national championships, five Final Fours and seven bowl games.
That's an impressive record of achievement. And it is absolutely the worst way to judge him.
A better way might be his office calendar. An athletic director's time is rarely his own. Baddour has three children and--as he would be quick to tell you--six grandchildren on whom he dotes. Their lives are filled with the recitals and sports and weeks at the beach that consume the time of every family with children.
And yet, on that calendar in Baddour's office, written in pen, is the date and time of every Carolina sporting event. Every single one. Not just the ones on television. In fact, especially the ones that are not on television. And more often than not, he is there, usually with his wife, Lynda. His face is as familiar at Henry Stadium as it is at Kenan Stadium, and he is as much a regular at Carmichael Arena as he is at the Smith Center.
College sports, as we are so often told, is big business. Baddour inherently understands that, and in a time when numerous athletic departments are struggling to balance their budget, he has consistently kept Carolina on solid financial footing. But he also understands that the business could not exist without the experience. It matters to him that students making the commitment to represent the Tar Heels athletically finish their careers with a warm feeling about Chapel Hill.
He passionately believes in the importance of Carolina's broad-based athletic program and each and every one of the 28 sports it fields. Think of the emotion and time you invest in your favorite sport. Carolina's athletic director does it in 28 sports. It's hard to understand this unless you're around him consistently. A fan's life is filled with notes and questions and concern about their favorite sports. An athletic director's life--no, a good athletic director's life--is filled with those same issues about every single one of their sports.
An athletic director's time is filled with conferences and panels and chapter meetings. There is no offseason. Baddour does all those. But he rarely looks as happy as he does when he is sitting in the stands watching any Carolina team compete.
"The biggest thing is that I trust him," Roy Williams said on Thursday. "He wants North Carolina to be successful, and that means he wants the coaches to be successful and he wants the student-athletes to be successful. It's not just the institution, the buildings. It's the people. He cares about the people in the good times and in the tough times."
It's too easy to say he does these things because it's his job. That's not it. He's good at his profession because it's more to him than just his job. "I don't know that I have the emotional wherewithal to tell you how hard this is on me," he said on Thursday while choking back tears.
That's the sound of a man who was more than just an athletic director. That's the sound of someone who didn't take the job just so he could get good tickets and travel with the team on the road. That's someone who loves Carolina, who can walk the campus and touch the stones and tell you a story about every building.
That's someone who is a Tar Heel. To him, that might be the best compliment you could give him. And in the end, it's the very best way to judge Dick Baddour.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
