Kenan Trust Makes Gift to Women's Soccer

Trustees of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust announced Monday a gift of $1 million to help endow scholarships and the operating budget of the University’s women’s soccer program. The endowment is being made in honor of Braxton Schell ’48, a lawyer in Greensboro and a longtime fan and supporter of the UNC women’s soccer program.

Richard M. Krasno, executive director of the trust, said, “The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust is delighted to be making this grant for two reasons. First, it enables us to honor Braxton Schell, who has been a staunch supporter of women’s soccer at Carolina for decades and an important figure in the evolution and administration of many of the Kenan philanthropies. Second, the grant provides a way for us to honor an athletic program that has not only been phenomenally successful on the playing field but also a model of the best that college sports can offer to its participants, fans and alumni.”

Schell, who also serves as an attorney for the William R. Kenan Jr. Funds, regularly attends the team’s games and has traveled with the team on overseas exhibition tours. He is a partner in the law firm Schell, Bray, Aycock, Abel & Livingston PLLC.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Carolina, he received his law degree with honors from UNC in 1951. Schell served as the associate editor of the North Carolina Law Review and is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

“It is not an overstatement to say that Braxton Schell is Carolina women’s soccer[‘s] most diehard fan. He has supported women’s soccer here since the early days of what is now a true dynasty,” Chancellor James Moeser said. “It’s wonderfully appropriate for the Kenan Trust to honor him in this way.”

The endowment will go to help fund annual scholarships for women’s soccer at Carolina as well as benefiting the operating budget of the program to maintain the program at the highest level. UNC has won 19 of the past 26 national championships in the sport and boasts an all-time record of 643-31-18 in 29 years as a varsity sport. Carolina has also won all but two ACC Tournament championships since that event was instituted in 1987.

“The gift from the Kenan Trust means so much to the University and particularly to the women’s soccer program,” Athletics Director Dick Baddour ’66 said. “I think it speaks volumes as to the pride this University and the benefactors of UNC feel about not only the success of the women’s soccer program but also the way in which Anson Dorrance [’74] and his staff have conducted themselves in building and maintaining a championship program.

“We are overwhelmed and so appreciative of the Kenan Charitable Trust for this remarkable gift,” Dorrance said. ” I have loved this great University from my first day on this campus as a young student in 1970 and consider it a privilege to be able to represent it still. Thank you on behalf of my staff and all the extraordinary young women who like me wear the Carolina Blue with undying loyalty and pride and have tried to show that every year.”

Related coverage is available online:

• What the Fields Teach: For 25 years, Anson Dorrance ’74 — graduate of an all-boys boarding school — has been the unlikely conductor of the greatest athletic social experiment since women began playing college sports. It’s what you don’t see in games, however, that keeps the whole thing brewing.
  Article from the November/December 2004 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.
• Raising the Goal: An NCAA women’s soccer championship without North Carolina? Unthinkable!
  Article from the November/December 1995 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.