Chapel Hill Review

Football, like all sports, is built around a culture, patterns and repetition. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the football team has created a ritual it observes every season that has nothing to do with the game, the field or cheering crowds.

It’s about giving back to others, Korie Sawyer Rich, assistant director for student-athlete development, told Chapel Hill Review.

“We have built a really strong relationship with our neighbors at UNC Hospitals. Our student-athletes tell us that their favorite service activity is being able to walk up to the hospital and visit with patients of all ages and their families,” Rich said. “The football team has a 30-year tradition of visiting the UNC Children’s Hospital on the Friday before each home game. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we were unable to visit in person but we were able to still do virtual visits each Friday where patients and their families ‘visited’ with football student-athletes, coaches and staff.

Korie Sawyer Rich | UNC

Tar Heels strongly believe in being actively involved in their community, he said, as athletes in all sports are given the opportunity to take part and most embrace the idea.

“We do not have an exact number, but we try to make sure that each student-athlete and team has the opportunity to give back in some sort of manner,” Rich said.

In this unique year, there had to be changes made for safety reasons, she said. But the concept wasn’t discarded.

“Pre-COVID, our student-athletes, coaches and staff averaged 5,000 hours per year of service to the community,” Rich said. “We want our student-athletes to actively engage in the community as a result of a sense of responsibility, and to embrace and use their role in sport as a promoter of joy to positively impact the Chapel Hill/UNC community. Each team has a community outreach liaison that works with our student-athlete development office to plan community service events for their team, and pass along upcoming volunteer opportunities.”

But there is no doubt the pandemic forced the Tar Heels to adapt on the fly, she said. Rich said that doesn’t mean the outreach had to end. It simply had to be modified.

“COVID-19 has drastically impacted our engagement with the local community," she said. "To protect the health and safety of our student-athletes and community, we’ve strongly encouraged our student-athletes to limit volunteering in the community to prevent exposure to COVID-19. As a result, most of our volunteering has become virtual. This semester, we’ve been able to partner with local elementary schools to have student-athletes serve as guest readers for virtual schooling, and we’ve been able to coordinate virtual visits with patients at UNC Hospitals.”

That’s a primary area for interest, Rich said but it’s not the sole one.

“Student-athletes and teams have a unique opportunity to enrich the lives of others, and we encourage them to embrace their status to make a positive impact in the community,” she said. “Carolina’s Department of Athletics is committed to providing unique and meaningful service opportunities for student-athletes.”

The university focuses its service efforts in three areas, Rich said.

First is UNC Hospitals. Located directly behind Kenan Stadium, UNC Hospitals delivers first-class health care to the entire state of North Carolina, and volunteers make an invaluable difference to patients, families and staff. UNC athletics works closely with the North Carolina Children's Hospital, North Carolina Cancer Hospital, and the Jaycee Burn Center. 

Second is education and youth. There are many ways student-athletes are involved at local elementary schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. Student-athletes have the opportunity to promote academics, living a healthy lifestyle and achieving personal growth through educational activities such as being a guest reader, mentorship, assisting with physical education or writing pen pal letters.

Third is local organizations and nonprofits: UNC athletics has excellent relationships with different local organizations and non-profits in the community such as Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House, SECU Family House, Carolina Campus Community Garden and the Food Bank of CENC.

Rich said the UNC Department of Athletics donated more than 2,000 food items to the Food Bank of Central-Eastern North Carolina.

The food pantry was facing a challenging time with demand up and donations down. The Tar Heels responded, dropping off 250 boxes filled with food before Thanksgiving. More than 50 coaches and staff members helped fill the boxes.

They plan to do so again before Christmas.

A holiday gift drive is also a Tar Heel tradition. The students enjoy it as much as the youngsters who will get the gifts, they told the UNC website for a 2019 story. The Share Your Holiday program benefits Orange County Social Services.

”It’s so cool to know you're making a difference in those kids’ lives,” James Courtney of the swimming and diving team said in 2019. ”With the shopping, even though it was on a Sunday afternoon where I probably should’ve been studying for exams, it’s just so fun to walk around Walmart and Target with your teammates, knowing these toys are going to make these people so happy.”