UNC interim chancellor backs AD Bubba Cunningham after trustee criticism, audit push

North Carolina interim chancellor Lee Roberts publicly backed athletics director Bubba Cunningham on Thursday, three days after the school’s board of trustees approved an audit of the athletics department due to financial concerns growing amid the volatile landscape of college sports.

Roberts also said the athletics department has been audited 10 times in the past five years, as well as annually by the NCAA.

“I would just add that our athletic director is one of the most senior, well-respected, admired athletic directors in the country,” Roberts told reporters in Chapel Hill after a trustees meeting. “He has broad respect from his peers, and we don’t have a more capable, more experienced, more talented senior administrator here at Carolina.”

Roberts’ comments come after this week’s trustees meetings — continuing a recent trend of UNC trustees becoming more vocal on athletics issues — and the Atlantic Coast Conference holding its annual spring meetings in Florida. Both highlighted the tensions brewing nationally amid schools jumping from league to league in search of more money and the pressures to avoid falling further behind financially.