UNC and NCSU women keep winning national titles, so NCDOT keeps putting up signs

Women’s sports teams at UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University are on a winning streak, and that is keeping the sign makers at the N.C. Department of Transportation busy.

Five years ago, NCDOT began allowing universities to pay for roadside signs celebrating national team sports championships. The first to be honored was the UNC men’s basketball team for its national title in 2017, followed by the St. Augustine’s University men’s outdoor track and field team, which won a Division II championship that same year.

But since 2018, UNC and NCSU women’s teams have won seven NCAA national championships, including two — NCSU cross-country and UNC field hockey — this past weekend. The success poses a happy dilemma for the schools and NCDOT, as they work to keep up.

Schools or their athletic booster clubs pay $2,000 for each sign, which are standard highway department green with white lettering.

The first Triangle women’s team honored with a highway sign was UNC field hockey, after it won in 2018. Since the highway signs can remain up for two years, UNC decided to simply replace the men’s basketball signs with field hockey in 2019.

UNC had requested the maximum of eight signs and had them put up where visitors to North Carolina might see them: Four on interstates 85 and 95 at the Virginia and South Carolina state lines; one along I-40 at the Tennessee line; one on I-77 near the South Carolina line; and two along I-40 in Wake County, ostensibly for people arriving at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

When the field hockey team won two more titles in 2019 and 2020, the signs were updated and currently say “2020.”

Now the field hockey team has won another national, beating Northwestern 2-1 on Sunday. The university hasn’t decided yet how it will handle this latest title, said spokeswoman Dana Gelin.

NCSU faces a similar problem. Earlier this year NCDOT agreed to erect signs for the NCSU women’s cross country team, which won the 2021 NCAA national championship last fall. The university chose five locations — four in Raleigh and one on westbound I-40 near Page Road in Durham.

The signs started going up last week, just days before the cross country team won another title on Saturday. Like UNC, the athletics department at N.C. State hasn’t decided yet whether to double up on one sign or put up another set, said spokesman Jonas Pope.

Meanwhile, this month NCDOT’s board approved a resolution to honor the UNC women’s lacrosse team, which finished an undefeated season by winning the NCAA national championship game in late May. UNC has asked for eight championship signs near the ones honoring the field hockey team, which should go up in the next few months, said NCDOT spokesman Jamie Kritzer.

“There are no designated or assigned locations to put the signs,” Kritzer wrote in an email. “As such, the lacrosse signs could be placed within a mile of the field hockey signs or they could be several miles apart. The location will need to be determined so it meets the university’s request and does not obscure or interfere with other road signs.”

NCDOT must also be aware of how close the signs are to rival schools. One of the original Tar Heels basketball signs was put up on I-40 near the North Harrison Avenue interchange, about three miles from PNC Arena, home of UNC rival the N.C. State Wolfpack. That sign soon disappeared, found later in nearby brush with graffiti sprayed in red and white, the Wolfpack colors.

The sign was moved to the Aviation Parkway interchange, closer to RDU and farther from PNC Arena, and the Board of Transportation added a line to its sign policy: “Sensitivity and consideration should be given as to the location and proximity of other schools and/or championship signs.”