The longtime North Carolina sportswriter Art Chansky has written a piece that I wish I could have found shocking. But UNC and other institutions across North Carolina long ago surrendered to the fatuous glories of bigtime sports. Sports have always been a kind of golden calf in North Carolina higher education. In the 1950s, the state’s universities were embroiled in a sordid athletic scandal called the “point-shaving” affair. But he was up against hopelessly powerful headwinds, and the domination of North Carolina universities by professionalized sports only became greater and more expensive over the following decades.