Tar Heel Tailgate Talks kick off UNC football season

The sound of the Marching Tar Heels practicing the UNC fight song bounced in the background as Deborah Stroman delivered a lecture on the business of sport Saturday.

Stroman’s lecture was the first in a series of Tar Heel Tailgate Talks, which will all focus on the intersection of academics and athletics.

The lectures will take place three hours before home football games, excluding those with noon start-times, in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, next to the Tar Heel Town tailgating center.

“There’s no doubt that you have small towns without sports, but I think there’s a certain elevation that comes with sport,” said Stroman, who is the director of Sport Entrepreneurship and Community Engagement at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

“On sports days, we are happy, fun-loving people — generally we are nicer to each other — and I don’t think there is any other industry that does that and can do that. I think everyone just forgets about the ills of the world for a moment, and that’s okay. It’s a collective community escape.”

In an interview, Chancellor Carol Folt said she first introduced pregame lectures at UNC in 2014, inspired by a pregame seminar series she was involved with at Dartmouth College.

Folt said the lecture series showcases the faculty who teach UNC athletes, but the talks have nothing to do with the academic scandal.

“This is what we always do,” she said. “We have great faculty and alumni coming in, and I think this gives us the chance to bring us together and go out and enjoy the sport they came for.”

Joel Curran, vice chancellor of communications and public affairs, said attendance exceeded his expectations.

“All the topics are built around athletics,” he said. “Our hope is that people coming to the game who are looking for something more academic to do will come in. I think there’s an appetite among fans to do something different.”

Most of the people who attended the event were alumni, but organizers of the talks are trying to recruit more students.

Natalie Caneja, a junior transfer student, said she came to the lecture because she was interested in sports marketing, but she was nervous coming into a room full of alumni dressed in their game day best.

“I was a little confused because there were a lot of people who looked really professional,” she said. “I thought there would be more students here.”

But, Folt said the attendance at the talks has increased since the first lectures in 2014. “We really encourage people to come,” she said. “I think we’re picking topics that a lot of people will enjoy and that are fascinating.”

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