Holden Thorp was the chancellor of UNC when the university faced the worst atheltic scandal in its history. This week, he opens up about his experience—revealing what he knew, what he kept hidden from the public, and what he would do differently if given the chance. For a transcript of this episode: https://bit.ly/campusfiles-transcripts To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
Before diving into this episode, make sure to listen to UNC Parts 1 and 2. This one picks up right where we left off. The email took me by surprise. It landed in my inbox just as we were wrapping up the UNC story. The sender was Holden Thorpe, the former chancellor of UNC. He was the guy in charge when the university faced one of the worst athletic scandals in the history of college sports.
To refresh your memory, the scandal involved hundreds of fake classes created to keep athletes eligible. I'd reached out to Thorpe for an interview, expecting to hear nothing back. But then, there it was in my inbox. Does this come with free Xanax? He joked. Then he said, JK, when would you like to do this?
Okay, testing one, two, three. This is Holden Thorpe.
I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files, we explore what it was like to navigate one of the most tumultuous periods in UNC's history. What did Holden Thorpe really know? What would he do differently if given the chance? And can any university president manage the monstrosity that college athletics have become?
Before we dive into Holden Thorpe's tenure as UNC chancellor, I wanna give you a little background because Thorpe isn't just the former head of UNC, he's a lifelong fan and his connection to the university runs deep.
My father and his father and all my father's brothers and lots and lots of people on my father's side of the family went to UNC Chapel Hill. And so I was raised with Carolina Blue stuff all around and with all the legends and folklore of UNC Chapel Hill.
When Thorpe couldn't sleep as a kid, his dad would try to lull him to rest by singing Hark the Sound, UNC's alma mater.
I went there for the first time when I was six years old to go to the Moorhead Planetarium, which I eventually ended up running. And I went to football games and all that kind of stuff when I was a kid and was a diehard Carolina basketball fan long before I ended up being in charge of it.
So when it came time for college, it was only fitting that he applied to just one university, UNC.
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