Five national championship-winning coaches — Anson Dorrance (women’s soccer), Joe Breschi (men’s lacrosse), Sam Paul (men’s tennis), Karen Shelton (field hockey) and Carlos Somoano (men’s soccer) — signed their first multi-year contract. Each continues through the 2018-2019 season.
Women’s lacrosse coach Jenny Levy agreed to a one-year contract extension through 2018-19, and women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell agreed to a two-year extension through 2019-20.
Bubba Cunningham, director of athletics, said most Division I athletic programs now offer coaches multi-year contracts, but UNC only recently adopted this model.
“Most of our peers in our league have multi-year contracts,” he said. “We’re probably a few years behind the norm.”
Cunningham said this was one of his goals when he arrived at UNC.
“I started with the national championship coaches,” he said. “I felt like they were the most deserving to get the first few contracts and now we’ll get to the other coaches.”
He said two-thirds of head coaches now have contracts and he hopes to provide contracts for the rest of the coaches soon. He will recommend new contracts and extensions to the Board of Trustees in November.
Dorrance said he feels grateful to Cunningham and the athletic department.