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A beloved tradition of the UNC men’s basketball program could be coming to an end.
With the highly anticipated House v. NCAA settlement finally coming to fruition last week, sweeping changes are on the horizon for college athletics. One of the most notable deals with team roster limits: a reduction in size for a school’s total allotment of players, meaning programs will have to cut some student-athletes. Many of those will be walk-ons, or players competing while not on an athletic scholarship.
These gut-wrenching decisions are a sign of the times. In anticipation of the House settlement, schools everywhere – including UNC – have been scrambling to make money-minded moves. Letting walk-ons walk is one of those.
Hubert Davis is as entrenched in the tradition of Carolina Basketball as anyone who calls themselves a Tar Heel. The nephew of a famed player, who played for a famed head coach, assisted another and now serves as the head man himself, he is uniquely positioned to understand just what it is about the program that has become so meaningful to so many.
Part of that meaning lies in seeing the walk-ons – kids who sometimes look like they walked in off the street, but who no doubt would take you or me to school on the court – check into a game which was long since decided. Seeing a starting lineup of future NBA first-round draft picks and millionaires go wild for Kane Ma or Wade Moody scoring hard-earned buckets while the familiar chants of “We want biscuits!” echoed through the Dean Smith Center rafters always brought smiles to the faces of fans everywhere.
Davis may now be facing the unenviable task of telling the current batch of walk-ons, including fan favorites such as John Holbrook and Dante Mayo, that their roster spots are gone. For a coach who has seen as much national turbulence during his four-going-on-five-year tenure as any in the storied history of the program, this could be the most painful adjustment yet.
U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken, who also presided over the landmark Ed O’Bannon case which paved the way for name, image and likeness payments to student-athletes, left open the possibility of players who had previously been cut in anticipation of the House settlement returning to their old schools. Indeed, it was that contention which played a part in holding up the settlement for longer than anticipated. However, the picture is still unclear. There will be cuts — we just don’t know where those will happen.
Carolina fans have been bemoaning the death of the collegiate tradition for some time now. This potential change could be the anvil that broke the ram’s back.
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Featured image via Todd Melet
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Chansky’s Notebook: Farewell Blue Steel? Chapelboro.com.
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