UNC football general manager Michael Lombardi joined 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck this morning for “The Monday Morning Huddle,” presented by Chapel Hill Tire.
Opening night for Carolina football is a week away, as the Tar Heels will usher in the Bill Belichick Era when they host TCU at Kenan Stadium the night of September 1. When Belichick arrived in Chapel Hill, he brought with him longtime colleague and friend Michael Lombardi, who became the program’s general manager. Now, the roster constructed by Belichick and Lombardi will be put to the test.
Here a few of Lombardi’s answers on various topics:
On settling into the Chapel Hill community: It’s really an incredible community. It’s a beautiful place. And the people have been incredibly friendly and open armed, and I think they’re excited about our football team. I think they’re excited about what we’re trying to build here and make this a football element in the fall where people can come and enjoy the game and celebrate this incredible stadium that we have and build this program to national prominence.
On his day-to-day role within the program: Well, in any football organization, there has to be two people that really oversee the program: the head coach and somebody who runs the operation in terms of allocation of dollars towards the players. And it’s been a two-person job in the National Football League, but it is a one-voice job. And that voice comes from Coach Belichick in terms of talking about the team in front of the team, handling the team on a daily basis. My job is really in the background, to give coach what he needs in terms of the players and how we are going to build this team. It’s not just about one game, it’s about building something that’s sustainable over a longer period of time. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to have a great recruiting class. We’re building an infrastructure within our own organization that will allow us to procure players that we need to be successful over a longer period of time. So like any organization, it requires leadership in different directions, but one voice in one direction.
On what he’s looking for from the team in the first few games of the season: We have a lot of new players, 70 new players on our roster. It’s about building a team and coming together. It’s one play at a time. I think anything that goes beyond that, people don’t want to hear that. But if you’re building a team that’s based on process, that’s what we’re doing. I think it’s all about getting better. It’s about one percent improvement each and every day, but that’s just not for the players. That’s for us in the personnel department, it’s for us in the coaching staff, it’s for us in the kitchen that help cook for the players. Everybody has to get better every single day. And that’s what we’re trying to do. The one thing you learn being around great players like Tom Brady, Joe Montana, those guys, everything’s about getting better every single day. And at the end of the year, you want to be better than when you started the year.
On his message to the community: We have to make gameday here in Chapel Hill something we all can be proud of. I think that’s really important. And the university has done a tremendous job here under the direction of Chancellor [Lee] Roberts in terms of making our gameday experience better than it’s ever been. We have one of the greatest campuses of all time. And to get the enthusiasm and to get our students out, that’s really important. We need a student section that’s vibrant. We need a student section that supports the team and is really coming to enjoy football. And we have that here at the university and I think that’s something that we’re looking forward to. We really want that to be part of what we do here, because game day in Chapel Hill, moving forward, is gonna be one hell of an experience.
Listen below for the full conversation with Michael Lombardi, and tune in to hear the segment live on Monday mornings each game week!
Featured image via Associated Press/Aaron Beard
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