For the first time ever, North Carolina ditched its year-end athletic banquet in the Dean Dome and invited student athletes to gather in Memorial Hall for the Rammy Awards.
The award ceremony was hosted by Jones Angell and lasted just less than two hours, but those few hours were packed with performances, mentions of ACC and NCAA titles and Giovani Bernard punt return references.
Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said they changed the event this year to increase student-athlete interest and participation.
“We had a lot of input from our staff and from our students, and we just thought we had an event that we thought we could make better,” Cunningham said. “And the students did a great job coming up with ideas and concepts. I thought it was a lot of fun.”
The evening began with a video montage of UNC’s athletic successes from the past year, including said punt return, clips from the women’s soccer NCAA tournament, R.G. Keenan’s overtime goal against the Johns Hopkins lacrosse team and several other UNC achievements.
Angell then moved the event into its award section. Student athletes presented each other with Rammy Awards — including awards for “Best Play,” “Best Upset” and “Breakthrough Athletes.”
The football team’s Tim Jackson presented the “Breakthrough Athletes” awards and went off the prompter to ask co-presenter and volleyball player Chaniel Nelson if she had seen the circus when it came into town. She said no.
“That’s too bad because it was ‘in tents,’” Jackson joked.
Swimmer J.P. Gaylor also went off-script and joked about presenting with Whitney Adams, a women’s basketball player. Both have red hair.