Q&A with John Preyer of UNC's Board of Trustees

John Preyer has a long history with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Greensboro, N.C. native graduated from UNC with a political science degree in 1990, and while his career has been based in environmental matters, he has given back to his alma mater by serving on various boards since 2011. He became a member of the Board of Trustees in 2019 for an eight-year term that runs through 2027, and recently completed a two-year term as chairman last month.

What follows is an edited transcript of a sit-down interview exploring Preyer’s tenure as chairman and his controversial involvement in the hiring of Bill Belichick as UNC’s head football coach.

You’ve been on the Board of Trustees now for six years and just completed a two-year term as the board’s chair. What has surprised you the most?

“On the academic side of the University, it’s been the amount of change that we’ve been able to accomplish. It hasn’t been easy, any large institution with vested interests tends to resist change but four years ago we got approval authority for the first time for a consolidated all funds budget which the BOT has to approve.

“When I got on the board in 2019 there were over twenty separate budgets that were not consolidated, and the University was accruing a $100 million structural deficit. At the time the Vice Chancellor of Finance & Operations reported to the Provost, not the Chancellor, which was a mistake we also helped remedy. When I pointed out that the then Provost was responsible for allowing the deficit to balloon to $100 million and maybe, just maybe, should be held responsible for it, I was criticized by the very people who had let this happen. Ironically, they had not been exercising proper governance that could have prevented it. That was a real eye opener. I simply could not understand why no one was held to account for such a huge mistake – that was the mindset back then – but not today.

“We worked with the Board of Governors and got budget authority, we passed the Chicago Principles on institutional neutrality to keep the University from viewpoint politicalization, established the new School of Civic Life & Leadership, approved the hiring of a new chancellor, and a new football coach—both of whom were unconventional candidates—and lots of other key positions in the senior administration.

“So since I got on the board in 2019 our applications have gone from 44,969 to this year pool of 83,911, almost doubling. In large measure this is the result of the change led by our board over these years and is a strong indicator of how well these changes have been received across the state and the country.

“On the athletic side, the biggest surprise to me has been the degree of dedication of the Rams Club members who do so much to help the University through their support of the various sports programs and teams.

“I’ve been fortunate to get to know many of those that are very active. It’s not really fair to name them but your readers ought to know that a few of them do so much that is just above and beyond – they get asked and asked and for multiple sports and yet whenever needed they still come through. There is one I have to recognize, though, and everybody who loves Carolina should take five minutes and send a thank you note to Eddie Smith for all that he has done for the University and its athletic programs. In fact, send that note to Eddie care of the Rams Club, and let them compile the notes for him.

“One of the reasons I admire Eddie so much is not just his success, which is one of the greatest entrepreneurial stories in all of N.C. business history, but he is so humble about it: how the oil embargo of the 1970s almost did him in, how multiple hurricanes almost sunk his production line, literally, and instead Grady-White just kept making the highest rated and best boats in their class year after year.   

“I have to admit that six years ago I had a totally skewed view of the Rams Club – I mistakenly thought it had all the money it needed and that it was clique-ish – but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s way more open to everybody regardless of donor level.

“In fact, I think the University should do a better job of encouraging young alums to give to the RC to start an early appreciation for how direct the impact is from long time giving. I got a prod from a former board colleague who encouraged me to give annually, and since I have tried to increase my giving level every year. Some of the Rams Club donors probably put in as much or more in the value of their time spent on helping with spreadsheets and financial models as the actual dollar amount they give. The level of dedication is just remarkable.”

You mentioned the hiring of both Lee Roberts and Bill Belichick. Can you give us any insight into those hires, both of which you described as unconventional?

“Sure. In the case of the Chancellor search it was clear to me that we were at an inflection point in higher education and that the historic model of a career spent in academia being required to lead a multi-billion dollar research enterprise was just no longer the case. Instead, what’s needed today is a financial skillset in managing a complex organization and its budget as well as how to fundraise for it. Lee had great experience with both having served as the State Budget Director as well as having a private sector career with experience raising money. In many ways Lee personifies what the new model of a University leader should be, and I hope other schools will take notice. It’s also an example of how Carolina is once again leading among its peers.

“In the case of Coach Belichick, let’s just say that early on there were more than a few skeptics. The knock was that it was all an effort to parlay the attention into another NFL job. Ironically, the skeptics didn’t really believe that the coach with eight Super Bowl wins would really want to come here. Most did not know his dad had been a coach here and that Bill was a child here until they moved to Annapolis. I knew that history, though, and in our first ever conversation he made crystal clear to me that his interest in Carolina was real and that it was where he wanted to coach. 

“The reasons why would make every Tar Heel proud: the history as the first state university, the most beautiful campus of any in the country and he’d been to all of them, and most of all, the tradition of excellence in both academics and athletics. I then realized this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that the first hurdle would be getting the people involved in the search process to take it seriously… and it was a real hurdle. 

“The search firm that had been selected was a bit of a head scratcher to me as the principal there had been the former athletic director at N.C. State. It seemed like they had a list of conventional candidates and weren’t really thinking big. So adding Coach Belichick to the existing list of candidates caused a few raised eyebrows but they eventually agreed to the request.

“When it came time for the Zoom interviews, I’d asked that a few of the Rams Club members be included in the one with Coach Belichick because I thought it would help them to see firsthand he wasn’t using us as a stalking horse for another job and that he really wanted to be the coach at Carolina. What I didn’t expect was for the Zoom link, which was shaky at the start, to completely drop after the first five minutes, which it did. And then a funny thing happened, after somehow miraculously fixing his Wi-Fi connection, Coach Belichick re-appeared on Zoom composed and in full command as you’d expect from the coach who had eight Super Bowl rings. 

“He was direct and matter of fact about why he wanted to be at Carolina, and why he thought his style of teaching of football would be a good fit for us. It was obviously quite compelling. After that interview the unique nature of the opportunity in front of us got more clear. Several of those who had been skeptical were now seeing the upside and were open to the prospect of it being real.

“The next few days were agonizing because our side seemed to be moving very slow as we stuck to the schedule of interviews with other candidates, which we had to do in case we couldn’t land Coach Belichick. And as one who has done a fair number of transactions in my work life, including several with large publicly traded companies as well as large government entities, I knew all too well that the time kills a deal.”

There were reports that you offered a contract to Belichick’s agent. Is that true?

“I never provided anything written or verbally to Belichick or to his agent on contract terms and at no point was I ever negotiating on behalf of the University. I sent Michael Lombardi a one pager with the incentive compensation that was in Coach Brown’s contract, which was a public record and available online, as a frame of reference for how things like Nike, Learfield, and football camp revenue were all component parts of the overall package that would be the compensation package for a head football coach.

“I relayed it to Michael because he was aware that the pace of progress was slow, he would be the first hire if Belichick became coach and he wanted to understand how the particulars of a state contract worked. Keep in mind that both he and Coach Belichick were used to very standard from type NFL contracts. Regardless, I got some heat for this and regret that it was a distraction.

“The credit goes to Chancellor Lee Roberts for making this happen – he worked with all the relevant parties in the mix to get it across the finish line – and he did it.”

There have also been reports that portrayed athletic director Bubba Cunningham as not being fully on board with the hire. What’s your recollection of his stance on the matter?

“I think he was committed to a process and felt an obligation to go through it and I understand that. At that time I was seeing the opportunity to hire someone that would be transformative be at risk of not happening because of the deliberate nature of the process.

“Having been involved with the University for over 20 years and living in Chapel Hill that time I know all too well not many things happen fast on our campus. Consequently, I’ve found that in order to make something happen you have to be constantly vigilant about the sense of urgency, especially on things that are really important.  Otherwise inertia and status quo take over and nothing gets done.”

Let’s talk more about the initial Belichick Zoom interview. Some stories emerged about a 400-page manifesto that he apparently gave, which he denied at his introductory press conference.

“I never saw any 400-page manifesto, don’t know if that is true.  He definitely did a deep dive on the program, and talked to a lot of people around the program. I think it’s fair to say that the lack of full support of football as the dominant revenue generating sport for the university was apparent to him. This is something that Coach Brown had also tried to change culturally here and had experience with through the years at Texas which had an ‘all in’ support for football lacking here. I think the hiring of Coach Belichick and the resulting infusion of financial support for the program is the first time that Carolina has really gone ‘all in’ on football. It’s a very exciting time to be a Tar Heel.”

After that Zoom interview, in the days that followed, we received intel saying there was apprehension going into it, but that pretty much he had won everyone over in that call. Why? What did he do in that Zoom interview that was so impressive?

“I think the reason that you got those messages was that people still didn’t truly believe he really wanted that job. He wanted this job and there was no doubt, based on what he said and his understanding of the things that he wanted to come in and work on, that he was committed to this job, provided that we offered him the job. He said, ‘You know, I’ve coached every position. I mean, I obviously have been defensive coordinator, but I’ve coached kicking, I’ve coached defensive backs.’ He’s coached every single position. And he said, ‘And I would still coach every single position.’ He used an example. He said, ‘You know, in New England, you get a kid who comes from Mississippi, and he doesn’t know how to shovel snow in his driveway. He’s never seen snow so he’s using a dirt shovel to shovel snow. You can’t use a dirt shovel, so then we would teach our rookies, here’s how you shovel your driveway, here’s the type of shovel to buy.’ There was no doubt that every detail was going to be completely covered. And I think he radiated that in the interview.”

Belichick’s resume speaks for itself, but what piqued my interest about the hire was the unprecedented commitment that UNC was making to football. Was that part of UNC’s intent in making this move?

“100%. I don’t think it’s a fair expectation that any coach is going to come in, no matter how great, and win the BCS championship their first year. Because you can be a great coach, but if you don’t assemble the talent, which takes time, I think that it’s unrealistic to think that any coach, no matter how accomplished, without talent can be but so successful, and it takes a couple of years to get that talent just right. My hope would be that, like Dean Smith was a great teacher who taught basketball, now we’ve got another great teacher who teaches football. Hopefully, just like with Coach Smith, those players, assistants, managers and people around Coach Belichick will have also have transformative experience for the rest of their lives having been part of the program.”

What was your biggest regret during your time as chairman of the board?

“It’s that legitimate differences in policy or personnel were made out to be personal attacks by defenders of the status quo. Rather than acknowledge differing views are normal, even healthy, those opposed to change would try to personalize the point of disagreement to deflect the merit of it and to provide cover for the culpable.

Carolina is a big, strong, and robust University on a great trajectory. It is not fragile or delicate in any way, but the mere hint of calling out something, whether on the academic or athletic side that is not operating as it should usually results in a knee jerk defensiveness by some who don’t want any change. In most cases I think it’s because there are a lot of highly paid people in the mix who don’t work all that hard and in effect, have a very sweet little gig going. This is where complacency creeps in and you start to see signs of trouble brewing. And then if you call something out that needs addressing, watch out because the status quo will fight for its self-interest every single time, even after it has lost all status.”

Where do you stand on growing UNC’s enrollment?

“100% for it. It’s the financial model of the future. It is the demand that we are getting—it’s off the charts and I bet we have over 100,000 applications for next fall’s freshman class. I think it’s a very dynamic environment in higher education right now. They’re going to be some real winners, and some real losers, and right now we stand to benefit from that change. Harvard is clearly taking it on the chin. Let’s just say, for right, wrong and indifferent, that’s the reality. Our board and its efforts to lead change have established ourselves as different from our peers on how we’ve done some things, whether it is reigning in harassment on campus, or whether it is addressing some of the policies on DEI and things like that, but we’ve done all this stuff ourselves proactively. Consequently, nobody is throwing rocks at us as being out of step, in fact we’ve been leading in a way that is appreciated by many around the country.”

What do you think is the biggest challenge for Carolina going forward?

“Complacency is the enemy of excellence. We can’t let ourselves get complacent, and we have to continually strive to be excellent. Sustained excellence is a really hard thing to accomplish and it does not happen unless you are willing to challenge existing assumptions, question the status quo and on occasion, rock the boat.

“Carolina is the No. 1 public university in the world, and we need to continually demonstrate it. Go Heels!”