Storyline · 1989–1990
In December 1989 a Faculty Council committee chaired by Doris Betts called for sweeping changes in UNC athletics, and the council took up its 32 recommendations early in 1990, passing the last 11 in February in a package Chancellor Paul Hardin called historic. That June the trustees declined to make drug testing of athletes mandatory, but the Board of Governors refused to exempt the campus, and UNC began mandatory testing in November 1990.
On December 6, 1989 the Faculty Council's Ad Hoc Committee on Athletics and the University, chaired by Doris Betts, released a report finding all Division I-A programs, UNC's included, in conflict with the purposes of universities, though UNC had broken no NCAA rules. It recommended freshman ineligibility, shorter seasons, long-term contracts for coaches, an open Rams Club budget reviewed by the chancellor, and limits on admitting out-of-state athletes with noncompetitive SAT scores.
On January 19, 1990 the Faculty Council approved nine of the committee's 32 recommendations, backing national limits on athletes' practice and travel time; it voted 31-20 against a tighter limit on hours and declined to commit UNC to act alone by 1995. On February 9 it voted to cut from about 100 to 50 the out-of-state athletes admitted below regular academic standards and backed fixed-term contracts for coaches. On February 23 it passed the last 11, asking that the Educational Foundation (the Rams Club) open its financial records and that no one sit at once on the trustees and the foundation's executive committee. Chancellor Paul Hardin called the package historic and said he would take it to the ACC and NCAA.
On June 22, 1990 the Board of Trustees declined to approve a mandatory drug-testing plan for athletes and asked the UNC Board of Governors to reconsider its support for mandatory testing, citing doubts about its constitutionality and "basic fairness." On July 13 the Board of Governors refused to exempt the campus and said President C.D. Spangler would instruct the University to proceed. In early November, under that mandate, UNC began mandatory testing of its athletes, replacing a voluntary program it had run for three years; testing had been mandatory in 1986-87.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Novelist Doris Betts's talk 'My Love Affair with Carolina', printed in 1998 by the North Caroliniana Society with tributes to her by Elizabeth Evans, Lewellyn Betts and Max Steele. The pieces come from the banquet of 12 June 1998 at which she accepted the Society's award for that year. A limited edition of 500.
Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.
The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.
Will Blythe's account of the Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry, described in its subtitle as thoroughly obsessive, intermittently uplifting and occasionally unbiased. Blythe writes as a Chapel Hill partisan, and the book treats sports rivalries, basketball fans and the social side of the game in North Carolina. Published by HarperCollins in New York in 2006, first edition, 357 pages.
Art Chansky's 2009 history of the Carolina basketball dynasty that three coaches, Frank McGuire and Dean Smith among them, built at the University of North Carolina. Smith wrote the foreword and Rick Brewer the introduction. Chapters cover Final Fours, the Larry Brown bond, recruiting and the program's records.
A sequel to Art Chansky's 2005 Blue Blood, continuing the story of the Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry through the years since that book appeared. Published by St. Martin's Press in 2018. First edition, 296 pages with color illustrations.
John Feinstein's account of the three coaches who defined Triangle college basketball in the 1980s: Dean Smith (1931-2015) at North Carolina, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and Jim Valvano (1946-1993) at N.C. State, all working within a few miles of one another. Feinstein follows the recruiting contests, the rivalry among the three programs and the personal competition among the three men, which was not always friendly, and the pressure that came with national attention. Published by Doubleday in 2016, 404 pages with plates.
Fifty years of the Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry, as told by Art Chansky and published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2005. Chapters run from the 'Legend of Tobacco Road' through 'Dominate, then integrate', 'Blue blood bitterness' and 'Fall of an empire' to a postscript on the twenty-first century, with attention to the brawls and controversies that fed the feud. 373 pages with sixteen pages of plates.
Anne R. Keene's history of the Cloudbusters, the baseball team of the Navy Pre-Flight School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill during the Second World War, on which Ted Williams played in 1943. The chapters move from a batboy's trunk of keepsakes through the pre-flight training program to the players' lives after the war, and Keene's own family is part of the story. Published by Sports Publishing in New York in 2018, 340 pages with sixteen pages of plates.
Memoir of Woody Durham, who called University of North Carolina football and basketball on the radio from 1971 until he retired in 2011, written with Adam Lucas. Four decades of Tar Heel games as heard from the broadcast booth. Subjects include radio broadcasters and sportscasters, North Carolina, biography.
Art Chansky's celebration of Tar Heel basketball and Dean Smith, published in 1996 as Smith neared the end of his coaching career at the University of North Carolina. The Tar Heels and the university's basketball history are its subjects. Published by Warner Books in New York, 152 pages with illustrations, some in color, in a large format.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Athletics reform and drug testing at UNC, 1989–1990.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/athletics-reform-storyline-1989/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
