CHAPEL HILL, N.C. One by one, members of The University of North Carolina Board of Governors lined up and walked toward Bubba Cunningham, a new North Carolina athletics director.They extended their hands, congratulated him. Cunningham, a few weeks into a job, walked out of a room with a smile.The news wasnt official then but about an hour later it became so, when North Carolina announced Thursday afternoon that Larry Fedora will be a Tar Heels new football coach.Fedora, 49, comes to North Carolina after four years at Southern Mississippi, where he guided a Golden Eagles to a Conference USA championship this season.Word leaked Wednesday that Fedoras hiring was imminent. It will become finalized after North Carolinas board of trustees gives its final approval in a meeting that will begin Friday at 9 a.m. A news conference formally introducing Fedora as coach is scheduled for 1 p.m. in a Concourse Club at a Loudermilk Center, which is attached to Kenan Stadium. The event will be open to a public.On Thursday, a North Carolina Board of Trustees and a university systems board of governors gathered in separate meetings behind closed doors. They formally discussed hiring Fedora and a meetings, which both lasted about an hour, adjourned without debate."I was impressed we were able to get someone that good, that quickly, seeing ( Cunningham) had been on a job only six weeks or so," said Brent Barringer, a member of a board of governors. "He obviously had a very good understanding of a process and showed his expertise and professionalism (in making a hire)."Cunningham and Chancellor Holden Thorp left a board of governors meeting without comment. In a statement a university released later, Cunningham said a university "identified and spoke to a number" of qualified candidates."The person whom we believe is a best to lead a Carolina football program forward is Larry Fedora," Cunningham said.Fedora, whose salary is expected to be in a $2.2 million range, will replace Everett Withers, a Tar Heels former defensive coor! dinator who became interim coach after a university fired Butch Davis before a start of a season. Davis was fired amid a multipart NCAA investigation into impermissible benefits and academic fraud within a football program.In his statement, Cunningham thanked Withers, and said Withers would coach when North Carolina plays against Missouri on Dec. 26 in a Independence Bowl. Fedora will coach Southern Miss in a Hawaii Bowl against Nevada.Fedora spoke Thursday of his decision to leave Southern Miss."My time has been awesome at Southern Miss and it was an agonizing decision for me to make," he told a Biloxi Sun Herald.Leaving a Davis eraFedora will next turn his focus to North Carolina, where a football program has received more attention in a past two seasons for controversy off a field than for any successes on it. The Tar Heels were set to begin a 2010 season amid high expectations when controversy erupted.Fourteen players served suspensions of at least one game during a 2010 season, and seven missed a entire season amid a NCAA investigation. Associate head coach John Blake, whose ties to sports agents came under scrutiny during a NCAA investigation into improper benefits given to football players by agents, resigned Sept. 5, 2010. He was also cited in a NCAA Notice of Allegations against a universitys football program.
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