Carolina's Culture Effect - Today's Take

As we head into the summer of 2026, North Carolina baseball continues its run to Omaha, hosting a Super Regional in Boshamer Stadium in the coming days. Carolina Football under Bill Belichick is less than three months away from the year two opener, and UNC Basketball and Michael Malone continue to build out the final pieces of what will be the newest version of Tar Heel basketball.

Inside Carolina senior reporter Greg Barnes shares his thoughts on all three sports at Carolina and how the respective coaches look to handle the challenges of building and maintaining a winning culture.

“Carolina’s baseball success is a testament to how things have always been, and it’s a testament to the framework for how things are going to be moving forward. It may not seem like that right now, as we’ve got all these lawsuits, and you’ve got congressional efforts to pass some laws to solidify parts of what the NCAA wants to do. 

“I really believe that at the core of college athletics, and really all sports in general, is the culture aspect. Dean Smith proved it. Anson Dorrance has done it, Jenny Levy and so many coaches at Carolina who’ve had tremendous success in building that type of culture. So you have a good template right there on campus. Mike Fox did it and Scott Forbes has continued it.

“Yes, there’s money coming in (in college athletics) and TV ratings matter a lot because of that money. But it only matters if you’ve got a coaching staff in place and a culture in place where everyone understands the standard. They understand what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. If you can create that, you still have to deal with the money part of things, but you can find pieces that fit within your budget, and you can build out from that.

“Whenever you have a new coach come in or coaches who have been in place for a couple years, you hear them talk about working on the culture. We’ve heard a lot that Bill Belichick, after that first year, has figured out the college game much better than when he first came in, which is understandable. I mean, he never coached in college before, so there was going to be a process in place. Has that matriculated down to the locker room? It’s not only having better pieces, talent-wise, but do they have enough guys in that locker room to understand what it takes at this level to work together to have success? We’ve heard all the talking points. Is there enough there with the pieces coming back, with Bobby Petrino coming in with the elevated talent base to see a significant change? Remains to be seen, but everybody’s saying the right things.

“If you’re a fan of North Carolina basketball, you know you’ve got an NBA champion head coach that’s come in. He’s had a lot of success at NBA level, and he’s got a lot of really interesting pieces on this roster, but he’s got to build that culture that we’ve been talking about. He’s got to be able to show that this is different, as the college game is different from NBA. So, how do you deal with players? How do you build that chemistry? How do you get them to work together? And you’ve got to do it pretty quickly. This is year one so I think the expectation and the hope is that it comes together perfectly and North Carolina by January is playing like a top 10, top 15 team, and they’re competing for the ACC title.

“If you’re expecting perfection all season long, it may be a tough year. But if you’re willing to watch a new coach come in who’s had a lot of success, mold this program in his vision, I think it can make for a very entertaining year, and it really will set the stage moving forward. But again, it’s about building that culture that can carry through from year to year in this new era that we’re in.”