UNC board adds outside counsel, explores legal options in Tez Walker eligibility case

By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The UNC Board of Trustees met for more than 90 minutes in closed session Monday to discuss potential legal options in the eligibility case of transfer wide receiver Tez Walker.

UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, athletics director Bubba Cunningham and football coach Mack Brown attended the meeting. Many board members attended virtually.

"This was an important meeting where we received some legal updates that will help inform us as we do everything possible to support our student-athletes here at Carolina," Guskiewicz said in brief remarks after the meeting adjourned.

"We're keeping all options on the table for how to best support our student-athletes at Carolina, and we felt as if we needed some advice from both our legal counsel here and some outside counsel that we've brought in to help us with these matters."

Though the chancellor and board chair John Preyer did not say Walker's name, Brown confirmed before the meeting that he was the focus.

“That meeting is called to try to figure out all the best options for Tez Walker," Brown said before the meeting. "We need to all get in the same room and figure out what’s best for the young man."

He added before the meeting: "I'm really, really proud of our Board of Trustees that they're standing up to try to figure out what's best and so we can see all of our options, get a singular voice and then move forward."

Brown and Cunningham deferred to the chancellor for comment after the meeting.

The case has been highly publicized in the early weeks of the football season. The NCAA denied immediate transfer eligibility for Walker, a preseason All-ACC pick at wide receiver, and upheld that decision through several appeals.

"The purpose of this emergency meeting is to receive a legal update regarding an athletics matter," the board said in a statement publicizing the meeting. The board will go into closed session to discuss the matter.

Brown said he plans to attend the meeting on UNC's campus. Walker was an honorary team captain for Saturday's game against Appalachian State, with his coach saying he was in need of a pick-me-up after the NCAA ruling.

Walker, a junior from Charlotte, played two seasons (2021 and 2022) at Kent State before transferring to UNC. He enrolled at North Carolina Central, but the 2020 season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He has missed the first two games of the season for No. 20 UNC, both victories.

UNC head coach Mack Brown has been highly critical of the NCAA for its handling of the Walker case.

"I don’t know if I’ve ever been more disappointed in a person, group of people or institution than I am with the NCAA right now," Brown said in a statement Thursday after Walker's final appeal failed.

"Plain and simple, the NCAA has failed Tez and his family and I’ve lost all faith in its ability to lead and govern our sport," Brown said in the scathing statement.

Gov. Roy Cooper wrote a personal appeal to NCAA president Charlie Baker, himself a former governor of Massachusetts, on behalf of Walker.

Walker committed to UNC in late December and enrolled on January 9.

On January 11, the NCAA tightened its rules on two-time transfers in January after coaches, including Brown, complained about what the unfettered ability to transfer was doing to college athletics. Players previously had to sit out a season after transferring unless they had graduated.

But the NCAA relaxed those rules and when combined with name, image and likeness and an extra year of eligibility for COVID, transfers took off in college football.

UNC officials point to Walker having played football at only one school and the timing of the NCAA rule change — which came after his transfer — and believe he should be considered a "one-time transfer," which would allow immediate eligibility.

Further, much of the Kent State coaching staff, including head coach Sean Lewis, left the program in the off-season. Lewis is now the offensive coordinator at Colorado.

The NCAA, in a statement released to several outlets last week, said voting members from all 32 conferences and student-athletes on the Division I Council "unanimously supported the current guidelines for student-athletes who are transferring for a second time as undergraduate students and seeking eligibility for the 2023-24 academic year."

Now the school's board will consider its options.