“There are a series of crossroads in life that everybody faces and you have to pick which way to go. I loved living in North Carolina, so I decided to quit the newspaper business and to become an independent entrepreneur.” Art Chansky’s decision is the reason why he has been writing and reporting in Chapel Hill for almost 50 years.
Chansky has his own daily radio show on WCHL called Art Chanksy’s Sport Notebook, where he discusses recent sports topics that typically relate to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) or local professional teams.
He finishes off every two minute show with his trademark, “See ya!” He has also written nine books, including best-seller Blue-Blood. His most recent book, Game Changers, is about the 1960s in Chapel Hill and the controversies surrounding Dean Smith integrating the UNC basketball program.
Chansky created the Poop Sheet with Dennis Wuycik, which is now the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Sports Journal. He also started Carolina Court, an annual magazine series that ran for 15 years covering UNC basketball preseasons and anthologies of Carolina basketball.
Chansky sold the Carolina Court magazines to Jim Heavner of the Village Companies and went to work for Heavner in 1987. Chansky sold advertising and began broadcasting his radio commentary, Sports Notebook.
Village Companies won the multimedia rights to UNC in 1992 under the name Tar Heel Sports. Chansky sold corporate advertising for Tar Heel Sports until he departed in 2010.
He continued writing books throughout his tenure with Village Companies and Tar Heel Sports.
Today Chansky has his own company. “I do all the same things that I’ve always done but now under my own company,” Chansky said.
He has a contract selling, writing and broadcasting for WCHL. Chanksy made relationships with companies around the country after working with Village Companies and Tar Heel Sports for 23 years.
Today, he helps put deals together for them, mostly involving television.
Before diverting to a more business oriented career path, Boston-born Chansky was an aspiring journalist. “My dream was to go back [to Boston] and work for the Boston Globe,” Chansky said.
As a senior at UNC, Chansky was the sports editor of The Daily Tarheel. He graduated from UNC in 1970 with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism.
After college, Chansky worked for the Chapel Hill Weekly under renowned editor, Jim Shumaker. “He was a great mentor for me early on,” Chansky said.
Still pursuing his dream of one day writing for the Boston Globe, Chansky wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a year and a half.
He then returned to the Triangle to become the sports editor of the Durham Morning Herald. After working there for seven years, he decided to quit the newspaper business.
In 1979, after choosing to become an entrepreneur, Chansky opened the Four Corners restaurant and bar on Franklin Street. Chansky commented, “I sold it after five years. That’s all I could take in the restaurant business.”
