The Triangle Ten: The 10 most influential people in Raleigh, Durham sports in 2023

Hours earlier, the conference room deep in the lower levels of PNC Arena had been standing-room only, buzzing with anticipation. Politicians and the press were pressed against the walls as the Centennial Authority, which oversees the arena, finalized a historic package of agreements that would not only secure the future of the arena but change it forever.

The Carolina Hurricanes agreed to a 20-year lease extension through 2044. The City of Raleigh and Wake County agreed to provide $300 million in tourism-tax money to renovate and upgrade the arena. And Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon was given the right to develop the 80 acres around the arena into a billion-dollar entertainment district.

After the term sheets were approved and the sound of the applause and back-slapping faded, after the bright lights at the press conference in the arena’s media room were turned off, the three people who most found a way to make it happen found themselves back at the same table, in near-silence.

One was Philip Isley, the Raleigh lawyer, lobbyist and former city councilman who took over as chairman of the authority in late 2021 and dragged the sometimes-warring parties onto the same page.

Another was Dan Barrett, the CAA ICON consultant the authority had hired first to negotiate an interim lease agreement with Dundon after he bought the team, and kept to help pull this whole deal together.

And the third was Jeff Merritt, the authority’s longtime executive director, who had lived through a decade of fits and starts as the Hurricanes changed owners and COVID put an unforeseeable wrench in proceedings.

With the culmination of 17 months of frantic negotiations behind them, that trio awaited the arrival of Dundon from Dallas with an odd combination of relief and trepidation, absorbed in calm and quiet for the first time that day.

Years of work had gone into that morning’s landmark agreement. And yet, somehow, that suddenly paled in comparison to the work ahead.

“We were like the dog that caught the car,” Merritt said. “And not a Yugo. A truck.”

For that, Barrett, Isley and Merritt share the top spot in the Triangle 10, the News & Observer’s annual list of the most influential people in Triangle sports, compiled by N&O sports columnist Luke DeCock with input from other staff members, focusing on impact in 2023 specifically.

1. The “Arena Three”

The future certainly holds better days for PNC Arena and the area around it, even if the path forward remains uncertain and perhaps lined with obstacles. But just getting to that point – bringing various factions to the table in a way that seemed impossible only a few years before and fought the tide of the arena’s entire, often acrimonious, history – was the single biggest development in sports in the Triangle in 2023, not to mention opening the door to one of the biggest real-estate developments in the history of Raleigh and Wake County.

Barrett consults on complicated arena negotiations all the time, so projects like this are the rule rather than the exception for him. But this one was unique in terms of the number of stakeholders involved – arena, hockey team, university-slash-tenant, city, county, state, government agencies … the list went on and on.

Each element of the negotiations was tricky on its own, but also inseparable from the others. The Hurricanes wouldn’t make a long-term commitment to the arena unless it was upgraded and Dundon was allowed to develop the land. The city and county wouldn’t provide the money to renovate the arena unless the Hurricanes committed to stay there. And not only N.C. State but a long list of state departments, from Administration to Agriculture, had various levels of veto power over the whole arrangement.

Former authority member Tom McCormick, who preceded Isley as chairman and shepherded the arena through the tumultuous final years of Peter Karmanos’ ownership of the Hurricanes, knew just how big a lift that was.

“I did think it would ultimately happen,” McCormick said. “I’d toured around and seen some of these places, like the Battery down in Atlanta, other places like what Dundon wanted to do – which anyone who really wanted to think about it would say would be the best thing. A lot of this has to be viewed in terms of the overall growth of the area and the region and the city. When the arena was first out there all by itself, the thought of building more buildings and so forth seemed kind of silly.

“There has to be a time for everything, no matter how good the idea is. The time just sort of developed here. A lot of things had to come into place.”

And a lot of them had to be encouraged, or nudged, or dragged into place. Starting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s get-to-work speech to the authority on the first night of the 2022 playoffs, it was a long road to August’s term sheets

The team of Isley, Barrett and Merritt convinced N.C. State to acquiesce by preserving an area of surface parking for tailgating near Carter-Finley Stadium, got political authorities to sign off on the conversion of state-owned land by adding the new development outside the arena to the Wake County tax base, sweetened the deal by getting Dundon to include an affordable-housing component and traded countless other horses to secure a deal that Raleigh mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin called the “the largest economic development in the history of the city,” one that will change the face of West Raleigh and the experience of future arena-goers forever.

“A lot of what we ended up agreeing to, I’m not sure I would have expected us to agree to, but I think people were working so hard and making progress and there was a finish line to get it done,” Dundon told the N&O. “They did a really good job putting it in a position where we can all say yes together.”

But saying yes is just the beginning. The term sheets are still being fleshed out by lawyers into full legal agreements, and the Centennial Authority is going to have to stretch that $300 million in funding into what’s probably $500 million of work on the 24-year-old arena.

That process already ran into its first hurdle: At December’s authority meeting, many members were surprised to find out that a keystone of eight years of renovation plans – building new office space for the Hurricanes over the arena’s loading docks to free up their current space overlooking Carter-Finley for more important uses – had already been deemed too expensive. Many other difficult decisions await when the authority’s consultants and contractors come back in April or May with full 2024 pricing on the renovation options the authority has been exploring, off and on, for eight years.

Whatever form those upgrades end up taking, whatever Dundon ends up developing outside – potentially starting, in the first phase, with an outdoor music venue – will still be a long time in coming. The arena’s bones are good, thanks to the authority’s careful stewardship over the past two decades. Now it’s time to bring the parts that fans and concert-goers actually see and enjoy up to 21st Century standards.

In that sense, even as August’s term sheets were the end of a long process, we’re merely at the beginning of an even longer one.

“I still have yet to celebrate what we’ve accomplished,” Isley said. “I think it’s awesome. I’m really proud of what we did as a group, all of the players. But we still have a ton of work ahead of us. It’s not like we had a nap and said, ‘Oh, hey, woo, we’re done.’ Honestly, the hardest challenges lie ahead of us, a lot of it based on things we have no control over.”

As for Dundon, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate already, he also agreed this fall to lead the effort to explore whether it’s possible to bring a Major League Baseball team to North Carolina.

2. Erin Matson, first-year UNC field-hockey coach

It’s incredible, just to take a step back and think about it. Last fall, Matson concluded one of the most distinguished athletic careers in the history of the ACC – as perhaps the greatest American-born field hockey player of all time – with a fourth national title as a player. How do you top that? By immediately coaching your former teammates, at age 23, to yet another national title.

Nobody’s ever done that before. Nobody’s ever even tried that before. It’s historic. It’s stunning. The legendary Karen Shelton left behind big Nikes to fill, and Matson somehow filled them. If there’s a downside, it’s only that by pursuing the job, Matson walked away from helping the United States qualify for the Olympics in field hockey, after that team missed out on Tokyo. North Carolina, however, didn’t miss a beat.

3. Kerolin, North Carolina Courage forward

With the high-scoring Brazilian and NWSL most valuable player in the lineup – she finished second in the league with 10 goals in 18 games and also played in all three of Brazil’s games at the World Cup – the Courage won the NWSL Challenge Cup and clinched a playoff spot on the final day of the regular season. But Kerolin tore her ACL in that game, and the Courage exited the playoffs with a first-round loss.

After the exodus of famous players who helped make the Courage arguably the best women’s club in the world in 2018 and 2019 – before being plunged into scandal by disgraced former coach Paul Riley – Kerolin is at the vanguard of the franchise’s new generation of stars. The Guardian ranked her the 82nd-best player in the world before this breakthrough season. At 24, if she can put this injury behind her, her best days may yet lie ahead.

4. Elliot Abrams, NCAA waiver-getter

Abrams, a Raleigh-based attorney, has become someone the NCAA would probably rather never encounter again. Few lawyers anywhere have compiled the kind of record against the NCAA that Abrams has. Most notably, Abrams played a leading role in helping Tez Walker, the North Carolina wide receiver, regain his eligibility after the NCAA initially denied it.

Abrams wasn’t done. He followed the same playbook to get Aziz Bandaogo, a Cincinnati basketball player who was, like Walker, a multiple-time transfer, an NCAA waiver to play. Yes, it’s becoming easier to challenge, and defeat, the NCAA’s archaic rulebook. (A group of attorney generals including North Carolina’s Josh Stein just went to court and got the waiver rule wiped out entirely through the end of this academic year.) Still, Abrams is compiling a record of victories – dating back to his involvement in UNC’s NCAA case of 2017 – like few others nationally.

5. Katelyn Tuohy, N.C. State distance runner

Battling illness, Tuohy didn’t repeat as national champion in cross country, finishing fourth last month. But she did close out her N.C. State career by leading the Wolfpack to a third straight national title, the first program to do that since 2007. It was her last hurrah: Earlier this month, she turned pro and signed with Adidas, which had supported her at N.C. State through a groundbreaking NIL deal.

Tuohy came to N.C. State with as much hype (and as many Instagram followers) as a distance runner can have. Did she ever deliver, winning four NCAA titles and six ACC titles in cross country and track while contributing to what’s become a cross country dynasty. That takes more than one runner, and may very well outlive Tuohy’s career: Freshman Leah Stephens put the Wolfpack over the top by a single point when she edged out two runners at the wire.

6. Jared McCain, Duke TikToker

A sought-after recruit like most of his Duke freshman peers, McCain has started to find his footing on the basketball court, emerging as a scoring option after point guard Tyrese Proctor went down with an injury. His emergence may be the long-term key for the Blue Devils, but that’s not why his name is known far beyond campus. He arrived on campus already a massive, international star – on TikTok. Now his basketball teammates are, too.

With more than 2 million followers, McCain’s dance videos and other viral clips have captured a massive following that really only knows him as a basketball player from the uniforms he wears (including those of other teams during recruiting-visit photo shoots, before he landed at Duke). In the NIL era, that can translate directly into income – and power.

7. Randy Woodson, N.C. State chancellor

Not every person of influence is moving things in the right direction. Woodson has unquestionably been a strong and accomplished leader for the university itself, and while he did acquiesce to the PNC Arena redevelopment over the protests of some Wolfpack fans, his influence on the ACC and college athletics at large continues to raise questions about his stewardship.

In September, he flipped N.C. State’s deciding vote to allow the ACC’s ill-advised addition of California, Stanford and Southern Methodist for reasons that have yet to be adequately explained and has still never defended extending the contract of soon-to-be-fired NCAA president Mark Emmert as a member of that board of directors. That said, there’s no denying his influence on the shape of college sports, not just in the Triangle but nationally.

8. Joe Ovies and Joe Giglio, sports radio(?) hosts

Giglio and Ovies are conducting a fascinating experiment in full view (and with the cooperation) of the public: Do you really need a radio station to have a radio show? After the sports-radio hosts were unexpectedly and summarily fired from their popular afternoon show by 99.9 The Fan in May, they quickly picked up where they were forced to leave off by starting their own podcast, bringing a large chunk of their audience and sponsors with them.

Connecting with listeners directly through podcast apps and YouTube, they’re trying to prove it’s the content, hyper-local focus and personality that matter, not the FM signal or the backing of a big company. (They do have a content-sharing agreement with the N&O.) Sports fans in the Triangle should be rooting for them to succeed, because national sports-radio shows increasingly sound alike and the Triangle deserves talk radio, whether that’s The OG (online) or Adam Gold and the Sports Shop (on the air), that doesn’t insult the intelligence of its extremely educated sports audience.

9. Fiona Crawley and Diana Shnaider, tennis stars

Crawley made national headlines over the summer when she qualified for the main draw at the U.S. Open in both singles and doubles (with UNC teammate Carson Tanguilig) and turned down the more than $100,000 in prize money she could have collected to retain her eligibility at North Carolina. Last spring, she won the NCAA doubles title with Tanguilig, led the Tar Heels to the team championship over N.C. State and was named ACC player of the year.

Shnaider became the first player ranked in the top 100 to play college tennis in 20 years, coming to campus even after she made it to the second round of the Australian Open. The freshman from Russia beat Crawley in No. 1 singles as N.C. State won its first-ever ACC championship and advanced to the NCAA finals before the Tar Heels got their revenge. Shnaider turned pro after the NCAA season and is currently 88th in the world.

10. Dave Doeren, N.C. State football coach

In his 11th season at N.C. State, Doeren had to do what was unquestionably his best coaching job, finding a way to rally a team that was dead in the water after 24-3 loss at Duke — the Blue Devils needed to complete only four passes to beat the Wolfpack — to wins over Clemson, Miami and North Carolina and a berth in Orlando’s Pop-Tarts Bowl and a chance at that elusive 10-win season.

Some of the credit goes to new offensive coordinator Robert Anae, who found ways to get the ball to freshman playmaker K.C. Concepcion, and quarterback Brennan Armstrong’s leadership after he lost the starting job to M.J. Morris (and got it back when Morris decided to redshirt). Some of it goes to a punishing defense built around ACC defensive player of the year Payton Wilson. But Doeren found a way to build confidence in a group that had lost it and was able to rely on character and identity that carried over from years past. That’s not Xs and Os or raw talent. That’s pure coaching.

Five to watch in 2024

1. DeWayne Carter, NCAA lawsuit plaintiff

Carter’s distinguished Duke football career is over but his time in an even brighter spotlight is just beginning. As one of three plaintiffs in a newly filed landmark lawsuit – Carter v. NCAA – arguing that any cap on payments to college athletes is an antitrust violation, Carter has become part of a movement that could bring down not only the NCAA cartel but college sports as we know it. Carter, who was a finalist for the Campbell Trophy as football’s top scholar-athlete, may find his name becoming synonymous with the legal downfall of the NCAA.

2. Claire Curzan and Keni Harrison, Olympic hopefuls

It’s an Olympic year, and Curzan and Harrison will both be hoping for the chance to repeat their 2021 medal-winning showings in swimming and track respectively. Curzan, who won silver in the medley relay in Tokyo and an NCAA title last spring in the 200-meter backstroke at Stanford, transferred to Virginia and is sitting out this college season to focus on preparing for Paris after failing to qualify for the world championships last summer. Harrison, who grew up in Clayton, won silver in the 100-meter hurdles in Tokyo, held that world record from 2016-22, and is currently ranked No. 1 in the world. At 31, Paris may be her last chance at gold.

3. Sterl Carpenter, North Carolina State Lottery Commission

As North Carolina prepares to roll out legal sports gambling, at some point between Jan. 8 and June 14, Carpenter is the lottery executive overseeing the entire process. Hired in July from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, where he oversaw the launch of online sports gambling in that state, Carpenter brings much-needed sports-betting experience to a commission that until now had been focused mainly on administering only lottery games. Given the stakes, and everything that had to happen to get to this point, a successful launch is imperative.

4. Saniya Rivers, N.C. State women’s basketball guard

After a season when the Wolfpack ceded the top spot in the impossibly competitive Triangle to North Carolina for the first time in years, Rivers is leading N.C. State’s push to reclaim it. She was the ACC’s sixth player of the year last season after transferring from South Carolina and has blossomed into an unquestioned star for the undefeated Wolfpack this season — second in the team in scoring, fourth in rebounding, second in assists and first in steals — despite missing the past three games due to injury. Rivers remains officially “day to day,” but the Wolfpack needs her back for ACC play. Circle the two games against the Tar Heels – Feb. 1 and 22 – on the calendar.

5. Jon Scheyer, Duke men’s basketball coach

The Blue Devils haven’t missed a beat in recruiting since Scheyer took over for Mike Krzyzewski, and he became the first person to win an ACC title as both a player and coach and only the third rookie coach to claim a championship when Duke cut down the nets in Greensboro last spring. But the Blue Devils were bodied out of the second round of the NCAA tournament by Tennessee and this season is off to a rocky start with losses to Arizona, Arkansas and (gasp) Georgia Tech. Success at Duke has always been measured not only in March but April, and Scheyer still has something to prove at that end of the calendar.

The 2022 Triangle 10

1. Armando Bacot, North Carolina basketball forward

2. Katelyn Tuohy, N.C. State cross country champion

3. Trei Oliver, NCCU football coach

4. Courtney Banghart, UNC women’s basketball coach

5. Michelle Cooper, Duke women’s soccer star

6. Mike Elko, Duke football coach

7. Cindy Parlow Cone, US Soccer president

8. Karen Shelton, UNC field hockey coach

9. Boo Corrigan, N.C. State athletic director

10. Mike Forman, Carolina Hurricanes chief marketing officer

The 2021 Triangle 10

1. Rod Brind’Amour, Carolina Hurricanes coach

2. Nina King, Duke athletic director

3. Erin Matson, UNC field hockey star

4. Meghann Burke, NWSLPA executive director

5. Hubert Davis, UNC basketball coach

6. Claire Curzan, Olympic swimmer

7. Paolo Banchero, Duke basketball forward

8. Que Tucker, NCHSAA executive director

9. Joe Giglio and Joe Ovies, local sports radio hosts

10. Laurie Henes, N.C. State women’s cross country coach

The 2020 Triangle 10

1. College athletes, including N.C. State linebacker Isaiah Moore

2. Jim Phillips, ACC commissioner

3. Nolan Smith, Duke men’s basketball director of operations

4. Dr. Mandy Cohen, NC secretary of Health and Human Services

5. Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina Hurricanes forward

6. Vincent Price, Duke president

7. LeVelle Moton, N.C. Central men’s basketball coach

8. Elissa Cunane, N.C. State center

9. Debinha, NC Courage midfielder

10. Chad Price, MAKO Medical CEO

The 2019 Triangle 10

1. David West, HBL chief operating officer

2. Mack Brown, North Carolina football coach

3. Heather O’Reilly, recently retired soccer legend

4. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke men’s basketball coach

5. Sebastian Aho, Carolina Hurricanes center

6. Karen Shelton, UNC field hockey coach

7. Terrence and Torry Holt, entrepreneurs and philanthropists

8. Akshay Bhatia, teenage professional golfer

9. Wes Moore, N.C. State women’s basketball coach

10. North Carolina politicians (really!)

The 2018 Triangle 10

1. Debbie Yow, N.C. State athletic director

2. Jordan Bazant, agent

3. Zach Maurides, Teamworks founder

4. Zion Williamson, Duke basketball player

5. Tom Dundon, Carolina Hurricanes owner

6. Ezra Baeli-Wang and 292 (and counting) other UNC athletes

7. Nina King, Duke deputy athletic director

8. McCall Zerboni, NC Courage midfielder

9. Mack Brown, North Carolina football coach

10. Que Tucker, NCHSAA commissioner

The 2017 Triangle 10

1. Scott Dupree, Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance executive director

2. Rick Evrard, Bond, Schoeneck & King lawyer

3. Kevin White, Duke athletic director

4. George Williams, St. Augustine’s athletic director and track coach

5. Stephen Malik, North Carolina FC/NC Courage owner

6. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke men’s basketball coach

7. Ingrid Wicker McCree, N.C. Central athletic director

8. Thomas Dundon, prospective Carolina Hurricanes owner

9. Debbie Yow, N.C. State athletic director

10. Dwayne West, Garner Road Basketball Club executive director

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