This is today’s Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook as heard on 97.9 WCHL. You can listen to previous Sports Notebooks here.

Larry Fedora is a stand up guy. Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!

I love Larry Fedora being UNC’s football coach, and have thought that since an old friend Fedora used to work for said he was a straight shooter, forward thinker and a no B.S. guy. He wants to win but wants to do it the right way. Yet he’s competitive and no fool. He proved that by canning his entire defensive coaching staff, some his long-time friends and associates, after last season’s debacle on “D”.

So I thought about all that when Fedora sat cornerback Malik Simmons down for two games, including the opener against South Carolina, when the Tar Heels may really need him against the Gamecocks’ passing attack. Simmons isn’t a criminal or a cheater or a fraud. He made a couple of dumb mistakes that got him a couple of misdemeanors. Other than that, his record is clear.

But while the courts let him off with some mandatory community service, that wasn’t good enough for Fedora and Bubba Cunningham. There needed to be more to maintain a standard that’s been set for Carolina Football. Not a ridiculous standard, mind you, because kids deserve a second chance and Fedora is here to win football games.

So he came up with a penalty that fits the crime but doesn’t damage his team too much. A compromise that seems to fit, no matter what the naysayers say. Fedora calls it a “significant penalty,” and it is for a senior with aspirations to play pro football. Simmons will have 10 more games, and perhaps the post-season, to show that he made a mistake, isn’t a knucklehead and can keep his nose clean for the rest of the schedule.

If it were his second offense, Simmons would be gone and deservedly so. But why does Fedora have to penalize the rest of his team with a get-tough decision to show he’s a get-tough coach. Believe me, he’s tough enough, based on some other penalties he’s doled out in the past,  like sitting his senior punter for his last game when he was counted on to give UNC’s dreadful defense long fields.

So Simmons sits and maybe Gene Chizik has improved the defense enough. Maybe Malik’s absence won’t cost the team a game or maybe the Tar Heels still aren’t good enough either way. All in all, a fair call by the head coach.