Some Thoughts About Maurice Koury and the Rams Club
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Some Thoughts about Maurice Koury and the Rams Club Back in the 1980s I was Vice President of Operations for the Burlington Hosiery Company of Burlington Industries and later the Woman’s Hosiery Division of Kaiser Roth Hosiery. The operations were for a time centered in Burlington North Carolina. In this position I often attended the Burlington Chamber of Commerce meetings, got to know and, from time-to- time, do business with the Burlington Koury family. As the person who was responsible for getting the goods to the Bergen warehouse on time, I would often call on Koury Hosiery for help in filling out some of my sock order needs. Good business for me was associated with Koury family help, and Koury help came fast and hard if Maurice Koury saw you as a fellow Tar Heel basketball fan. He and I both knew of the failings of Frank McGuire at Chapel Hill but one knew not to mention negatives when we could talk about how Frank brought us that 1957 Championship. I could always get effective service from Maurice and in appreciation I would sing our song: Tar Heels, number one, win them all just for fun. The Stilt they wilted for 32 to scare the heck out of me and you. In the 1970s as a member of the faculty at the Textile School in Raleigh I automatically gained acceptance among the PTBs re the North Carolina Textile and Apparel businesses. This acceptance carried over when I was hired into the corporate office of Burlington Industries. However, when I took on the hands-on, line management responsibilities of getting the goods out the backdoor to the right warehouses across the country, it was not considered seemly for that position to be manned by a “pointed-head liberal” PhD in economics. How could a person like that get people to work overtime on Mother’s Day? So a new image was manufactured that was never talked about. I was a Textile School graduate (my actual degree was engineering) with an MBA from some unnamed Ivy League school. Although, while as a faculty member in Raleigh, I had friends in the Chapel Hill Business School, my cover was never blown. Why is it important to give this background? Well if you’re going to do business with Maurice Koury he’s going to want to know why you are not a member of the Rams Club. Maurice Koury was a prime mover in getting the Dean Smith Center built and was a prime mover in the Rams Club. I don’t believe that Maurice Koury ever knew that I was a Wolfpacker. In the 1970s and 80s there were a lot of Rams Clubbers with undergraduate degrees from the Textile School and either MBAs or law degrees from Chapel Hill running the North Carolina textile and apparel industries. That fact made my undergraduate State College degree acceptable to the Tar Heel faithful. But it fell on me, if I was such a big Tar Heel basketball fan, to explain to Maurice Koury why I was not a Rams Club member; if I wanted to continue getting preferential business treatment from the Koury family. It’s a long story how I lied my way out of that one for a period of almost two years, and kept our business relationship working. In the process I did get some keen insight about how the Rams Club has, over-time accumulated so much business and political power in North Carolina today. That power that one sees in play re today’s academic fraud scandal at Chapel Hill is rooted in aggressive strategic planning and promulgation of those strategic plans whose seeds were planted in the fund-raising process that culminated in the Dean Smith Center almost 50 years ago. It is all about political and economic power. Political and economic power resides in the control of the money, the law and the message! Going back to the time of David Swain’s University, UNC has produced the lawyers that controlled the North Carolina legal system. The trial lawyers, the judges, were UNC graduates. They carry out the law. Because a law degree has always been highly valued for membership in the state legislature, the preponderance of those law degrees has always had a Chapel Hill stamp on them. Thus, one can argue that the law in North Carolina is heavily tilted towards the actions of Tar Heel law graduates. Anyone over 70 who grew up in North Carolina knows of the domination of the news media over the years by graduates and friends of Chapel Hill. They have lived with boosterism branding of the University at Chapel Hill. Be the university spokesman be named Graham, Friday, Spangler, Broad, Bowles, Ross or Spellings, one always knew the media message would always, on non-trivial issues, protect the Chapel Hill brand. Thus, with control of the law and the message, control of the money can be facilitated. Like the Koury family a lot of textile and apparel money found its way into real estate development. Much of the tobacco and agriculture wealth along with textile and apparel money found its way into banking and financial services. In general, much of the “old family” wealth of North Carolina found its way into the hands of UNC Chapel Hill friendly people. Thus, given the potential integration of law, message and money into a single package of political and economic power it only required aggressive people and a target organization to make the package real. The package today is called the Rams Club. If you don’t believe in the Illuminati you can believe in the Rams Club. The Yale cabal has its Skull and Bones for taking care of its own. While Skull and Bones is a secret society, the Rams Club is “in-your-face” re support of the “Tar Heel Family.” It’s all about protecting the family! Thus, consider the following sales pitch that Maurice Koury might have used to get my participation in building the Dean Smith Center: Doug, your million dollar contribution will be a wise investment for you, the State and the Tar Heel Family. In the first place the most obvious benefits are the tax advantages resulting from your one-time gift and the on-going tax and customer service advantages associated with being able to entertain clients at the Smith Center. Your position within the Club entitles you to purchase tickets at face value that are significantly less than market value. This will always be the case because The Club will see to maintaining Carolina Basketball at a level where any year we will be competing for a national championship. But this gift is far more than just the advantages associated with money. Remember “we are about family” and as members of the Club, “we take care of our own.” Little legal scraps or big, there is most likely a supportive law firm and understanding judges that will give you a square deal. Also, you have a daughter over at Mendenhall Junior High in Greensboro. Before you know it, she’s going to be in college. There is no better place in the country for a young, bright, and upwardly mobile woman than at Chapel Hill. Given that it has become extremely competitive to be accepted there today, remember we do take care of our own! We have always represent the class of North Carolina but today our people are also becoming movers and shakers on a national and international level, which expands the reach and opportunities for our family. So how about it? Is it one or two million? You’ll be glad you did. Tar Heels, number one, win them all just for fun. The Stilt they wilted for 32 to scare the heck out of me and you. Cooper’s monograph The Structure that Defined today’s UNC: The 1971 Restructuring of Higher Education in North Carolina Personal Recollections speaks to the Chapel Hill attempt to control higher education in North Carolina via control of the UNC Board of Governors. The following paragraph is taken from that monograph: "At this point the UNC forces considered their alternatives. They could try to defeat the Scott proposals in the legislature. If the votes to defeat were not available, delay tactics may eventually kill the proposals. On the other hand, they could lobby for a strong central coordinating board and over time gain control of that board. With insufficient votes to kill or delay the proposals in the legislature, the UNC forces choose to take the second route. Governor Scott and his supporters were on the verge of accomplishing significant “change” in the structure of higher education in North Carolina and were willing to compromise within the UNC trustees’ strategy. While there was general agreement with the concept of individual boards of trustees under a central board, the end game was in the details of the relative powers of the central board and the individual boards. The end game for both the Scott forces and the UNC forces saw the development of a strong central board with significant power over resource allocation to the individual campuses. In addition the central board was granted explicit powers that limited the individual boards to only those powers that were expressly delegated by the central board. Here, the make-up of the central board would be critical to both the Scott and UNC forces. One can surmise that the Scott forces assumed that the central board would be able to maintain representative governance that would meet the needs of all the higher education institutions of North Carolina in an efficient and effective way.