Tobacco Road is a term used in college sports, mainly basketball, for the four rival universities of North Carolina that play in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The term refers to the area's history as a major tobacco producer. The Tobacco Road teams represent the following universities:
Roy Allen Williams is an American retired college basketball coach who served as the men's head coach for the North Carolina Tar Heels for 18 seasons and the Kansas Jayhawks for 15 seasons. He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
Karen Christina Shelton is an American former field hockey player and coach. Shelton served as head coach of the University of North Carolina's field hockey program from 1981 until her retirement in 2022. She was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1977 to 1984 and a starter on the team that won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. She attended West Chester State and was a member of four NCAA championship winning teams. Shelton also qualified for the 1980 Olympic team but did not compete due to the Olympic Committee's boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russia. As consolation, she was one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal many years later.
Albert Anson Dorrance IV is a retired American soccer coach. He was the head coach of the women's soccer program at the University of North Carolina from 1979 to 2024. He has one of the most successful coaching records in the history of athletics. Under Dorrance's leadership, the Tar Heels have won 21 of the 41 NCAA Women's Soccer Championships. The Tar Heels' record under Dorrance stood at 809-67-36 over 33 seasons at the end of the 2017 season. He has led his team to a 101-game unbeaten streak and coached 13 different women to a total of 20 National Player of the Year awards.
Robert Fetzer Field was a stadium located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and was the home of the lacrosse and soccer teams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina Tar Heels. The four teams that called Fetzer field their home have a combined total of 26 national championships.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the Tar Heel State. The campus at Chapel Hill is referred to as the University of North Carolina for the purposes of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Since the school fostered the oldest collegiate team in the Carolinas, the school took on the nickname Carolina, especially in athletics. The Tar Heels are also referred to as UNC or The Heels.
The North Carolina Tar Heels Men's basketball program is a college basketball team of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels have won six NCAA championships in addition to a 1924 Helms Athletic Foundation title (retroactive). North Carolina has won a record 133 NCAA tournament matchups while advancing to 31 Sweet Sixteen berths, a record 21 Final Fours, and 12 title games. It is the only school to have an active streak of reaching the National Championship game for nine straight decades and at least two Final Fours for six straight decades, all while averaging more wins per season played (20.7) than any other program in college basketball. In 2012, ESPN ranked North Carolina No. 1 on its list of the 50 most successful programs of the past fifty years.
Sylvia Rhyne Hatchell is a former American women's basketball coach, who last coached for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and was the fifth with the most career wins in NCAA women's basketball history, behind former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, and UConn coach Geno Auriemma. She competed with USA Basketball as the head coach of the 1994 Jones Cup Team that won the gold in Taipei. Hatchell was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004.
Shannon Danise Higgins-Cirovski is a former U.S. soccer midfielder who earned 51 caps with the United States between 1987 and 1991. She was a member of the U.S. team at the 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup and is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's lacrosse team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. North Carolina currently competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and plays its home games at Dorrance Field and Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their main rivalry series is with fellow ACC member Duke.
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's soccer team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in men's NCAA Division I soccer competition. They compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Tar Heels won the NCAA championship in 2001 and 2011. They play at Dorrance Field.
The North Carolina Tar Heels women's lacrosse team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women's lacrosse and currently competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The North Carolina women's lacrosse team won the ACC tournament in 2002 and their first Division 1 national championship in 2013.
Linda Ann Hamilton is an American retired soccer defender and former member of the United States women's national soccer team. She is currently head coach of the women's soccer team at the Southwestern University. Hamilton was inducted into the Georgia Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001 and the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2022.
The 2014 ACC women's and men's lacrosse conferences will include Notre Dame and Syracuse after those teams joined the ACC in July 2013. The 2014 ACC women's lacrosse conference will now include eight teams. This will be the only year that the ACC women's lacrosse conference will include these eight teams as Maryland will leave the ACC for the Big Ten at the end of the 2014 season. Boston College plays in the women's ACC conference, but not the men's conference.
Lauren Gregg is an American soccer coach and retired soccer player who played as a defender or midfielder. She made one appearance for the United States women's national soccer team in 1986. She was the first-ever female assistant coach for any of the United States' national teams between 1987 and 2000, and was interim head coach of the United States women's national soccer team in 1997 and 2000. As head coach of the women's soccer team at the University of Virginia from 1986 to 1995, Gregg was the first woman to lead a team to the NCAA Division I Final Four and to be named NSCAA Coach of the Year.
Caitlin Van Sickle is an American field hockey coach and former player. From Wilmington, Delaware, she was a standout athlete at Tower Hill School where she was the state's athlete of the year in both field hockey and lacrosse. She played field hockey at the collegiate level for the North Carolina Tar Heels from 2009 to 2012, receiving numerous honors including being a three-time All-American and a three-time Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Defender of the Year. She won a national championship with the Tar Heels in 2009 and helped them make appearances at three further.
Angela Kelly is the head coach of the University of Texas women’s soccer team. Kelly was previously the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s soccer team for 12 seasons.
