Controversy surrounding UNC's new football coach. Butch Davis has signed on to make nearly two-million dollars a year.

Now, one of the most notable names associated with the University of North Carolina wants to know if education is being sacrificed for entertainment. Today UNC's rams club took out a full-page ad in the News and Observer to sell football tickets for next season.

The new coach will make an average of $1.8 million a year and Bill Friday who was president of the University for 30-years is calling a foul. "Any time an institution pays a coach tens more than a distinguished professorship, it's making a statement." Friday add, "We are out of control. We aren't running our own destiny."

Friday also served 15-years as co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Sports which pressed for reforms inside the big business of college sports. Friday says UNC is taking a step back by throwing big money for an entertainment enterprise. "We teach, we carry forward research, we serve the public. That's the public trust we hold. We are not an entertainment industry."


New coach Butch Davis is also pushing tickets on e-mail messages. Carolina's athletic director Dick Baddour says the school is only trying to keep up with other universities. "If we're going to excel in football as we have in other areas, then we need to be competitive in the market place. And that's what we're trying to do."

Baddour says state tax-payers are not picking up the extra bill on a football salary which is twice as big as the last coach's. "This doesn't have anything to do with the tax-payer. It has everything to do with people who love this program." But Friday says the money is sending the wrong message on campus "When you put the dollar sign on it, that means that's your priority."