By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: NBC Sports
North Carolina Tar Heels football general manager Michael Lombardi joined “The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty” podcast to discuss his journey and experience working with the Tar Heels program in his first year as the general manager.
Lombari and everyone else in the program know that all eyes will be on them. People expect the Tar Heels football team to deliver right away. In Lombardi’s mind, he’s not thinking or worrying about what other teams are doing in terms of recruiting and the portal. He’s focusing on his program.
“I don’t know what other teams are doing,” Lombardi said. “Bill and I have just set this up like a pro organization. I handle the player contracts. We’re building a pro scouting department that covers high school and college, and we’re developing our advanced teams. Additionally, we have a recruiting program. So it allows him to coach. This is a two-person job. It’s huge. Bill and I talked about it all along.”
He’s new to the college space. There have been some challenges in his first year. Lombardi shares what has been the most challenging task about being the general manager so far.
“The hardest part has been that you’re dealing with the pro, you’ve got the draft, you’ve got free agency, you’ve got a structure,” Lombardi said. “There’s no structure here, right? You have the 26 portal, the 26 recruiting class, the 27 recruiting class, and the 28 recruiting class. So you’re juggling four balls at one time.”
Leadership is vital. Teaching players how to conduct themselves and play the game the right way is something that Belichick and Lombardi take deep pride in.
“We’re training, that’s what we have to do,” Lombardi said. “That’s part of being a leader, you’ve got to teach people what you want, teach people where we’re going. I’ve got a lot of great people who help me on both sides, specifically with the scouting and recruiting elements. What we’re trying to do is build a pyramid, right? The pyramid starts with people coming in evaluating players, writing reports, then they take those reports and move them up to the next level, which would be the position coaches.”
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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