Meet the Class: Tyler Hansbrough Takes On Teaching as UNC Adjunct Professor

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Tyler Hansbrough found himself experiencing an unexpected flashback on campus Tuesday, as he walked around this place where he became one of the greatest players in North Carolina’s rich basketball history.

All of a sudden, he had been transported two decades prior to the summer of 2005. He was a lost freshman who had strayed off course, while then trying to find his first class as a college student. And so he quickly phoned his younger brother, asking him to get online and pull up MapQuest, the navigation service most popular in those days.

“Time just flies,” Hansbrough chuckled and told Inside Carolina. “And when you walk through this campus, it brings you back to certain moments. Walking in here, I just had to laugh about that, because now I have a knee brace.”

And a new official title, too. Meet UNC adjunct professor Tyler Hansbrough. The big man, whose basketball exploits for the Tar Heels stamped him a legend forever, is back in school and helping teach a sports communication class — Media and Journalism 377 — alongside professor Livis Freeman.

Some 17 years ago, egged on by former teammates Bobby Frasor and Marcus Ginyard, there was Hansbrough the college kid, jumping from a fraternity house balcony and into an above-ground pool on the last day of spring semester classes in 2008.

On Tuesday afternoon, there was Hansbrough the grown man, taking an altogether different personal plunge all these years later, on this second day of fall semester classes. Standing tall at 6-foot-9, he presided from the front of a room in Carroll Hall, the home of UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Professional basketball sent Hansbrough around the world to China and Puerto Rico after his seven-year NBA career. He’s a couple months shy of turning 40 years old now. And he acknowledged Tuesday, two days after performing as the keynote speaker at UNC’s new student convocation for a crowd of more than 6,000, that public speaking would’ve been a difficult future outcome to predict when he was starring as a raging bull for coach Roy Williams’s Carolina teams, during his exceedingly decorated college climb toward earning NCAA champion and All-America status, and claiming the ACC’s all-time scoring crown.

“I was a very shy kid growing up,” Hansbrough told IC. “I wasn’t the biggest talker. But I do enjoy helping kids, helping them grow, and this is an opportunity to do that. This is also kind of a test trial for me. If I don’t think I’m providing the knowledge and the benefit that these kids need, then maybe this isn’t for me.

“But for me, the main purpose is I want to help them and get them excited, and give them different perspectives. So, no, I did not see me being a professor, either. I’m not the most talkative guy. But I’m working on that, trying to come out of my shell. And give these kids a little bit of what I know.”

Maybe Hansbrough indeed is reinventing himself at this stage of his life. He has become a podcaster and owner of his own media company, and a basketball analyst for such outlets as Tar Heels Sports Network and The Field of 68. He’s also an accomplished pickleball enthusiast, competing in pro-am events and tournaments, and even playing in the USA Pickleball National Championships — another itch to scratch since retiring his “Psycho T” alter ego as a basketball bruiser.

“When I first retired, I had all this massive amount of free time,” he said Tuesday. “So I started playing pickleball, and it was good. I went out there and you realize the only people who are playing on Tuesdays at 11 (in the morning) are the retirement community. And so I was getting worked by the retirement community. And that was unacceptable. So I started working on my game, kept progressing, and now I’m pretty confident against most players.”

Just shy of 100 people, with 88 of them students, filled Hansbrough’s classroom on Tuesday. This Media and Journalism 377 class focused on sports communication gathered for the first time, and like all first days, there were introductions to be made. Hansbrough has been a regular featured guest in Freeman’s classes at UNC across the years, but Tuesday marked his understated debut as an adjunct professor.

Freeman, wearing Carolina blue Air Jordans and working the projector, cued up a video that included Hansbrough dunking a feed from former teammate Reyshawn Terry against rival Duke and then muscling past the Blue Devils’ Shelden Williams down low, before stepping out and sinking a late 3-point dagger as the shot clock expired to effectively clinch a road victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“This was a long time ago,” a smiling Hansbrough told the class during those highlights, which were spiced by the irrepressible Dick Vitale.

Afterward, when class was finished, a long line of students formed to meet and greet the new professor. One young woman excitedly displayed a personalized Cameo video from Hansbrough four years ago, another of Tuesday’s many odes to his fabled playing days.

He’s the only four-time first-team All-America and All-ACC player in the conference’s long history that reaches back more than 70 years. He’s the fourth-leading scorer in NCAA Tournament history. He was named unanimous National Player of the Year in 2008, and inducted in the National College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.

“Sports communication is such a broad perspective,” Hansbrough told IC. “I think the one thing that I can add is the player side of it. And also the fact of playing in China, I think, has a lot of value as to how sports communication is impacted from a global perspective, versus just right here in the U.S. And that’s kind of the knowledge that I think I can really bring to this class.”