UNC-system task force reviews athletic departments’ coaching policies

Faculty and administrators have placed college sports at the forefront of needed reforms this past year, and now UNC-system administrators are hoping to get started on a review of coaching policies.

A speaker panel will meet at UNC-CH today to discuss reforming college sports. The discussion follows the creation of two task forces in the past year by UNC-system President Thomas Ross — both charged with reforming the system’s athletics.

The latest task force’s goal is to come up with the best practices to hire coaches and negotiate coaches’ contracts, said Joni Worthington, spokeswoman for the system.

Dick Baddour, former athletic director of UNC-CH, will head the group, which is mainly composed of UNC-system athletic directors.

“We’re still very much in the early stages of identifying the topics we want to focus on,” he said.

The committee, which was first announced by Ross in January, doesn’t have a deadline, but Baddour said he hopes the process will be wrapped up in the next couple of months.

This committee follows last year’s conclusion of a task force headed by East Carolina University Chancellor Steve Ballard, who was charged with looking at academic integrity in athletics across the UNC system.

“The task force was really focused on the success of the student athlete,” said Philip Rogers, chief of staff to Ballard.

The task force proposed recommendations to campuses, including a better integration of athletics into the mission of the universities, he said.

But a letter sent two weeks ago to Chancellor Holden Thorp and signed by 112 UNC-CH professors expressed faculty support in reviewing how student athletes are held responsible for their education.

The letter stated that UNC-CH’s athletics need to be fully integrated into the core mission of the University.

“Student athletes are part of the student body, so they’re expected to follow all of the rules and regulations that all students are expected to follow,” she said. “There’s a constant, vigilant review of data.”

Universities with small athletic programs, like UNC-Asheville, have had an easier time integrating student athletes into the university, said Janet Cone, athletics director at UNC-A.

Randy Eaton, athletics director at Western Carolina University, said smaller schools don’t see the same level of scandals and concerns that plague top-level competition schools.

“It’s different. The focus on the (NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision) school is much more winning,” he said.

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