North Carolina was among the many college football teams that had a Week 3 game canceled because of Hurricane Florence. The Tar Heels didn’t face UCF.
NCAA athletes can be paid meal money. UNC players donated theirs to hurricane victims
The Heels, Duke, and NC State also ran donation drives.
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
They’re back on the field in Week 4, hosting Pitt.
And in the lead-up to the game, UNC’s players banded together to a good thing for people the storm affected.
According to coach Larry Fedora and AD Bubba Cunningham, the Heels’ players decided to donate their per diems from that canceled UCF game to people who needed help after Florence.
The school says 85 players — the same amount that can get an athletic scholarship, under NCAA rules — are donating $15 toward supplies for residents in Eastern North Carolina. That totals $1,275. The $15 figure is the maximum schools are allowed to give players (in lieu of a meal, if the school doesn’t just do that) after either a home or away game.
The relevant part of the NCAA’s per-diem rule:
(i) All student-athletes are permitted to receive a pregame or postgame meal as a benefit incidental to participation in addition to regular meals (or meal allowances per institutional policy). An institution, at its discretion, may provide cash, not to exceed $15, in lieu of a postgame meal.
UNC, Duke, and NC State’s teams all held donation drives as well.
Fedora was among those who helped load relief supplies onto trucks on Tuesday. It was apparently Fedora’s idea to use the truck transport:
The football team uses the equipment truck, an 18-wheel tractor trailer, to transport its football equipment to road games.
UNC associate athletic director Rick Steinbacher said the idea to use the equipment truck came from a discussion between athletic officials about canceling the Tar Heels’ football game against UCF last week.
“It was coach Fedora’s idea,” Steinbacher said. “He said ‘we got that equipment truck. That thing can deliver a lot of goods and things that people need. We ought to put that thing into action.’”
UNC officials contacted the owners of Marrins to see if they could use the truck to deliver goods, and they said yes.
UNC made the right call in not playing against UCF, and it’s doing a good thing here.
College football is about the least important consideration during devastating natural disasters. But sometimes, as serious storms approach, the sport becomes a problem. It draws thousands of people onto roadways and requires a lot of emergency personnel to work around a stadium instead of elsewhere, where people might be in danger.
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