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The head of the University of North Carolina System told UNC-Chapel Hill trustees last month to stay in their lane—and out of negotiations around Tar Heel athletics.
“Instances continue to occur where members of the board appear to act independently of their campus’s administration in matters squarely within the responsibility of the chancellor,” UNC System President Peter Hans wrote in a memo to UNC-CH Board of Trustees Chair John Preyer and Chancellor Lee Roberts.
Such actions “create substantial legal risk to the University—jeopardizing the North Carolina taxpayers’ money by blurring the lines of actual and apparent authority when these athletic departments negotiate business transactions with third parties,” Hans said in the January 16 memo that The Assembly obtained through a records request.
Hans said he was temporarily suspending parts of “the delegations of authority” that system policy gives to the Board of Trustees. Going forward, Hans wrote, he or his designee must approve any hiring or salary adjustment related to athletic department employees other than administrative assistants. For the UNC-CH athletic director and head coaches whose contracts must be approved by trustees, Hans said his sign-off will be needed first, and trustees shouldn’t “play any role in negotiation of such actions.”
Hans didn’t mention specific instances when the trustees overstepped their boundaries, and the UNC System declined to elaborate. But the memo came a month after UNC-CH trustees approved Bill Belichick’s hiring to lead the football team. Multiple media outlets reported that trustees pursued Belichick as head coach outside the athletic department’s search process, with Preyer leading their efforts.
Hans also said his sign-off would be needed for athletic department purchases of goods and services valued at $29,000 or more, according to the memo. “Neither the board of trustees, nor any of its individual members, shall play any role in the negotiation of, review, or approval of such contracts or contract amendments,” the memo says.
As the chief executive of the UNC System, Hans has administrative authority over 17 system schools. Roberts reports to him, as do all of the other chancellors. The Board of Trustees is an advisory body that has authority delegated to it by Hans and the system’s Board of Governors.
A UNC-CH spokesperson referred all questions to the UNC System office, and Preyer did not respond to a request for comment.
“President Hans took this action as a matter of good governance,” UNC System Director of Media Relations Andy Wallace said in an email. “He will not reference specific individuals or incidents and hopes to restore the delegated authority in the near future.”
Preyer and other trustees have publicly criticized UNC-CH Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham’s leadership multiple times in the past year.
The disagreements became public in May 2024, when Preyer chastised Cunningham for providing “bad data” to the Board of Trustees and said he had significant concerns about the athletic department’s finances. Trustee Jennifer Lloyd echoed the complaints and alluded to a “heated exchange” about the issue during a closed meeting the previous November.
The board voted to audit the athletic department at the May meeting, but Roberts defended Cunningham to the media afterward. “I would just add that our athletic director is one of the most senior, well-respected, admired athletic directors in the country,” he said. “He has broad respect from his peers, and we don’t have a more capable, more experienced, more talented senior administrator here at Carolina.”
“Independent and unilateral actions continue to create substantial legal risk to
memo to UNC-CH trustees from Peter Hans
the University—jeopardizing the North Carolina taxpayers’ money.”
Preyer again took aim at Cunningham in November 2024 for firing then-head football coach Mack Brown before the end of the season and for not doing it in person. (Cunningham was attending a UNC-CH basketball game in Hawaii.)
Once Belichick—who won six Super Bowls as head coach of the New England Patriots—was hired, the university put on a united front. The decision reshapes not only the football program, which Belichick promised to model after NFL teams, but the entire athletics department. Belichick will receive $10 million a year during his five-year contract, plus another $29.3 million toward staff and recruitment, and up to $3.5 million in bonuses.
“The Board of Trustees is committed to working with Bubba,” Lloyd told reporters at the December press conference announcing Belichick as head coach. “I really mean that. We’re all on the same team and today’s a new day.”
Lloyd didn’t respond to a request for comment on the memo.
Hans told the board to stick to its role of advising the UNC-CH chancellor. “The Board of Trustees is encouraged to focus its continued efforts on the important substantive topics well within its responsibility for oversight and providing advice to the chancellor, including capital planning and operational improvements while keeping the total costs of attendance at UNC-Chapel Hill as low as practicable,” the memo said.
Matt Hartman is a higher education reporter at The Assembly. He’s also written for The New Republic, The Ringer, Jacobin, and other outlets. Contact him at matt@theassemblync.com.