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Michael Lombardi spoke last week for the first time since being named general manager of North Carolina football, and immediately threw into question the power structure at the university famous for its men’s basketball program.
“Everything here is predicated on building a pro team,” Lombardi said. “We consider ourselves the 33rd team.”
There are 32 teams in the NFL, and that statement was Lombardi – by way of new Tar Heels coach and NFL legend Bill Belichick – spreading out and clearing space for an inevitable fight.
Not on the field, but with North Carolina’s legendary basketball program for revenue sharing and NIL funds. There’s only so much to go around.
The question is, who gets it?
North Carolina football coach Bill Belichick is introduced during half time of a men’s basketball game at Dean E. Smith Center.
The basketball program of Dean Smith and Michael Jordan and those six national championship banners hanging in the rafters of the Smith Center? The program that believes it’s synonymous with the best of the best, the elite of the elite?
When you think college basketball, you think Carolina blue.
Or the football program, the perpetual little brother in the athletic department that has been pushed to the tip of the spear by the sheer will of a sport that has overtaken everything college athletics? No national title banners flying at Kenan Stadium, just five ACC championship flags of decades gone by.
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Just the hope of a coach who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots standing in the breach, and proudly declaring we’re the 33rd team. And we’re going to need cash to make it happen. A lot of cash.
Much more cash than – here’s the key – your…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/north-carolina-power-struggle-bill-105941655.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2025-02-19 10:59:00
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