The Univ. of North Carolina on Friday named Bubba Cunningham AD, making him UNC’s first AD “without direct Tar Heel ties in 36 years,” according to Robbi Pickeral of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER. In searching for a successor for the retiring Dick Baddour, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp after Friday’s news conference said that he “wasn’t set an on external candidate when the hiring process began seven weeks ago, but by choosing one, hoped that the athletics department will gain new perspective as it moves forward.” Cunningham has been Tulsa’s AD since '05 and “previously served three years as athletics director at Ball State.” Prior to his time at Ball State, he “spent 15 years in the athletic department at Notre Dame, his alma mater.” He began “as an intern there and worked his way up to an associate athletic director position.” Cunningham will begin on Nov. 14 and he “vowed to continue to seek success in football.” Cunningham will be paid “a base salary of $525,000 per year, with a $40,000 expense allowance, through June 30, 2017.” He will also “earn bonuses if the football team is invited to a bowl game, the men’s or women’s basketball team is invited to the NCAA tournament, or the average Academic Progress Rate for all the University’s varsity sports teams equals or exceeds 975” (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 10/15). Tulsa on Friday announced that Deputy AD Ross Parmley “would be promoted” to interim AD. Parmley has been with Tulsa since ’07 (TULSA WORLD, 10/15).
TO-DO LIST: In Raleigh, Luke Decock wrote Cunningham's “first priority as athletics director has to be healing the schism caused by Butch Davis' firing and the NCAA investigation into the football program.” The split that Davis' “hiring initiated and firing exacerbated … is very real and has the potential to be very damaging.” While the Cunningham hiring “should dispense with some of the loopy conspiracy theories about the university de-emphasizing football, the discussion does raise legitimate issues about integrity, ambition and the role of athletics within the university.” This is a “crisis point for North Carolina athletics, and to address it the school went against very strong institutional instincts to hire from within the family” (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 10/15).
