While UNC is embroiled in highly publicized academic and athletic scandals, local developer and former Chair of the UNC Board of Trustees, Roger Perry expresses support for the current administration in handling it, but say that Carolina got itself in trouble by accepting athletes who were not suited.

Roger Perry (Courtesy of UNC News Services)

Roger Perry (Courtesy of UNC News Services)

“I think we got ourselves into a position athletically we began to accept a few folks, too many folks, who neither had the capacity even with help to succeed academically at Carolina and even worse in some cases, didn’t really care to,” says Perry.

But Perry he says that, once here, the athletes are exploited, and he is critical of that.

“I said that I felt like students athletes, especially in football, and probably in basketball, I am one of those people who believe they are exploited by the universities,” Perry says. “Not Carolina solely, but by all these universities. When we compensate coaches at levels ten times greater than we pay our chancellors, When we don’t allow athletes to have enough money to be a student, to have enough spending money in order to—we take some kid out of some poor background who doesn’t have enough disposable income to wear clothes that he or she is proud of, to have enough money to go on a date, to have enough money to go buy a pizza when they want to and go out with their friends, when we isolate those students and make them all live together rather than sprinkling them and letting them live with the rest of the student body. You know, I think all of those things are out of whack and they need to change.”

In the WCHL Special Interview with Jim Heavner, Roger Perry does express confidence in the current administration to figure it out.

“Hopefully, the lessons we’ve learned with let us be an example and voice of change,” Perry says. “I have a lot of confidence in Chancellor Folt and I have a lot of confidence in Athletic Director Cunningham to be leaders in restoring that balance. They want to do that and are committed to do that.”

Perry made his comments in the fourth and final part of an extended interview for WCHL.

Chapel Hill’s tax rates—city, county, and school taxes–support the city schools, free local busses, and social services, at the highest rate in North Carolina. Local government development policies have made Chapel Hill’s taxes on residences the highest percentage in the state, and commercial taxes the lowest. Orange County exports more retail spending to other counties than any county in the region. In a WCHL news special, Jim Heavner interviews Roger Perry, who has recently been more outspoken on those issues.

Perry, a Chapel Hillian, is the President of East West Partners Management Company, and since 1983 East West Partners has developed more residential real estate than any company in North Carolina. That includes Meadowmont, Downing Creek and East 54 here in Chapel Hill. He’s now trying to develop Obey Creek, so he’s a big player. Perry, a UNC graduate has also served as chair of the UNC Board of Trustees, and that is also a topic of the special interview.

***Listen to Part Four***

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3Part 4