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Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1840s
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Faculty turns away a fencing and boxing instructor
A Major Roberts, backed by letters from leading trustees, asked to teach the students athletics including fencing and boxing. The faculty refused to let him form a class after learning he advertised teaching the bowie knife at the University of Virginia and boasted of having been a London prize fighter.
- 1860s
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Bricks at the Coachman's Quarters carry the date Dec 5, '65
Two bricks in a small outbuilding near the Burnside stable in Hillsborough carry the hand-cut inscription 'Dec 5, '65', found during the building's restoration after 2003. The owners and descendants connect it to Jesse Ruffin, a coachman once enslaved by Thomas Ruffin. According to family tradition he cut the date to mark the day after the General Assembly ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally ended slavery.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
- 1870s
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Trustees adopt a six-college plan and set aside ground for athletics
The trustees adopted Kemp P. Battle's committee report to reopen the university on the first Monday of September with colleges of agriculture, engineering, natural science, literature, mathematics and philosophy, meant to satisfy the 1862 land-grant act. They also reserved the eastern part of the campus along the Raleigh Road for athletics and a parade ground.
- 1880s
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Francis P. Venable brings tennis to Chapel Hill
Venable laid out a tennis court in the grove south of his house about 1884, when sport at the university was otherwise limited to casual baseball and an old-style kicking football.
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Alumni build the university's first gymnasium off university land
After the dancing ban, a chartered Gymnasium Association sold $10 shares to alumni and built a hall 110 by 45 feet on its own land, rented to the university for exercise and used for the 1885 commencement ball. The building later became Commons Hall, the student dining hall.
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Students hold the first of a series of gymnastic contests
On Thanksgiving Day students competed on the horizontal and parallel bars, ladders, Indian clubs and swings and in a half-mile race, a tug of war and a high jump, with Francis P. Venable calling the events. It was the first of a series of such contests.
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UNC plays its first intercollegiate football season
Organized football began at UNC in 1888.
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The YMCA takes charge of regular gymnasium training
The trustees accepted a YMCA plan to put gymnasium exercises on a system, with each student paying a small fee, and Lacy L. Little, a recent honor graduate and former football captain trained at Springfield, was hired as trainer.
- 1890s
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The trustees ban intercollegiate athletic contests
After disputes with other colleges, the faculty in 1889 limited games to college grounds, and in 1890 the trustees forbade intercollegiate contests altogether. A student petition won repeal, with athletics put under an advisory committee of a professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate.
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Charles Baskerville plays fullback for Carolina
Baskerville was fullback and manager of the Carolina football squads of 1892, 1893 and 1894.
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Carolina's football team beats Virginia 26 to 0 at Atlanta
Under captain Michael Hoke the 1892 team lost only to Virginia in October and then beat Richmond College, Trinity, Alabama A. and M., Vanderbilt and, in a rematch at Atlanta, Virginia. Students met the team at University Station and pulled their carriages to the campus.
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University tennis players beat Virginia and join the Intercollegiate Tennis Association
The university's tennis champions beat the University of Virginia and Richmond College on their own courts, and the university joined the ten-member Intercollegiate Tennis Association as its only Southern member. D. R. Bryson and H. C. Bridgers placed fifth in doubles at New Haven.
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Princeton's Thomas Trenchard coaches Carolina to its best football season yet
The Athletic Association hired Thomas G. "Doggie" Trenchard, an 1893 Princeton all-American, and his team won seven games and tied one before losing again to Virginia. In February 1896 President Winston called off a planned tribute to the coach, saying he had been drinking and betting on games while in Chapel Hill.
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The faculty sets study and conduct rules for athletes
After a disorderly fall term the faculty barred students neglecting their studies or on probation from the football and baseball teams, required parents' written consent, limited team absences to five days a year and made players pledge not to drink or gamble on trips.
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Ernest Graves plays fullback on the undefeated 1898 Carolina football team
Graves, a Chapel Hill native, played fullback for the university and was a member of its undefeated, untied team of 1898. He scored 131 points in his Carolina football career.
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The university lays off a new athletic field with a grandstand
President Venable's report of February 1902 lists a new athletic field with a stand among the improvements of the previous three years.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
-
Ernest Graves captains the Carolina baseball team
Graves, the team's catcher, captained the university baseball team in 1900, the year he graduated.
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The university track team wins the Southern championship at New Orleans
Running on a cinder track given by student Henry S. Lake, a university track team competed at New Orleans against Vanderbilt, Tulane and Texas and won the Southern championship.
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Jesse Ruffin, coachman and stagecoach driver, dies
Jesse Ruffin died in his nineties at his grandson Lindsey Faucette's house, out between Hillsborough and Durham. The Durham Sun remembered him as Judge Ruffin's servant and later Paul Cameron's, and a stagecoach driver before the railroad came; he was carried to Hillsborough by train for burial.
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The university withdraws from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association
After two years as a member, the university left the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1902. Its schools lay in Tennessee, South Carolina and farther south, out of touch with Chapel Hill.
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Charles T. Woollen becomes the first director of the university band
Charles T. Woollen, a university administrator, became the first director of the university band in 1903 and led it until 1919. The band first performed at a university baseball game in 1904 and was giving concerts on the Alumni Building steps by 1906.
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Judge W. P. Bynum gives the university a gymnasium
Judge William Preston Bynum paid for a gymnasium on the campus in memory of his grandson and namesake, a student who died before graduating, and presented it to the trustees by letter in May 1905. Dr. Richard H. Lewis accepted it at commencement.
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The university adds a new athletic field and tennis courts
By University Day 1908 the university had laid out a new athletic field for about $1,000 and built more tennis courts, and a new dissecting hall was in use.
- 1910s
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N. J. Cartmell takes charge of track athletics
N. J. Cartmell became the university's track coach in 1910. The team won the state meet in 1911 and 1912.
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UNC plays its first varsity basketball game
UNC defeated Virginia Christian 42–21 in Bynum Gymnasium in its first varsity basketball game.
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A Chapel Hill conference turns football coaching and finances over to an alumni committee
Three weeks after a 66-0 Thanksgiving loss to Virginia, students, alumni and faculty agreed that alumni would clear the Athletic Association's debts and hire professional coaches under a new alumni-run General Athletic Committee, while the faculty kept control of eligibility. Weeks later the committee gave Thomas Trenchard a three-year contract.
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The university calls off its football game with A&M over eligibility
Disputes over A&M players who had played for Brown, Holy Cross and Georgetown and over paid assistant coaches on the field led Carolina to cancel the game, a step Graham accepted with reluctance.
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Isaac Emerson gives $25,000 for a new athletic field and stadium
Isaac Emerson of Baltimore, an 1879 graduate who made his fortune with Bromo-Seltzer, gave $25,000 for an athletic field and stadium. The field was under construction when students returned in September 1914 and was named Emerson Field for him.
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Trustees put athletic rules in the faculty's hands
At their winter meeting the trustees adopted Graham's view that the faculty alone should make and enforce athletic rules, turning aside coach Trenchard's lobbying for the board to overrule faculty eligibility decisions.
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Thomas J. Campbell arrives as the university's first athletic director
After coach T. G. Trenchard's contract ran out with the 1915 season, Graham and a faculty committee ended alumni control of athletics and put a director in charge. Thomas Joseph Campbell, a former Harvard football star, took the post by early March 1916 and coached under a new rule that made athletes wait a year before playing.
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Emerson Field's concrete stadium is ready for the 1916 baseball season
The stadium paid for by Isaac Emerson, with white concrete stands behind Bynum Gymnasium seating up to 3,200, was ready for a baseball game with Virginia set for April 3, 1916. Its plans were the first at the university to allow parking for automobiles.
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The university cancels its 1917 football season as students drill
With more than half the students in a new four-company training program under Captain J. Stuart Allen, a twice-wounded Canadian veteran, the Athletic Association called off intercollegiate football for the duration. Albert Coates, its president, took part in the decision.
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The university suspends intercollegiate football for the war
Intercollegiate football was dropped in the fall of 1917 as drilling men took over Emerson Field in the afternoons. Captain Allen took on the coach's duties, conditioning students with trench digging and mock attacks.
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Carolina plays Virginia in Chapel Hill for the first time
The Thanksgiving Day game with Virginia, the high point of the season, was held in Chapel Hill for the first time, and more than 8,000 people crowded Emerson Field.
- 1920s
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Women students at UNC organize a basketball team
Women, then a small group mostly in upper classes and graduate study, formed a basketball team in 1921, and men on campus wondered whether a woman would have to be given a letter.
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Hillsboro's first public schoolhouse is gone and its lot is set aside for an athletic field
Once the new consolidated school opened, the grounds where the old Hillsboro schoolhouse had stood were to become the new school's athletic field, according to a February 1923 report.
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UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer
National titles won by Carolina teams other than women's soccer: the 1924 basketball team's later Helms recognition, men's basketball's six NCAA championships from 1957, women's basketball in 1994, and the field hockey, lacrosse, men's soccer and women's tennis titles since 1981.
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UNC’s 1924 basketball team earns later Helms recognition
UNC’s unbeaten 1923–24 team was retrospectively named national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1943.
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Rameses, the live ram mascot, makes his debut for Carolina
Head cheerleader Vic Huggins won athletic department approval and $25 to buy a ram as a mascot. Rameses first appeared at the football game against the Virginia Military Institute, which Carolina won 3-0.
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William R. Kenan Jr. gives $275,000 for a football stadium
Kenan announced a gift of 275,000 dollars to build Kenan Memorial Stadium in honor of his parents, William Rand and Mary Hargrave Kenan. Construction began in November 1926.
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Annual benefit football games fund Chapel Hill's Black public health nurse
From 1927 a yearly football game played by Black teams on Fetzer Field, sponsored by the University YMCA, raised money for the public health nurse serving Chapel Hill's Black community, a project run by the Community Club. The 1941 game involved the Orange County Training School and raised $275 net.
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Kenan Memorial Stadium opens
Kenan Memorial Stadium, the gift of William Rand Kenan Jr., hosted its first event on November 12, 1927, when Carolina beat Davidson 27 to 0. It was formally dedicated before the Thanksgiving Day game against Virginia on November 24, when Governor Angus McLean accepted it for the state and the University.
- 1930s
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Kay Kyser's band closes the May Frolics dances in the Tin Can
Kay Kyser and his orchestra, made up of former UNC students, played the formal dance that closed the fourth annual May Frolics in the Tin Can. The band also gave a benefit concert in Memorial Hall the next afternoon.
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Jim Tatum is named an All-Southern tackle at UNC
Tatum enrolled at UNC with the persuasion and financial aid of his uncle William Donald Carmichael Jr. He played tackle under Chuck Collins and Carl Snavely, was named All-Southern in 1934, also caught for the baseball team, and graduated in 1935.
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Carolina Coach Company opens a new bus station at Rosemary and Columbia streets
Carolina Coach Company moved Chapel Hill's bus station from East Franklin Street to new quarters at the corner of Rosemary Lane and Columbia Street, opened the week of April 24, 1936. It ran ten round trips a day to Durham and four between Raleigh and Greensboro through Chapel Hill.
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The university names its new gymnasium for Charles T. Woollen
The university named its new gymnasium for Charles T. Woollen, its longtime registrar, business manager and comptroller, who had advocated for the building and helped oversee its construction. He died the following year.
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Jim Tatum returns to UNC as director of freshman athletics
After following Carl Snavely to Cornell as an assistant football coach and head baseball coach, Tatum came back to Chapel Hill in 1939 as UNC's director of freshman athletics.
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UNC tennis coach John Kenfield opens the Carolina Sports Shop
Kenfield started a sporting goods store on the north side of East Franklin. New owners bought him out in 1942 and made Henry Sawtelle McGinty manager.
- 1940s
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Jim Tatum coaches UNC football for a single season
Tatum was UNC's head football coach for one year in 1942. He then joined the navy and learned the split-T formation as an assistant to its founder, Don Faurot, at Iowa Pre-Flight.
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Governor Broughton speaks at a Pre-Flight School graduation in Kenan Stadium
Broughton and UNC president Frank Porter Graham both spoke at Navy Pre-Flight School graduation exercises in Kenan Stadium on June 2, 1943.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Carolina Coach Company builds a Williamsburg-style bus station on West Franklin Street
The bus station at 311 West Franklin Street had a pedimented portico, a cupola with a weathervane and other Colonial details.
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Charlie Justice chooses Carolina and begins four seasons at Chapel Hill
Justice was one of the most sought after players in the country after playing for the Bainbridge Navy team, and he chose Chapel Hill over South Carolina and Duke. He played tailback for Carl Snavely from 1946 to 1949, gaining 170 yards on 17 carries against Virginia in his freshman season.
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The William Edward McPherson House is built on Nash Street in West Hillsborough
The 2017 Hillsborough architectural survey records the William Edward McPherson House at 303 Nash Street and dates it to 1947. The McPherson family, whose Edward (Pete) McPherson managed Hillsboro's Black All-Stars baseball team in these years, owned several lots along the west side of Nash Street.
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Hillsboro's Black baseball team opens its season at McPherson's Baseball Park before a record crowd
The News of Orange County's column for the Black community reported that the baseball season opened at McPherson's Baseball Park on Sunday, April 6, before a record crowd; the home team lost to the Roxboro Stars and on Easter Monday to the Graham Stars.
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Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough
Bill France and four partners chartered a company in September 1947 to build a one-mile dirt oval by the old Occoneechee Farm, and it opened in June 1948. The track held a race in NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season in 1949, was renamed Orange Speedway in 1954, and closed after Richard Petty won its last race on September 15, 1968.
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Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. buys the Occoneechee Farm racetrack tract
W. S. Murchison and J. R. Rogers sold two hundred acres of the old Occoneechee Farm, including its horse track, to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., the company Bill France and four partners had chartered to build a stock car track. France had spotted the track while flying over Orange County.
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Occoneechee Speedway opens
Occoneechee Speedway, a one-mile dirt oval that Bill France and four North Carolina partners built on the old Occoneechee Farm horse track outside Hillsborough, opened with a 100-mile NASCAR stock car race won by Fonty Flock.
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Fonty Flock wins both races of the Occoneechee double-header
Fonty Flock, who had won the speedway's opening race in June, won both feature events of the double-header at Occoneechee Speedway, the track's second and third races.
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Kay Kyser leads a rained-out pep rally in Memorial Hall
When rain cancelled the outdoor rally and torchlight parade before the Texas game, Kay Kyser, his wife Georgia Carroll and coach Carl Snavely entertained more than 1,800 students in a packed Memorial Hall.
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NASCAR comes to Occoneechee Speedway
Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsborough hosted the third race of NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season, a 200-lap event won by Bob Flock. It is the only dirt track from that inaugural season that still survives.
- 1950s
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Charlie Justice receives UNC's Patterson Medal
UNC placed Justice in the 1950 class of Patterson Medal winners, the university's award for its leading athlete. He had been Walter Camp National Player of the Year in 1948 and Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1948 and 1949.
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The Cedar Grove Ruritan Club is organized
Formed in 1950, the club helped landscape the new Aycock School and equip its gym, fielded a community baseball team and arranged group hospital insurance for members. In 1952 it placed first among 22 rural groups in the community improvement contest.
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Fireball Roberts wins his first NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee
Twenty-one-year-old Fireball Roberts of Daytona Beach won the 100-lap Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, his first victory in NASCAR's top series, in only his third start. Curtis Turner led the first 45 laps before a flat tire and finished second; Louise Smith drove a new Nash Ambassador in the field.
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Lee Petty wins the 1950 season finale as Bill Rexford clinches the title
Lee Petty of Greensboro won the 200-mile race that closed NASCAR's 1950 Grand National season at Occoneechee Speedway, his first win at the track. Bill Rexford dropped out with engine trouble but took the championship when Fireball Roberts also failed to finish.
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Lincoln High School opens on Merritt Mill Road
In 1951 Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill's high school for Black students, moved from the old Orange County Training School building on Caldwell Street to a new building on Merritt Mill Road, and the old building became Northside Elementary. Lincoln used the Merritt Mill Road campus until 1966; the building is now the school district's Lincoln Center.
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Fonty Flock wins the spring race at Occoneechee
Fonty Flock won the spring NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, with Frank Mundy second and Bill Blair third.
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The Village Theatre becomes the Varsity under new owners
Varsity Theatres, Inc., of High Point, headed by Hugh J. Smart, took over Chapel Hill's Village Theatre, renamed it the Varsity and made it a first-run house. The Village was the old Carolina Theatre, renamed in 1942 when the new Carolina opened.
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Frank McGuire arrives at UNC to coach basketball
McGuire came to Chapel Hill in 1952 to take over a basketball program that ranked far behind football in the university's priorities. His first office at Carolina was the ticket booth at Woollen Gym.
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Oliver K. Cornwell becomes chair of UNC's Department of Physical Education and Athletics
After Robert Fetzer retired in 1952, Cornwell became chair of the combined department, while Charles P. Erickson became director of athletics. By 1955 the two parts had been separated again.
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Tim Flock wins the 100-mile Grand National at Occoneechee
Tim Flock, driving a 1951 Hudson Hornet, took the lead on the 45th lap and won the 100-mile NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway before 5,000 spectators, with his brother Fonty second.
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Assistant track coach Joe Hilton designs and builds his own house on Oakwood Drive
Joe Hilton, UNC's assistant track coach, cleared the lot by axe, drew the plans with his wife, and with their son and Victory Village neighbors built a $22,000 ranch house, starting in June 1952. Carrboro contractor Herman Lloyd advised him; the family hoped to move in by September 1953.
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Orange Speedway, Inc. takes over the Hillsborough track
Bill France Sr. became president of the new Orange Speedway, Inc., with Ann France as secretary-treasurer and Enoch Staley as vice-president; the other three original partners were no longer with the track. It was known as Orange Speedway from 1954.
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Fonty Flock wins at Occoneechee weeks after his Darlington victory
Fonty Flock, winner of the Southern 500 at Darlington, won the October Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway weeks after his 500-mile Darlington victory.
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UNC cancels two football games after a player and three students get polio
The University of North Carolina called off its football games with Georgia on October 4 and N.C. State on October 11, 1952, because a player and three other students had been stricken with polio.
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WCHL begins broadcasting
WCHL, Chapel Hill's new commercial radio station, went on the air in January 1953 at 1360 on the dial with 1,000 watts, broadcasting from sunrise to sunset from a site on the Durham highway. General manager Sandy McClamroch ran it with partners Roy E. Fullen and Lonnie Dark; its first broadcast was set for January 18.
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A quarter-mile track opens inside Orange Speedway
A new quarter-mile track built inside the Orange Speedway mile opened with a seven-event NASCAR sportsman and amateur racing program under the direction of Bill France and Enoch Staley.
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Charles Blake and his wife buy the Coach House and rename it Chatwood
Charles Blake, a retired MIT professor who banded birds as a hobby, and his wife bought the Faucett House tract in 1956 and named it Chatwood for their interest in birds. In the 1950s they began the rose and perennial garden that became a noted heritage rose garden.
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Curtis Turner wins both NASCAR convertible races at Orange Speedway
Curtis Turner of Roanoke won both NASCAR convertible circuit races held at Orange Speedway in 1956 and set the convertible qualifying record there.
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Jim Tatum returns to Chapel Hill as head football coach
Tatum came back to UNC in 1956 at a substantial cut in salary and reorganized and expanded the university's Educational Foundation, the source of its athletic grants-in-aid. He had the only losing season of his career that year, 2-7-1, and followed it with 6-4 records in 1957 and 1958.
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McGuire's undefeated Tar Heels play their home games at Woollen Gym
McGuire's 1956-57 team won 32 straight games and the national championship, beating Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain in triple overtime as 12-point underdogs. Only eight of those wins came at home in Woollen Gym, where a hole was drilled in the wall for a television camera lens.
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Buck Baker wins the spring 100-miler at Orange Speedway
Buck Baker, driving a 1956 Chrysler, beat Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts and 29 other drivers in the 100-mile Grand National race at Orange Speedway on Mother's Day.
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Fireball Roberts wins the fall race at Orange Speedway
Fireball Roberts, driving a 1956 Ford, won the 110-lap fall race at Orange Speedway, setting the track record for that distance, with Buck Baker second.
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Football coach Jim Tatum and his wife Edna build a house on Laurel Hill Road
The house pairs a two-story colonial block with a split-level stone living-room wing and a bowed window, probably from mail-order plans. Tatum had come back to coach UNC the year before.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 1957 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Kansas, 54–53 in triple overtime, to win the national title.
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The first televised ACC regular season game is played at Woollen Gym
Television producer C. D. Chesley brought his cameras into Woollen Gym for Carolina's fourteenth meeting with Clemson, the first regular season ACC game ever televised. McGuire's team won 79-55.
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Bill France leases Orange Speedway to the Orange County Board of Education
Bill France signed a ten-year lease letting Hillsboro High School use the Orange Speedway grounds as its athletic field, for $100 a year, while races continued.
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Jim Tatum dies at Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill
Tatum apparently contracted an overwhelming viral infection while visiting Canada with the coaches Peahead Walker and Frank Howard, and died one week after entering Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. He was buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
- 1960s
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UNC football coach Jim Hickey builds a two-story Colonial Revival house on Iris Lane
The weatherboarded house has a pedimented entrance porch and a garage wing topped by a small cupola. Hickey lived there until 1977.
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Richard Petty wins his first race at Orange Speedway
Richard Petty, 23, took the pole and led all 110 laps of the September 100-mile race at Orange Speedway, finishing a lap ahead of Ned Jarrett. His father Lee had won the track's May race.
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Aycock suspends a basketball player in the betting scandal and makes Dean Smith head coach
After the player Doug Moe accepted $75 from a gambler in 1961, Chancellor Aycock suspended him and said the integrity of the institution was involved. Aycock then raised assistant coach Dean Smith to head coach.
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Church and student groups picket Chapel Hill's Varsity Theatre
Local church groups and student organizations picketed the Varsity Theatre after Black patrons were refused entry. Later that year the management agreed to admit Black UNC students with ID, and the town's theaters were fully desegregated by early 1962.
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Frank McGuire leaves UNC and Dean Smith succeeds him
McGuire left Chapel Hill in 1961 to coach the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA. Dean Smith, who had joined his staff as an assistant in 1958, became head coach of the Tar Heels.
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Joe Weatherly wins the first 150-miler at Orange Speedway
Joe Weatherly won the 150-mile race that closed the 1961 Grand National season at Orange Speedway, the first race of that length at the track, setting a lap record of 95.15 miles per hour and a race average of 86.11.
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Lincoln High's football team wins an undefeated state championship
Coach William D. Peerman's Lincoln High Tigers won the state 2-A football championship for Black high schools on November 22, 1961, beating previously unbeaten Ridgeview High of Hickory 22-0 to finish 12-0. The season was unbeaten but not unscored upon: Harnett High scored six points in the eastern title game.
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Junior Johnson wins the spring 150-miler at Orange Speedway
Junior Johnson won the spring 150-mile Grand National race at Orange Speedway in March 1963.
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Joe Weatherly wins his last race at Orange Speedway
Joe Weatherly won the fall 150-mile race at Orange Speedway, the last victory of his career; he was killed in a crash at Riverside, California, in January 1964.
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Orange Speedway names its spring race the Joe Weatherly Memorial
Orange Speedway scheduled its spring 1964 150-mile Grand National race as the inaugural Joe Weatherly Memorial, honoring the late national champion who held both track speed records and had won his last race there.
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Lincoln High School closes during integration
Lincoln High on Merritt Mill Road, the Black high school led since 1946 by principal C. A. McDougle, stopped operating as a secondary school in 1966 and its students were reassigned to the new Chapel Hill High, completing the desegregation of the district's schools. McDougle became an assistant principal there and Lincoln's championship football coach William D. Peerman was made an assistant coach after a contested board vote; Lincoln's name, colors, mascot and much of its memorabilia were not carried over.
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Richard Petty wins the Hillsborough 150 during his ten-race streak
Richard Petty's win in the Hillsborough 150 at Orange Speedway was the eighth of ten straight victories in 1967, the season he won a record 27 races.
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Principal George Pierce and Arthur Wells ask for basketball goals and better lighting
Cedar Grove principal George Pierce and advisory council chairman Arthur Wells asked the board for basketball goals, better lighting, doors for the boys' restrooms and supplies for the lunchroom.
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Final race at Orange Speedway
Richard Petty won by seven laps in the last NASCAR Grand National race at Orange Speedway near Hillsborough, as the Occoneechee track had been called since 1954. The track closed after the race.
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UNC head football coach Bill Dooley buys the Wood house on Fern Lane
Dooley bought the 1957 Ranch built for radiologist Ernest Wood and lived there until 1994.
- 1970s
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John Bunting co-captains Carolina's ACC championship football team
Linebacker John Bunting was co-captain, with quarterback Paul Miller, of the 1971 Tar Heels, who went 9-3 and won the Atlantic Coast Conference title. He was named first-team All-ACC and the team's defensive MVP.
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Woody Durham calls Carolina football and basketball on the radio
Durham, a 1963 UNC graduate, was the radio play-by-play voice of Tar Heel football and men's basketball for 40 years, calling more than 1,800 broadcasts.
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The county board names Orange High's new football stadium for coach Glenn Auman
The board named the new football stadium for Glenn Auman, who had coached for many years and taught high school classes.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Anson Dorrance coaches the UNC men's soccer team
Dorrance, a 1974 UNC graduate, coached the Tar Heel men from 1977 through the 1988 season and won 172 games with them.
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Roy Williams serves as an assistant coach under Dean Smith at UNC
Williams spent ten seasons on Dean Smith's UNC men's basketball staff before leaving to become head coach at Kansas.
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UNC hires Willie Scroggs to coach men's lacrosse
Athletic director Bill Cobey recruited Scroggs, the top assistant at Johns Hopkins, to build the Tar Heel program. His teams went 120 and 37 over 12 seasons and reached the NCAA tournament every year from 1980 through 1990.
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Four Corners Restaurant, named for Dean Smith's stalling offense, replaces the Rendezvous
The new East Franklin restaurant took its name from the four-corners keep-away offense of UNC basketball coach Dean Smith.
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UNC starts a varsity women's soccer team with Anson Dorrance as its coach
UNC named Dorrance head coach of its new women's soccer program in 1979, and he coached the men's and women's teams at the same time for the next decade.
- 1980s
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John Swofford is named UNC athletics director
Swofford, a former Tar Heel quarterback and defensive back, was named athletics director at 31 and held the post for 17 years, until he became ACC commissioner in 1997.
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Karen Shelton becomes head coach of UNC field hockey
Shelton took over the Tar Heel program in 1981, after finishing at West Chester State in 1979 and spending a year as an assistant coach at Franklin and Marshall. She coached at Chapel Hill for 42 seasons and had 40 winning ones.
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Michael Jordan plays his Carolina career in Carmichael Auditorium
Jordan played all three of his Carolina seasons in Carmichael Auditorium in Chapel Hill and scored in double figures in 90 of his 101 games for UNC. He was Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and National Player of the Year in 1984.
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UNC women’s soccer builds a national dynasty
Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the AIAW national championship
UNC won the AIAW national championship before the first NCAA women’s soccer tournament.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1981 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1981 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 1982 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Georgetown, 63–62, to win the national title.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1982 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1982 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1982 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Central Florida, 2–0, in the national final.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1983 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated George Mason, 4–0, in the national final.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1984 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final.
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Orange Speedway, Inc. is dissolved
The three shareholders of Orange Speedway, Inc., Ann and Bill France and Enoch Staley, voluntarily dissolved the corporation sixteen years after the last race. France Staley, LLC, which held title to the track, sold it to Preservation North Carolina in 1997.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1986 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1986 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1986 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final.
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UNC men's soccer wins the ACC title and reaches the NCAA Final Four
Under Dorrance the Tar Heel men won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1987 and reached the NCAA Final Four.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1987 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Massachusetts, 1–0, in the national final.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1988 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated NC State, 4–1, in the national final.
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The Faucette mill and coach house join the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Faucette mill and coach house on the Eno on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1989 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1989 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1989 NCAA field hockey title against Old Dominion.
- 1990s
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1990 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final.
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Willie Scroggs leaves coaching for athletics administration at UNC
Scroggs retired from coaching at the end of the 1990 season to become associate athletic director for game operations and outdoor facilities, a job that grew into responsibility for athletics construction and operations on campus.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1991 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Wisconsin, 3–1, in the national final.
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UNC's basketball team takes the court in Alexander Julian's argyle uniforms
At Dean Smith's request, the Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian redesigned the Tar Heel men's basketball uniforms, adding an argyle side panel that debuted in the 1991-92 season and became a symbol of the university.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1991 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1991 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1992 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Duke, 9–1, in the national final.
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Richard Petty receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
President George H. W. Bush presented Petty the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his stock car racing career, citing his rise from humble beginnings in Level Cross, North Carolina.
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The George Watts Hill Alumni Center opens on Stadium Drive
The General Alumni Association dedicated its new Alumni Center on Stadium Drive in 1993, and the university named it for George Watts Hill, who had pledged a $3.5 million challenge grant when the building campaign began.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1993 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated George Mason, 6–0, in the national final.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 1993 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Michigan, 77–71, to win the national title.
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UNC wins the Sears Directors' Cup
Carolina won the Sears Directors' Cup for its all-sports record under athletics director John Swofford, the only ACC program to win the award.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1994 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 5–0, in the national final. This completed nine consecutive NCAA titles (1986–1994).
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UNC women’s basketball wins the 1994 NCAA national championship
Charlotte Smith’s last-second three-pointer gave UNC a 60–59 victory over Louisiana Tech.
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UNC hires Jenny Levy to start its women's lacrosse program
Carolina added women's lacrosse as a varsity sport and in October 1994 named Levy, then an assistant coach at Georgetown, its first head coach. She is still the only head coach the program has had.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1995 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1995 NCAA field hockey title against Maryland.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1996 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 1–0 in two overtimes, in the national final.
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Frances Hargraves carries the Olympic torch down Franklin Street
The 1996 Olympic torch relay passed through Chapel Hill and Carrboro on its way to Atlanta. Frances Hargraves, 82, a retired special education teacher chosen as one of five Chapel Hill Community Heroes, took the flame from Chuck Stone at Columbia Street and carried it down Franklin Street.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1996 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1996 NCAA field hockey title against Princeton.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1997 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final.
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UNC field hockey wins the 1997 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 1997 NCAA field hockey title against Old Dominion.
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Mike Fox is named UNC head baseball coach
Athletic director Dick Baddour hired Fox, a former Tar Heel second baseman, as the 24th head coach in UNC baseball history. He came from 15 seasons at N.C. Wesleyan College and took over before the 1999 season.
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Fairview residents build a baseball field on a former dump
Residents built a ball field on the site of an old dump in 1999 and started a league to use it. For a decade it and a set of swings were about all Fairview Park had.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 1999 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–0, in the national final.
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Willie Scroggs is UNC's point person for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games
As an athletics administrator Scroggs was the university's point person for the Special Olympics World Summer Games, part of which were held in Chapel Hill.
- 2000s
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2000 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated UCLA, 2–1, in the national final.
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John Bunting becomes Carolina's head football coach
John Bunting, a former Tar Heel linebacker and 1972 UNC graduate, was named head football coach at the University of North Carolina after assistant jobs in the NFL.
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Bunting's Tar Heels beat sixth-ranked Florida State 41-9 at home
In Carolina's 2001 home opener, moved after the September 11 attacks postponed the SMU game, Bunting's team beat Bobby Bowden's Florida State 41-9 for his first win as head coach.
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UNC men’s soccer wins the 2001 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Indiana to win the 2001 NCAA men’s soccer championship.
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State reviewers approve the Occoneechee Speedway nomination despite Hillsborough's objection
Hillsborough's historic preservation commission approved the nomination, but the mayor objected after a vote of the town commissioners, because the old track lay in the path of a possible north-south bypass. Commissioner Ken Chavious asked the committee on February 14, 2002 to weigh the town's traffic needs. Members replied that only eligibility was before them and approved the nomination unanimously, with one member leaving the room because he consulted on the bypass.
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Occoneechee Speedway is listed in the National Register
The 44-acre Occoneechee Speedway site near Hillsborough, acquired by preservationists from the France and Staley families in 1997, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 2002. It is the only surviving dirt track from NASCAR's inaugural 1949 season.
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Historic Occoneechee Speedway trail opens to the public
A public walking trail opened in 2003 on the Occoneechee Speedway site near Hillsborough, crossing the surviving clay oval of the old NASCAR track. The landowner, the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust (later the Jenrette Foundation), built it with the volunteer Historic Speedway Group.
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Roy Williams is named head coach of UNC men's basketball
Williams left Kansas a week after losing the NCAA championship game and was introduced in Chapel Hill as UNC's head coach, succeeding Matt Doherty.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2003 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final.
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UNC dedicates the William E. Scroggs locker room at Kenan Stadium
Lacrosse alumni and the Educational Foundation paid to refurbish the men's lacrosse locker room at the old Kenan Field House, and it was dedicated in Scroggs's name before lacrosse alumni and fans.
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A Charlie Justice monument is dedicated at UNC's Kenan Football Center
A bronze sculpture of Justice in his number 22 uniform, 8 feet 6 inches tall, was dedicated at the west entrance of the Frank H. Kenan Football Center near the Sonja Haynes Stone Center. Private donations paid for it, and it was proposed by his teammate Joe Neikirk with Charlie Loudermilk and Hugh Morton.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2005 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Illinois, 75–70, to win the national title.
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UNC hosts its first NCAA baseball regional at Boshamer Stadium since
Mike Fox's Tar Heels swept three games at the regional in Chapel Hill, then won the super regional at Alabama and went on to finish second at the College World Series.
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UNC announces John Bunting will not return as football coach
Athletic director Dick Baddour told Bunting he would be relieved at the end of his sixth season, and the university announced he would not coach the Tar Heels in 2007. He coached the last five games.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2006 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final.
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UNC closes the original Boshamer Stadium with a super regional win
The Tar Heels beat South Carolina in an NCAA super regional at Boshamer Stadium, the last postseason games in the 1972 stadium, and advanced to the College World Series for the second straight year.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2007 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2007 NCAA field hockey title against Penn State.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2008 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final.
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Rebuilt Boshamer Stadium opens on Ridge Road
UNC opened its $26 million rebuilt baseball stadium, on the footprint of the old Boshamer, with a home opener against VMI before about 2,800 fans. Work began in October 2007, and the field was named Bryson Field.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Michigan State, 89–72, to win the national title.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2009 NCAA field hockey title against Maryland.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Stanford, 1–0, in the national final.
- 2010s
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UNC discloses possible academic misconduct in its football program
An NCAA and university inquiry into agent benefits to football players, set off by a player's tweet on May 31, 2010, turned up possible academic misconduct by a tutor, which Thorp announced at a press conference. Later investigation found grade changes and classes that did not meet in the African and Afro-American studies department.
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UNC men’s soccer wins the 2011 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Charlotte to win the 2011 NCAA men’s soccer championship.
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Chancellor Thorp announces his resignation
After two years of scandals in the football program and the African and Afro-American studies department, and a fundraiser's resignation over personal trips, Thorp announced he would resign. Students and faculty held a rally asking him to stay.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2012 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Penn State, 4–1, in the national final.
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UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2013 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2013 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.
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Dean Smith is named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Obama named Smith among sixteen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing his 36 seasons as UNC's head basketball coach (1961-1997), two national championships, a 96 percent graduation rate among his players and his civil rights advocacy.
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Willie Scroggs retires as a senior associate athletic director at UNC
Scroggs retired at the end of June 2014 after decades overseeing athletics facilities at Carolina, including work at Carmichael Arena, Boshamer Stadium, Kenan Stadium, Woollen Gym and the Eddie Smith Field House.
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Bill Thorpe and Dean Smith are added to the Peace and Justice Plaza marker
At a town Peace and Justice Celebration, the names of former Council member Bill Thorpe and UNC basketball coach Dean Smith were added to the granite marker, which already honored 13 local leaders. Thorpe's son William spoke about him.
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UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2016 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2016 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 2016 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2016 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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Mildred Council receives EmPOWERment's first POWER award
At a gala at the Friday Center, basketball coach Roy Williams presented Mildred "Mama Dip" Council with the inaugural POWER award from EmPOWERment Inc., a group promoting affordable housing and economic development in Chapel Hill's neediest neighborhoods. The honor came in the month of her restaurant's 40th anniversary.
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Michael Jordan expands the Jordan Brand partnership with UNC athletics
Jordan announced an expansion of his Jordan Brand partnership with North Carolina Tar Heels athletics in March 2017, saying that it is always great to come home.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2017 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Gonzaga, 71–65, to win the national title.
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The Smith Center floor is dedicated as Roy Williams Court
UNC announced on August 2, 2018 that it would name the Dean E. Smith Center playing floor for Williams, and the floor was dedicated on August 24.
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UNC names its new field hockey stadium for Karen Shelton
The university announced that its field hockey facility would be called Karen Shelton Stadium, the first UNC playing field named in honor of a woman. The team had moved in at the start of preseason that August, and the stadium holds about 1,000 spectators.
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UNC moves Kenan Stadium's honor from William R. Kenan Sr. to his son
Chancellor Carol Folt announced that, after talking with the family, the university would change the stadium plaques to remove the honor to William R. Kenan Sr., who led a white supremacist unit in the 1898 Wilmington massacre, and focus instead on the donor, William R. Kenan Jr.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2018 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2018 NCAA field hockey title.
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.