North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham Talks About Job Pressures, Challenging Times

North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham, a member of today’s opening panel at the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, visited the SBJ/SBD offices last week and joined Exec Editor Abe Madkour and Staff Writer Michael Smith for a podcast. Among Cunningham’s remarks:

• On the pressures of the job: "I don’t think there is pressure. I have a great job and work at a great university with incredible coaches and students, and you never even think about the pressure."
• On the recently concluded NCAA investigation into UNC: "Whether or not we had to forfeit a game or take down a banner isn’t as significant to us as losing the reputation that we had. Now it’s up to us to earn it back."
• On why he turned down other offers to stay at UNC: "When I got into college athletics, I had no idea … where my career path would take me, but to have the opportunity to be at North Carolina is something I never dreamed of. And I couldn’t be more optimistic about our future."