UNC athletics director Dick Baddour said he didn't even know that Butch Davis, the man officially introduced Monday as the new head football coach, was part American Indian "until we were well into the process" of interviewing him for the job.

Because Baddour was unaware of it, you know he was unaware that the hiring occurred in the same month that the university is celebrating American Indian Heritage Month.

Sandra Hoeflich, an associate dean at UNC-Chapel Hill's Graduate School, said she was unaware of Davis' heritage, too. But when told about it, she said it was "great" that it was announced during the same month that the office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs is starting a national search for a director for the school's proposed American Indian Center.

Among the monthlong campus activities were discussions on what American Indians and other minorities wish to be called and an emotionally moving documentary called "Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy."

Davis, after his introduction, told me that his great-grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee and his grandfather was half-Cherokee. Both he and his son Drew, he said, are "on the Cherokee roll," which means they have tribal voting privileges.

Danny Bell, a faculty member in the university's American Indian Studies department, said Davis' hiring "could have a great influence if he has a little time once in a while to meet with the Indian students here."

We don't expect him to be the cultural representative wearing the headdress, Bell said, "but he could be the professional representative of someone who is successful in his field. Considering the way the university went after him, he obviously is successful."

Bell, who is part Lumbee and Coharie, said there are about 230 American Indians in the school's undergraduate, graduate and professional ranks, with five or six faculty members.

Davis' hiring is momentous because it comes just months after N.C. State University hired Sidney Lowe as its head basketball coach.

That the state's two premier universities have an African-American and a man who proudly cites his American Indian heritage leading two of its athletics teams might not be important to you. If not, chill, homes, because I guarantee you that it's important to somebody.

Wanna bet that somewhere, some minority kid who thought his only chance at a career in sports lay in his ability to stick the open jump shot or run a 4.3 40 is now thinking, "Hey, maybe I can coach"?

Fans and alumni of both schools won't care if Davis and Lowe are descended from the King of Siam if they don't win. That's as it should be.

Both of those men would probably be the first to say that nobody should get hired because of race or ethnicity, but neither should anyone be denied a chance because of those factors, either.

When Lee Fowler placed the call to Lowe, he undoubtedly knew of Lowe's heritage.

Baddour said he was unaware of Davis' heritage until the job was almost his; that's good.

It would be better if he had known and the job was still Davis'.