When Larry Fedora walked into The Westin Charlotte for ACC Kickoff on July 18, he hoped that little more would come from the day than delivering a message of hope for the North Carolina football team.
At least, that was the plan as Fedora brought along Aaron Crawford and Anthony Ratliff-Williams as team representatives to craft that message.
“This season, we just have a chip on our shoulder in the sense of, that team we put on the field (last year), that's not who we are,” Ratliff-Williams said that day. “That's not the team we built in the season. That's not the team we built in the summer. That's not the team we built through fall camp.”
Hours later, the seventh-year head coach walked out of that hotel having done the opposite of re-establishing confidence in his ability to lead the program. After giving voice to the biggest story coming out of the two-day conference event, he left Charlotte with two scandals and a world of distraction looming over his program.
It's likely this is where the spiral toward his eventual firing began.
“I believe the game is under attack right now,” Fedora said about recent rule changes to improve the safety of the game. “I really do. If we’re not careful, we’re going to lose what the game is all about.”
In his comments, Fedora expressed doubt there is any link between C.T.E. and football. When pushed, he questioned the validity of groundbreaking concussion research in recent years and said he thinks too many changes for football would have profound effects upon the nation as a whole.
“I fear that the game will get pushed so far to one extreme that you won’t recognize the game 10 years from now,” Fedora said. “And I do believe, if it gets to that point, that our country goes down, too.”
Fedora also said a three-star general told him the United States military was "superior" to the rest of the world because of football.
