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Inside Carolina: A UNC athletics podcast

IC Daily: The Other Side of the Smith Center Debate

Inside Carolina: A UNC athletics podcast

Inside Carolina

Football, Sports, Baseball, Basketball

4.8778 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As the UNC administration moves closer to a decision on the future of the Smith Center, Inside Carolina's Greg Barnes joins Tommy Ashley to discuss communication and how former players and coaches have spoken up demanding to be included in the process. Barnes discusses what's been done to gather information and keep the Carolina family in the loop, but explains that any effort to get a uniform and a unanimous agreement may not be possible given the nature of the debate. **Call to Action:**   **Subscribe:** Follow 'Inside Carolina' wherever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode!   **Review:** Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help us reach more Tar Heel fans!   **Visit:** Explore http://www.InsideCarolina.com for breaking news, recruiting updates, and expert commentary on all things UNC sports. This show is brought to you by Inside Carolina, the No. 1 site for UNC sports coverage and community. Visit http://www.InsideCarolina.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript

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0:00.0

It is another day. That means another I see daily. I'm Tommy Ashley. That's Greg Barnes.

0:05.9

We're sponsored by Johnny T-shirt.joney t-shirt.com. Go to insidecarolina.com. Sign up for your

0:12.5

Inside Carolina premium subscription. Get all the latest news on Torhill Athletics, QR codes on your screen.

0:20.5

Greg, we talked about this Smith Center debate,

0:23.6

and we talked about on yesterday the potential for Carolina North.

0:28.6

Now it's time to check the other side of the pillow

0:31.6

because it's cool on that side.

0:33.6

Former players and a lot of people are sort of objecting to the move or the inclusion

0:40.6

in the debate. What have you learned based off your column that you wrote on Tuesday, I guess?

0:49.0

It's not as simple a decision as it might seem.

0:53.4

For sure, Tommy. I think this is one of those situations where

0:56.9

there's so many people involved with what Carolina athletics has become. And that's a good thing,

1:05.2

because that indicates that North Carolina has had a ton of success. We know that's the case,

1:09.7

especially on the basketball side of the equation.

1:12.9

And so there was never going to be a full consensus on where this was headed.

1:18.3

There's always going to be some that wanted to push for the Carolina North option.

1:23.0

There's always going to be some that wanted to keep everything as it was and just do some some innovations to make sure you can stay in the Smith Center.

1:31.2

And then beyond that, there's a lot just from some of the surveys that we've been able to see that we're ready to kind of build something new aside from the Smith Center.

1:43.0

But they wanted it on campus in the current campus footprint.

1:49.1

And so a lot of different options, a lot of different opinions. And as everybody can imagine, a lot of the former players, a lot of the people who played in the Smith Center, who played for Dean Smith,

2:02.5

who played for Rory Williams, like the idea of having a place to call home. And that place

2:08.4

is the Dean Smith Center where it currently sits. Yeah, I think all of us have that situation

...

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