As the college sports landscape continues to experience big changes in recent years, the UNC athletics department has tried to adapt while limiting monumental changes itself. But it will begin a new era this summer as athletic director Bubba Cunningham transitions to the new role and makes way for Steve Newmark, who was tabbed as the director-in-waiting.
Before the end of his time as the AD and start as Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Athletic Director, Cunningham joined 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck in studio for an interview ranging on the past, present and future of Carolina Athletics and college sports. Below are his responses to part one of the interview, which is focused on Cunningham’s time leading Tar Heel programs, his relationship with Newmark, and the decision to presently stay aboard as part of the UNC administration.
Cunningham’s comments have been lightly edited for clarity and topics have been curated into a different sequence than the full conversation. Aaron Keck’s interview with Cunningham— including part two, which focuses on the future of college sports — can be listened to on-demand here and wherever you get your podcasts.
On what the 2025-26 academic year has been like preparing to hand off the athletic director role to Newmark:
It’s been another great year. You know, I think every school year is different. Our teams are different, our coaches are different. And this time with Steve starting in August — working together with somebody that, you know, is gonna take over your job — it’s worked really, really well. Probably surprisingly better than a lot of people predicted. But I think our personalities, and our priorities, and our ambitions all aligned. And so I think that made it very helpful. Steve’s professional background, his legal background in this changing environment in sport — with NIL, [revenue] share and how we’re negotiating media rights and all of those things — has been really helpful to me.
When you work in a university environment, it’s very, very different than working for a professional sports organization with one owner and one decision maker. We have a lot of committees. We’re one university in a system. We have a Board of Trustees, we have a Board of Governors, we have a president, we have a chancellor, we have legislators. It’s just a different operation. And when you come into that environment, I think you learn a lot about this process. And it’s kind of laborious at times, but it’s what we have…and it’s built on a sense of community events, sense of input. And that it’s been a great working relationship with Steve, to learn in both directions.
On learning about Newmark’s commitment to Carolina within the last year:
You know, [with Newmark] having grown up here in the time when Coach [Dean] Smith is coaching, and Anson Dorrance is winning championship after championship, Karen Shelton has got the thing rolling, Jenny [Levy’s] kind of just getting started… I think his appreciation for broad-based programming and what it means at Carolina [stands out]. There’s a lot of people that come into college athletics that don’t have much experience, and quite frankly, they haven’t been all that successful. But having grown up here and seen it… then gone off and gotten law degree, and practiced and been around sport — not just collegiate sport, but professional sport — and be able to merge your childhood memories and appreciation for the value of it and bring that new knowledge in [to the job], I think would be very beneficial.
On how helpful it is to have a background in professional sports vs. strictly a college sports background when leading a modern athletics department:
Well, I think you need both. If I were to continue on — or people with my background continued on in athletics — they need to bring in additional folks that have outside experience outside of college athletics. You know, we hired Rick Barakat a year ago, and Rick has been phenomenal. He’s our chief revenue officer. He worked at a number of different places, including Learfield, which is our multimedia rights partner. And then he worked for Minor League baseball. They owned 41 different minor league franchises and he ran that business unit. So, he brings a totally different perspective to it.
I think the communications area and how you monetize your social media, how do you monetize, um, all of your digital platforms…those are things that I think the professional sports have been more aggressive than college sports. But I think we’re getting in that direction. So: I think if you have an outside person that’s gonna be your AD, you need college experience. If you have a college experienced person running your operation, you need a lot of professional folks that have other experiences other than college. I think as we move forward, you’re going to see that more and more.
From left to right: Bubba Cunningham, Michael Malone, Lee Roberts and Steve Newmark pose for a photo at the introductory press conference for Malone in April. The coaching search and resulting hiring of Malone provided a strong opportunity for both Cunningham and Newmark to work together on a major decision for Carolina Athletics. (Photo by Todd Melet/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
On the achievements he is most proud of, and one moment that stands out from his 15 years at UNC:
What I really have enjoyed are our coaches and our student athletes, and just being a part of this community. I mean, I was told when I first got into college athletics that the best way to have a great athletic department is to have great coaches. And we have great coaches — we’ve had incredibly long tenured coaches.
When I first got here, we had a coaches dinner before the season started. And I added up all of the years of being a head coach at Carolina. We had 21 head coaches, we had 406 years of service at Carolina…so, averaging over 20 [years each]. Ron Miller was over 50 years, Karen Shelton was over 30, Anson was at 40. And it’s just amazing the tenure that our coaches have had. So that’s been great. The student athletes, they continue [to come] — and every four years, you have an all new group of students and they’ve been wonderful to work with. You obviously think about the championships and all those things… but to me, it’s the personal relationships and just the enjoyment of seeing somebody come in as a freshman, develop and grow, and then go on and do great things. Then, they come back and visit, and they’re fun to see.
The only moment [I’ll share] that I remember very, very vividly was when I got the job. It was a Friday, we were introduced as the AD. My wife and I were here, our family was here…and it was Late Night with Roy. And I’m sitting over in the basketball arena, and there’s 21,000 people there at a practice. I remember saying to Tina, ‘Man, I sure hope we don’t screw this up, this is a big job.’ And I have enjoyed every minute of it — and hopefully we haven’t screwed it up too badly. [laughs]”
On the decision he is proudest of from his time as athletic director:
Oh gosh. I don’t really know if there’s a decision. I guess any decision would be about a coach… I think the decision about hiring Erin [Matson] is probably one of the ones that has been most fulfilling. She’s just a, a tremendous individual. You know, we’ve had coaches that have been sought after by other schools. And the decision to try to retain them… you know, we don’t talk about those, but we’ve had a couple that had really good offers, and we had to do everything we could to retain them.
Immediately after finishing her stellar collegiate career, UNC made history by hiring 22-year-old Erin Matson as its next field hockey coach. In the season succeeding Karen Shelton, Matson coached the Tar Heels to a national title and has won two ACC championships since then. (Photo via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati.)
On what he would have done differently during his 15 years in charge:
Well, my first five years when we had the academic challenge…that was really a challenge, and it really dinged our integrity. And I think the outcome was right. I’ve been very frustrated, I was frustrated at the time with the NCAA — because the NCAA knew what occurred. [Former UNC Athletic Director] Dick Baddour and others here on campus actually went and explained everything to the NCAA. And they said [the] case was closed. The NCAA got into all kinds of problems and changed the leadership of the enforcement area, and then reopen the case. And we argued and argued that you can’t do that, because it will not be good for any of us. Five years later, they came to the same conclusion.
[For] the university, it was certainly a dark period for us. But you can’t have classes that count for graduation, that don’t count for athletic participation. It just doesn’t work. And it’s a pretty simple concept — but it took a lot of time, effort, and money, and reputational harm. And so the question would be: would you do that the same way again? I’m not sure I have another alternative…but that was a really frustrating period in the university’s history.
On living and working in Chapel Hill:
Carolina needs a seat at the table nationally because of how important it is. So as a young person growing up in college athletics, [you are] thinking about: what are some of the greatest universities in the country, and where would you like to work and live? And I was fortunate enough to be at Carolina. It’s just been a great place to work and to live. You hear about it when you’re not here…people visit here and say, ‘Oh my gosh, this place is fantastic.’ And then you get to experience it, and you feel really fortunate you’ve had this opportunity. So, I’ve had wonderful chancellors, great coaches, great student athletes — but the community itself is just a great place to live. And you see why people call it a southern slice of heaven.
UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham Kenan Stadium in in 2019. (Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward.)
On what went into the decision to transition to Senior Advisor instead of retirement and whether he will work beyond his contract through 2029:
I’ve really enjoyed being here, and I’ve really enjoyed working with the various chancellors — including Chancellor Roberts, he’s been great. I had a contract that went through 2027 and just said, ‘You know, I like being here and if I can be helpful, I would love to do that.’ And he thought I could add an experienced voice, particularly if we brought on somebody that didn’t have as much experience in college athletics.
You know, Steve is a non-traditional candidate. Chancellor Roberts was non-traditional chancellor himself. We have an engineering professor as our provost. We have a non-traditional general counsel. So, we have a lot of non-traditional folks [to] higher ed, and I do think having some experience — or some people that have been in it a while, that might be able to advise on how things might play out — could be helpful. It just seemed like the right thing. Lee offered that and I thought, ‘Well, that’s a great thing for me to do. So yeah, I’d love to do that.’
I don’t know [about working beyond 2029]. I don’t worry about that. You know, I’ve always had three career goals from the time I started working. I wanna do what I like where I like, with people I like. Those three things line up. A lot of students come and ask, ‘How do you get into college athletics? And what do you want to do?’ And I tell them to really think about who you are as a person, and then think about where you might want to do that. Find an institution that aligns with your person and who you are, and get in the industry. If you can get those three things aligned — your industry, your institution, and your own personality — it works. And this has worked really well for the Cunningham family.
Featured image by the Chapel Hill Media Group.
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