It’s easy to forget or ignore the good qualities of someone who you are kicking out the door. Yes, Coach Larry Fedora did say some things that I disagree with, his comments about CTE being first among those issues. Yes, he did have two abysmal seasons back to back. He went from being a rising coach in the college scene to being fired for terrible performance at a school which, frankly, isn’t really a football school.
Fedora is, at some level, a victim of his own success. The performance of the team four years ago made us believe that UNC could be more than the best basketball school in the nation – y’all need to stop sleeping on our field hockey and soccer teams by the way. Whatever the reason for such a fall, Fedora faced a herculean task: transforming the culture of fandom at Chapel Hill and, while he failed, his attempt is praiseworthy.
So too, I have admired the way in which Fedora consistently refused to blame his players or his staff for the mistakes of the team. Responsibility is a difficult trait to find in large quantities today and Fedora always took responsibility. In that, he set an example for students, players, staff and UNC as a whole. Taking responsibility, especially for failure, is a hard task but Fedora did it in a way which I would like to emulate myself.
Although perhaps he could not quite overcome the tasks which he was faced with, Coach Fedora did his level best and took responsibility when he did not live up. For that I commend him.
