Episode 24 – Garrett Boorojian interviews Steve Kirschner about relationship building in a team environment.
Steve Kirschner – Senior Associate Athletic Director/Sports Information & Media RelationsMen’s Basketball (primary), Men’s Golf, Women’s Golf, Carolina Basketball Museum, Football & Men’s Basketball Credentials – Staff Directory – University of North Carolina Athletics
“The 2024-25 season is Steve Kirschner’s 41st in athletic communications, including 36 at the University of North Carolina, where he has been a member of the Tar Heel staff continuously since 1990.
A native of Bristol, Conn., Kirschner is Senior Associate Athletic Director for Sports Information and Media Relations. He manages media relations and communications for the Tar Heel men’s basketball and men’s and women’s golf programs, serves as a secondary administrator for men’s basketball, manages the department’s historical archives and the Carolina Basketball Museum, oversees press box operations on football game days at Kenan Stadium and assists with overall departmental strategic communications. Kirschner was named to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame board of directors in August 2023. He is the chair of the nominations committee.
A 1988 graduate of the University of Connecticut with a B.S. in Sports Studies, Kirschner has held a variety of roles within the UNC Athletic Communications office. As an intern from 1988-89 and Assistant Director from 1990-95, he worked under Rick Brewer and Dave Lohse with the men’s basketball, football, women’s soccer, wrestling, baseball, track and field and women’s golf teams. He served as Director of Media Relations for Football and Men’s Basketball (1995-2000), Assistant AD for Communications (2000-01) and Associate and Senior Associate AD for Communications (2001-12, 2017-20).
He has served as the primary contact for men’s basketball beginning in the 1995-96 season.
Kirschner has worked with numerous Hall of Fame head coaches, including Dean Smith, Roy Williams, Mack Brown, Anson Dorrance, Bill Lam and Dennis Craddock, and National Players/Athletes of the Year Antawn Jamison, Sean May, Tyler Hansbrough, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and T.J. Jaworsky, College Football Hall of Famer Dré Bly and NFL and NBA Hall of Famers Julius Peppers and Vince Carter.
All five of Carolina’s men’s basketball coaches Kirschner has worked with have won National Coach of the Year honors (Smith, Bill Guthridge, Matt Doherty, Williams and Hubert Davis).
During his tenure, Carolina men’s basketball has won NCAA championships in 1993, 2005, 2009 and 2017, played in 12 Final Fours, won 13 regular-season ACC titles and eight ACC Tournament titles and had 36 players selected in the first round of the NBA Draft. In 1997, Coach Smith set the all-time NCAA record for coaching wins and was named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. Williams was Coach of the Decade (2000-09), and Williams and Smith rank third and fifth all-time in wins by Division I coaches.
The USBWA presented Kirschner with the Katha Quinn Award for service to the media in 2005. He won the National Wrestling SID of the Year award in 1994 in recognition of services provided to the media when UNC hosted the NCAA Championship in the Smith Center.
Kirschner has co-authored with Matt Bowers and Adam Lucas four books on Carolina men’s basketball’s: three detailing UNC’s NCAA championships – “Led By Your Dreams” (2005), “One Fantastic Ride” (2009) and “Redemption” (2017) – and the story of the 2022 run to the national championship game (“Together”), and co-produced “Legends in Blue,” a 25th anniversary video…”