While Hurricanes plot course, ACC brass braces and hopes
Tom Robinson
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 28, 2003

So how are you spending your weekend? Chilling at the pool, the beach, the cabin by the lake?

The Big East, the ACC’s nine or 10 college presidents — who can keep track? — and ACC commissioner John Swofford will spend theirs roasting on a spit turned by the tiny hands of Donna Shalala.

They have already been twisted inside out, upside down and every which way but loose by the diminutive University of Miami president. Who knew our former secretary of health and human services could do such a dead-on impression of the Incredible Hulk? And without turning green.

Shalala is more a lovely shade of burnt orange. She is supposedly mulling the ACC’s invitation to bolt the Big East this weekend because her feelings have been hurt. Shalala wanted to join the ACC along with Boston College and Syracuse, not Virginia Tech, for crying out loud.

She wanted to bunny-hop on up to higher ground and allow what remained of the Big East to be shoved to sea on an ice floe. Bon voyage, boys.

It was all over but the christening — until Shalala’s Northeastern friends were tossed overboard in the ACC’s 11th-hour panic to salvage the Good Ship Expansion. Worse, and this is the very worst part, they were ditched without her knowledge or approval.

Oh, the humanity.

It’s not nice to fool mother Shalala. The ACC will learn that well as it waits for Monday to learn if it has irreparably torched its courtly reputation for … the Hokies! For a school that could have been had with a lifted pinkie or a raised eyebrow!

For a school that brings fine football and loyal fans, but lousy basketball and little in the struggle for market share and TV rights fees — the very reason the ACC began this convoluted game in the first place.

It still appears that Miami will cross over despite the financial inducements the Big East has thrown its way. The ones Shalala will chew on this weekend in the moments she’s not licking her wounded pride.

Shalala, by her calculated reticence, is making sure everyone remembers their place in the world — at Miami’s knee.

This is about Miami first, Miami last. It is about Miami in the morning, Miami at night and Miami as the center of the college-football universe.

All roads lead to Coral Gables, and if you don’t like it, you can help hold the bag that Shalala is preparing to deliver to some poor schlub Monday.

The temptation is to hope it is the ACC just to see Swofford’s stunned smile when he announces how deliriously thrilled he is to welcome … Virginia Tech, and only Virginia Tech, into the hutch.

Tech, of course, wins no matter what comes out of Shalala’s mouth Monday. The Hokies by all accounts are in the ACC either way, and what’s a few years of suffering name-calling — ''hypocrites’’ and ''traitors’’ are popular at the moment — next to cashing the golden ticket?

It’ll be a lovely weekend in Blacksburg. Everywhere else, they could use a cool place to lie down.
 

11 ACC teams may mean 2 tricky divisions
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 26, 2003

Ask for the formula for scheduling football games in the 11-team Big Ten and you get a two-page “Q&A” that attempts to demystify what conference officials admit is a “complex” procedure.

Ask for the formula in the ACC and the response would be: What formula?

The nine-team ACC enjoys a cozy arrangement in which every team plays every other once in football and twice in basketball. It’s simple, pure, logical. But with the ACC seeking to expand to 11 teams by adding Virginia Tech and Miami, things are about to become more complicated.

Eleven is an awkward number. For a sports conference, anyway. Say goodbye to round-robin scheduling in basketball, an annual rivalry game or two in football, and the notion that an undisputed regular-season champion will be crowned in either sport.

Most likely, say hello to a pair of unbalanced divisions, at least in football — six schools in one, five in the other.

The makeup of those divisions has already been a subject of much closed-door haggling. ACC commissioner John Swofford said 30-plus scenarios have been floated since the conference began looking at the various expansion scenarios last month. There’s much to consider:

Should Miami and Florida State be in the same division?

How about Virginia and Virginia Tech, or North Carolina and N.C. State?

Do you keep the “Big Four” of Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Duke together, or split them up?

Placing FSU and Miami in separate divisions creates the tantalizing possibility of the football powers meeting in a lucrative, high-impact ACC title game. That’s provided that the NCAA will alter its rules, which now require a conference to have 12 teams in order to hold a title game.

But putting Miami and FSU in separate divisions also means the teams would not meet in a given year if either doesn’t win its division.

That’s why the most likely scenario puts the Seminoles and Hurricanes in the same division. While that eliminates a meeting in the title game, it also creates the possibility that both could receive bids from the Bowl Championship Series if they’re that good. One would be the ACC’s automatic bid, the other an at-large.

Miami and Florida State could anchor a “Southern” division that would also include Georgia Tech, Clemson, either Wake Forest or Duke, or both if the Southern is the six-team division.

Such a scenario would create a “Northern” division of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, and N.C. State. Either Duke or Wake Forest could be in the division if the ACC wanted the Northern division to have six teams.

Teams would still play eight conference games. A team would play everyone in its own division every year and those in the other division on a rotating basis.

In the Big Ten, which is not split into divisions, each team is guaranteed of playing every other at least six times every eight years. The Big Ten formula also includes a provision that guarantees each team will play its two closest rivals every year. Michigan, for example, plays Michigan State and Ohio State each season.

In basketball, Big Ten teams play 16 games, playing six teams twice and four teams once. That rotation changes every two years.

The Big Ten basketball model could easily be adopted by the ACC. To play each team twice every year, ACC schools would have to schedule 20 conference games. That would leave few opportunities for non-conference contests.

The ACC’s round-robin scheduling has long been a point of pride for the conference’s basketball coaches, who have been quick to point out that in other leagues, teams don’t have to play every other team twice.

It has also guaranteed each conference team a visit from Duke or North Carolina each year, which usually resulted in a packed arena.

The Big Ten basketball schedule contains no provision requiring that traditional rivals play twice each year. The Big 12 has tried to maintain rivalries by having teams from the same football division play twice each year in basketball. Teams from opposite football divisions play just once in basketball.

Not everyone is happy with the system. “Everyone wants to play Kansas at home because they’re the main draw,” said Chris Thiesen, a conference spokesman. “The parameters didn’t allow it, and now, everyone’s pretty much accepted it.”

 

U.Va. officials mum on talks
Some disgusted with ACC debacle
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 28, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE - University of Virginia President John Casteen, a key player in the process, isn't answering questions from the media about Atlantic Coast Conference expansion. Neither is U.Va.'s athletic director, Craig Littlepage, or his assistants.

A university spokeswoman said Thursday that U.Va. officials will not comment publicly on expansion until the process is completed. Around University Hall and the McCue Center and Scott Stadium yesterday, though, athletic-department employees privately expressed disbelief, dismay, disappointment and even disgust at the debacle that ACC expansion has become.

The ACC embarked on this journey wanting to expand from nine to 12 members by adding Miami, Boston College and Syracuse from the Big East. It ended up rejecting BC and Syracuse and inviting Miami and Virginia Tech, which didn't emerge as a serious candidate until a week before the vote was taken.

If both accept - Tech has done so, but Miami is wavering - the ACC will find itself with an awkward configuration that hadn't been considered before Tuesday night's voting. Miami had expected either to join the ACC by itself or to enter with two other schools - at least one of which would have been BC or Syracuse - and form a 12-member league that played a lucrative championship game in football.

A motion to expand to 10 schools didn't get the necessary seven votes from the ACC's nine presidents, and neither did the 12-school scenarios. Under NCAA rules, a conference with 11 members is not allowed to stage a title game in football, though the ACC will try to get the requirement lowered from 12.

"I think what we have presented to [the Hurricanes] is a little different than what they expected in that, at least at this point, it's an 11-school scenario rather than a 12," ACC Commissioner John Swofford told reporters Thursday night in Greensboro, N.C.

Swofford spoke on the phone with Miami's athletic director, Paul Dee, several times Thursday. Those conversations continued yesterday, and almost certainly will take place this weekend, too.

Miami's president, Donna Shalala, said at a news conference Thursday that the school would announce its decision Monday. Unhappy with the ACC's treatment of BC and Syracuse, among other things, Miami may opt to remain in the Big East.

"It probably could go either way," an ACC source said yesterday.

Miami must analyze the possibility of playing in an 11-member league "from a financial standpoint as well as from a scheduling and athletic standpoint," Shalala said.

Shalala described herself as "deeply disappointed" that the ACC didn't extend invitations to Boston College and Syracuse, but Swofford said he didn't "sense any hostility" from Miami.

"I think there's disappointment," he said. "With some, there's some disappointment in our own league that part of that didn't work as well."

Swofford has been widely criticized for his handling of the ACC's expansion effort, which may produce a setup that leaves only one of the 11 schools - Virginia Tech - happy. And that's if the Hurricanes accept their invitation. If Miami declines, leaving Tech as the ACC's lone addition, the barrage of criticism will intensify.

Asked Thursday how confident he was that the ACC would land both Miami and Virginia Tech, Swofford said, "That's hard to read. The decision is Miami's at this point.

"I'm the type person that by nature sees the glass half full, so we'll respect their need to evaluate this and consider it. And we'll do everything we can on our end to meet any needs they have in making that evaluation, and that's really all we can do."

 

Virginia Tech accepts official invite from ACC
Hokies to part with Big East
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 28, 2003

Virginia Tech moved one step closer to finalizing its union with the Atlantic Coast Conference yesterday.

The league, which voted to accept Tech as an expansion candidate Tuesday, delivered its formal letter of invitation yesterday. Tech said the terms were acceptable (though unspecified).

The ACC has called a press conference for Tuesday night in Greensboro, N.C. Miami, the other invitee, has called a press conference for Monday afternoon to announce whether it plans to accept.

A Tech spokesman said the school's letter of resignation from the Big East Conference has been drafted and will be delivered by Monday. If the school doesn't resign by Monday, it faces a doubled withdrawal fee of $2 million if it wants to leave after one more academic year.

"Virginia Tech is now headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference, an organization of some of the nation's most prestigious universities," Tech President Charles Steger said in an "open letter" sent to media outlets last night.

"Today we have received the formal offer of membership, which we will accept. We know that this affiliation will be good for our students, athletes, fans, and communities for many years to come."

 

President defends Hokies' decisions
By Norm Wood
Daily Press
Published June 28, 2003

Virginia Tech received a formal offer of membership from the Atlantic Coast Conference on Friday and will accept it, according to a three-page open letter from Tech president Charles Steger that defended and explained his university's actions throughout the expansion process.

The letter describes one of Tech's primary reasons for jumping from the Big East to the ACC as an attempt to ensure future positive revenues for the university's athletic program while keeping student-body athletic fees to a minimum. Also, with the future of Tech's athletic program solidified in a viable conference, Steger pointed out there will be no need to explore cutting any of the university's Olympic sports in an effort to cut potential revenue losses.

Tech's students pay $232 per school year for athletic fees, which the letter contends is "many times" less than what several other Virginia colleges charge. With tuition increasing next year, and the university facing $73 million in state budget cuts in the next two years, Steger said he couldn't justify raising athletic fees by as much as 300 percent to help compensate.

"Weighing all of the factors, we concluded that should an invitation be forthcoming it would be in the best interest of Virginia Tech to accept," the statement said. "Given the circumstances and sequence of events, this is the best choice."

Steger also defended his statement during a June 6 teleconference where he said "if we received an offer today [from the ACC], we would not accept it." It was the same day Tech joined in a lawsuit with Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia against the ACC, Miami and Boston College to "protect the university and her many interests," according to Friday's letter. Virginia Tech withdrew from the lawsuit Wednesday.

"The context of that [press conference] is now lost, but at the time we truly thought that would be the appropriate course of action," the statement said regarding Steger's June 6 comment.

Steger said he made a proposal to the members of the Big East early in the expansion process to sign a "mutual non-departure agreement" where none of the Big East universities would depart the conference. When "key players in the process" turned down the proposal, Steger said he knew universities would be leaving the Big East.

The letter said conversations Steger had with Tech football coach Frank Beamer recently indicated that "the uncertainty of the future of the Big East is negatively affecting football recruiting." Steger expressed concerns such negativity could encourage Tech's football coaching staff to seek positions at other universities, making the need to find a conference on solid ground even more critical.

Steger added that the ACC's formal offer of membership to Tech signaled the conclusion of a process the university had hoped would happen for decades.

"Virginia Tech has made no pretense for the past 30 years that we would be a good fit for the ACC," the statement said. "We made clear that our first preference was to keep the Big East intact, but if the ACC expansion was inevitable, Virginia Tech would be a good fit."
 

What did you say? Words not binding in ACC-Big East Saga
BY MIKE HUGUENIN
The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. - (KRT) - With all the hot air and blather that has emanated the past six or so weeks from those involved in the ACC/Big East brouhaha, we thought it'd be fun to look back at some of the more interesting quotes from the expansion mess.

_"I think we will continue to get stronger, whether it's nine (members) or 12. I think it would be one or the other."_Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford, May 9.

_"The ACC's not going to 10. They're going to 12. I know that for a fact. They need the championship game to guarantee the revenue."_Virginia Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver, May 16.

_"We are committed to the Big East, and we will continue to be committed to the Big East. Our commitment is unwavering."_Weaver, numerous times during the Big East meetings, May 17-20.

_"In every respect, this has gone extremely well."_Swofford, at Boston College on June 2.

_"We leave here with a very positive feeling about how the visit went."_Swofford, at Syracuse on June 4.

_"The Big East is a corporation. Each of the presidents who serves on the governing council of the Big East has a fiduciary responsibility that is defined in law to act in the best interests of the collective entity."_Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, June 6, discussing why his school was part of a lawsuit against the ACC.

_"If an offer came today, we would not accept it."_Steger, June 8.

_"Should we be offered membership, the university is prepared to accept an invitation from the Atlantic Coast Conference. We look forward to this very special opportunity."_Steger, June 25.

_"The bottom line is this is right for Virginia Tech."_Weaver, June 25.

_"There's no question we belong in the ACC, and we are the equal of anybody in the ACC when you look at all of the factors. . . . I'm tired of people saying we're not up to par with the rest of the ACC."_John Lawson, member of Virginia Tech's Board of Trustees, June 25.

_"Anyone else in our position would have done the same thing."_Lawson, responding to criticism that Tech was hypocritical to accept the ACC's invitation, June 25.

ACC to seek rule change

Apparently, the ACC is going ask that an NCAA rule governing conference-title games in football be changed. Currently, the NCAA doesn't allow leagues with less than 12 members to hold a championship game.

The 12-team rule was passed in 1987 to appease the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, a Division II league with 12 members. But when Division II expanded its playoff field that same year and more PSAC teams made it to postseason play, the league decided against holding a title game.

The rule basically wasn't thought about again until the Southeastern Conference started staging a lucrative title game beginning in 1992, when it expanded to 12 teams.

One final ACC note: Last year, the ACC hired The Bonham Group, a sports and marketing company based in Denver, to study expansion. Last weekend, Dean Bonham said his company was asked to look further into the ACC adding Virginia Tech, but he was not enthused by the prospect.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, the economics of whether Tech makes it or not is a 2," he told The Roanoke (Va.) Times.

Big East, Big 12 shine

Which league had the best athletic year?

If you go by the "Big 4" sports_football, baseball and men's and women's basketball_the Big East won the most titles (two) and the Big 12 had the most "Elite Eight" teams (seven).

The Elite Eight spots were made up of the four BCS bowls, the final eight in the men's and women's basketball tournaments and the teams in the College World Series.

The Big East's Syracuse and Connecticut won the men's and women's basketball titles, respectively; the Big Ten's Ohio State won it all in football; and the Western Athletic Conference's Rice won the baseball crown.

The six BCS leagues had 28 of a possible 32 Elite Eight spots; the non-BCS leagues represented were Conference USA (Marquette in men's basketball), the Missouri Valley (Southwest Missouri State in baseball), the Big West (Fullerton State in baseball) and the WAC.

Of the BCS leagues, the ACC had the worst showing, with two Elite Eight spots: FSU in football and Duke in women's basketball.

The BCS/Elite Eight breakdown: Big 12 had seven, SEC had six, Big East had five, Big Ten and Pac-10 had four each and the ACC had two.

Best of the best

Stanford won the NACDA Directors Cup_symbolic of the nation's best overall athletic program_for the ninth consecutive time, with Texas finishing second and Ohio State third.

The high finishes are no coincidence for Ohio State and Stanford, who rank first and second, respectively, among Division I-A schools in the number of varsity sports they offer.

Texas had an especially good year. It's the first Division I-A school in NCAA history to accomplish each of the following in the same academic season: have its football team finish in the Associated Press Top 10; have its men's basketball team advance to Final Four; and have its baseball team make it to the College World Series.

The rest of the NACDA Directors' Cup top 10: Michigan was fourth, followed by Penn State, UCLA, Florida, North Carolina, California and Arizona State.

The latest financial figures readily available for NCAA schools are the 2001-02 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act numbers. While the budget numbers for `02-03 will be different, they certainly won't be vastly different. Thus, we're going to use the `01-02 numbers as a base of comparison.

In terms of athletic budgets among the NACDA top 10, Ohio State was first ($57.8 million), followed by Florida ($54.1 million), Tennessee ($51.3 million) Texas ($49.4 million), Michigan ($48.6 million), Penn State ($41.8 million), UCLA ($40.4 million), North Carolina ($37.7 million), California ($36.9 million), Stanford ($32.8 million) and Arizona State ($31.8 million).

Who didn't necessarily get bang for its buck? Tennessee was the only school other than Ohio State and UF to have a $50 million athletic budget, but the Vols were 27th in the NACDA standings. Wisconsin, Nebraska and LSU had top 10 budgets, but each finished 23rd or lower in the NACDA standings.

 

The waiting game begins for ACC
BY AL FEATHERSTON : The Herald-Sun
afeatherston@heraldsun.com
Jun 27, 2003 : 11:28 pm ET

ACC officials, their carefully crafted expansion plans gone awry, spent Friday as they expect to spend today and Sunday -- waiting for Miami's announcement Monday that it will either jump to the ACC or accept a counter-proposal to remain in the Big East.

"It's real," Miami athletics director Paul Dee said of the Big East offer. "It's serious enough that [Miami president Donna Shalala] is going to give it consideration."

The ACC originally targeted Miami, Boston College and Syracuse for expansion, but after more than a month of contentious debate, ended up offering just Virginia Tech and the Hurricanes.

Virginia Tech accepted with alacrity, but Miami decided to reconsider its interest in the ACC.

"I am deeply disappointed that Boston College and Syracuse were not invited by the ACC," Shalala said during a press conference Thursday.

Ironically, it's Boston College and Syracuse, rejected by the ACC, that appear to be spearheading the last-ditch effort by the Big East to keep Miami from jumping.

"We have been in touch, both at the athletics director level and the presidential level for several days," Boston College athletics director Gene DeFilippo said. "I'm not going to get specific about any of the items we talked about, but there has been great communication between the other members of the Big East Conference and the University of Miami."

Syracuse spokesman Kevin Morrow told the Syracuse Post-Standard that chancellor Kenneth Shaw spoke with Boston College president William Leahy before Miami's Thursday meeting, then spoke with Shalala twice after the news conference. Shaw, Leahy and Shalala are expected to continue their talks through the weekend.

ACC commissioner John Swofford also talked to Shalala and Dee on Friday.

"I talked to Donna once and talked to Paul twice," Swofford said. We talked about the things they wanted to talk about before reaching their final decision. We talked about if there was any reason to get together. They felt that that was not necessary. I was more than happy to go to Miami if that was necessary, but they felt that was not necessary."

Swofford would only discuss the subject of his talks with Miami officials in general terms.

"We've talked with them about the things they feel like they need and the questions they had in regard to the 11-member format, as opposed to 12, and what that meant," he said. "That's what our discussions have been about, and that includes everything from scheduling to finances."

DeFilippo told the Miami Herald that the Big East is offering Miami a deal similar to one the Hurricanes rejected last month. At the time, it was reported that the league would guarantee Miami $45 million over the next five years. DeFilippo didn't rule out additional considerations, including possibly upping the offer to match the $9.7 million payout that the ACC made to its members last year.

However, Dee told the Miami paper that the Big East proposals remain informal.

"We have nothing formal on paper, just a lot of phone calls back and forth between presidents and ADs from both conferences to me and Donna," he said. "Everybody is calling us and making their last-minute pitches."

Swofford said the ACC was willing to wait for Miami to make up its mind.

"That's hard to read," he said. "The decision is Miami's at this point. I'm the type person that by nature sees the glass half-full, so we'll respect their need to evaluate this and consider it. And we'll do everything we can on our end to meet any needs they have in making that evaluation and that's really all we can do."

Miami has scheduled a press conference Monday at 4 p.m. to announce its decision. An ESPN report that the ACC had scheduled a Monday press conference of its own was denied by league officials.

While the ACC was waiting for Miami to make its move, there were several other issues revolving around the league's expansion plans:

n A spokesperson for North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said he is "focused on the budget negotiations" and had no time to follow up on requests by East Carolina fans and several North Carolina legislators that he use his influence to force the ACC to look at ECU as a potential 12th member, just as Virginia Gov. Mark Warner forced Virginia president John Casteen to fight for the inclusion of Virginia Tech.

"We'd like to see the same support that the governor of Virginia provided for Virginia Tech," state Sen. Tony Moore told the Associated Press. "We're the third-largest university in the state and we'd like to be considered."

The governor's spokesman pointed out that so far all the talk had come from fans and legislators.

"The governor's office has not been contacted by school officials," Cari Boynes said. "And it sounds like nobody's bothered to call the university. We don't even know that they want to be in the ACC."

-- The Hartford Courant is reporting that one consequence of the ACC's expansion plans could be that Connecticut joins the Big East as a football member in 2004, instead of the planned 2005 season. The school's new stadium is scheduled to open this fall, creating the possibility that the Big East schedule could be altered to include UConn and lessen the impact of Virginia Tech's (and potentially Miami's) departure from the league.


 

Miami mulling offers, but Va. Tech to leave
By Joe Burris, Globe Staff, 6/28/2003

As much of intercollegiate athletics awaits the University of Miami's decision Monday on whether to remain in the Big East or accept the Atlantic Coast Conference's invitation to join its ranks, Big East officials continued yesterday to meet with Miami officials in an attempt to ensure the former scenario. Meanwhile, it appears Virginia Tech has decided not to await Miami's decision and will accept the ACC's offer.

Virginia Tech will officially become the 10th member of the ACC at a news conference Tuesday at ACC headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., the Associated Press reported. Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver confirmed the Hokies will accept the ACC's offer and told the AP he expected the paperwork to be completed by Monday.

A report by ESPN.com quoted ACC associate commissioner Mike Finn as saying that Virginia Tech's invitation is not tied to that of Miami.

ACC spokesman Brian Morrison said yesterday the conference is not commenting on either bid until it officially hears from the schools.

Meanwhile, Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo said yesterday that talks with Miami continue. ''We're still having continued discussions with Miami at the presidential and athletic director levels,'' said DeFilippo. He declined to discuss specifics of those discussions.

BC and Syracuse, which were once candidates for ACC inclusion, offered Miami a counterproposal on behalf of the Big East to remain with the league.

Miami president Donna Shalala then announced that the school would review the counterproposal then make its decision Monday, a move that lent encouragement to Big East officials that Miami may stay.

Although specifics were not disclosed, it was believed the Big East was prepared to give Miami a greater voice and influence in matters related to the re-shaping of the conference's football league, and to make other financial concessions to the Hurricanes with regard to revenue sharing.

BC football coach Tom O'Brien, whose program stands to be greatly affected by Shalala's decision, yesterday spoke for the first time on the matter and made a plea to the Hurricanes to stay put.

''If the three of us [Miami, BC, and Syracuse] stay together, we can put together a pretty good football conference,'' he said. ''I still think we'll be a formidable player in the national scene.

''This is like recruiting. And this is what's great about it, because now [university] presidents know what coaches go through in trying to get 17-, 18-year-olds to come to our schools, and the ups and downs that we go through the whole year in recruiting.''

 

ACC eyes possible scenarios
By Craig Barnes | Hurricanes Correspondent
Posted June 28, 2003

CORAL GABLES -- With Miami studying proposals from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East Conference -- and perhaps negotiating with both leagues, too -- the ACC is preparing for Virginia Tech and possibly the Hurricanes to join the conference for football in 2004-2005.

If a 12th member is added by then, there will be two six-team divisions and a conference-championship game that could produce between $6 million and $8 million initially.

The league is working on models of what to do with 11 teams for the first season. If the NCAA changes legislation requiring 12 teams for a conference to have a championship game is changed, there will be divisions.

If the legislation remains unchanged, one possibility for the ACC is to use the scheduling system employed by the Big Ten. In the Big Ten, each of the 11 schools plays eight conference football games per year. (In basketball, teams play six opponents twice and four once for a total of 16 league games.)

In the Big Ten, each school has at least one protected opponent, and some teams have two. Michigan's protected opponents are Ohio State and Michigan State. Miami's protected opponent would be Florida State. North Carolina probably would have protected games with NC State and Duke. A team plays its protected opponent(s) each season.

"We are working models with 11 teams and 10 teams," said an ACC source who didn't want to be identified. "Once Miami makes its decision, we want to be in position to present the models and let the members make a decision on what they want."

Virginia Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver said his school definitely will join the ACC, but he said he was unsure the necessary paperwork had been completed to make the move official.

This weekend Miami President Donna Shalala plans to talk with Chancellor Buzz Shaw of Syracuse and Rev. William Leahy of Boston College, who are expected to offer a counterproposal from the Big East.

Leahy spoke with Shalala on Wednesday night and said, "I think she is genuinely torn about what to do."

Syracuse spokesman Kevin Morrow said his school and Boston College spearheaded the Big East's counterproposals.

"We very much want Miami to stay," Morrow said. "The Big East institutions are making a case to Miami for the Hurricanes to stay in the conference, and Syracuse and Boston College are leading this conversation."

Shalala has told officials from both leagues not to visit. She has been receiving calls from the CEOs of schools in both conferences in an effort to sway the Hurricanes, who have called a news conference for 4 p.m. Monday.

On Tuesday, the exit fee to leave the Big East before the 2004-05 academic year rises from $1 million to $2 million.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford and his staff worked through financial concerns Miami had over a two-team expansion with the university's financial officers and Athletic Director Paul Dee. The financial concerns are resolvable, a UM source said.

 

ACC needs to sit down and open up
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

As the ACC nears the end of a surreal venture into expansion, many lessons have been learned.

Uh, make that should have been learned.

Given the way the league has operated lately, there's no certainty that anyone closely involved in the process has the wherewithal to learn from these mistakes. But there have been many that should be addressed quickly:

* PRESIDENTIAL RELATIONS. Ultimately, the ACC's presidents and chancellors make all the decisions. In expansion, it has become painfully clear that few, if any, of those folks understand the principles of cooperation and compromise.

Part of the problem is understandable. ACC leaders are heavily insulated by swarms of support staff. Each president is accustomed to being the boss of his or her domain. Most are under more pressure to raise great sums of money than to deal with the daily operations of an athletics conference. Their day planners are never less than jam-packed.

Even so, the current policy of telephone conference calls on matters of important ACC business needs to be curtailed. The presidents need to meet face to face at least two or three times annually. Afternoons, maybe even full weekends, need to be set aside for conversations and planning sessions limited to conference issues.

* FACULTY INVOLVEMENT. A panel of at least 27 professors (three from each of the current schools) needs to be formed immediately. These should not be teacher-fans, but a cross section of the educational community.

Like the presidents, this group should meet regularly -- not by telephone. Meeting with them should be the league commissioner and several football and basketball coaches. Academic issues of importance should be emphasized and addressed.

In expansion we've learned that faculties have concerns that are rarely heard quickly enough -- if at all -- on athletics matters. This has to change. The wall that separates the academic and athletics campus populations has to be torn down. If it is not, conflicts will continue -- and escalate.

* SECRECY POLICY. If you operate undercover, as the ACC did for at least a year on expansion, you darn sure better have a solid working knowledge of the effects of the speed of light.

In mid-April, once the expansion plans were made public -- which was absolutely inevitable -- the league was not prepared for the ramifications.

Throughout the long planning period, which dates back two years, ACC officials from John Swofford down frequently said expansion wasn't a front-burner subject.

Exposed, there was an immediate and eventful backlash from fans, not to mention from campus leaders at the member schools and gung-ho Virginia politicians.

Embarrassed and off guard, the league reacted by trying to shove everything back into the closet. There, the flaws in the process became even more of a problem and the league's image took an even bigger hit.

The ACC consists of seven public schools, all heavily supported by tax dollars and middle-class athletics fans. The other two schools -- Duke and Wake Forest -- get subsidies from the North Carolina legislature for each in-state student admitted. Business pertaining to those schools is public business. To conduct that business entirely in private is a concept that's doomed to backfire every time.

It's important to learn from mistakes. Leaders, coaches and teachers have echoed that advice for years. It's advice the entire ACC needs to heed as never before.



 

BC's out, but why remains a mystery
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

It took the votes of at least three ACC presidents to exclude longtime target Boston College from the surprising league expansion equation that came together Tuesday night.
Two of those votes were well known going into the long telephone conference call that originated in Greensboro. Duke's Nan Keohane and North Carolina's James Moeser were squarely against any expansion beyond one new member -- Miami.

A third vote came from a source no one expected -- N.C. State's Marye Anne Fox.

The question now, and perhaps forever, is why? Fox is under no legal obligation to disclose her vote or the motives behind it. And if there is one thing everyone has learned during Fox's five years at NCSU, it is that she is an independent thinker who doesn't shy from controversy.

At the time the vote was taken Tuesday, Fox was in the midst of a weeklong trip to Europe. Upon departing the States, she was being counted among the presidents who supported a 12-team league. Upon her return to Raleigh on Thursday, she wouldn't shed any light on her vote when asked about it by a reporter from The News & Observer.

"As a member of the Council of Presidents of the ACC, I have pledged to uphold the ideals of the Atlantic Coast Conference as I represent N.C. State student-athletes, our athletics programs and supporters," Fox said in a statement. "I take very seriously our commitment to maintain the integrity of the discussions related to proposals to expand the ACC. Therefore, I believe it would be inappropriate and a betrayal of the trust we have established among the council to discuss any council member's vote or comments in our recent conference calls. I am sure my colleagues agree.

"As commissioner of the ACC, John Swofford has agreed to be the spokesman on this issue, and I know he will provide all appropriate comments and updates."

There are several possibilities for what might have changed her mind, the most intriguing being Fox's connections to Notre Dame. She is a member of the school's board of trustees. Her son went to Notre Dame.

Among some ACC insiders, there's an ongoing belief that Notre Dame remains a target for eventual ACC membership and that Fox -- like former ACC commissioner and Notre Dame athletics director Gene Corrigan -- could be the key links to the union.

As recently as last winter, Notre Dame again shunned ACC advances. And on any number of occasions during the past several years, the ACC, as well as the Big Ten, has courted the Irish only to be rebuffed.

Perhaps Notre Dame's standing as a football independent will be less secure when its TV deal with NBC expires after 2005, although TV industry folks don't believe that will be case, particularly if the Irish program continues a resurgence under coach Ty Willingham's leadership.

If Notre Dame wasn't the reason behind Fox's vote, it's possible that she no longer liked the geography when it became apparent that other ACC presidents wouldn't go for the original proposal that included Syracuse in a grouping with BC and Miami.

When Virginia Tech was hammered into the expansion mix by a strong in-state political force, Syracuse was booted out. That would have left BC the lone northeastern outpost. The argument against unrealistic long-distance travel costs by Duke and UNC would have carried more weight with Fox.

Then, there's the chance that Fox was swayed by pressure from her faculty and contemporaries to avoid taking the ACC to super-conference status. Her colleagues in the neighborhood, Keohane and Moeser, had actively spoken against such sweeping conference growth, and there was mounting opposition to expansion within the academic community.

No one at NCSU dares to speak for Fox, and there is no read on what the vote has done to her relationship with Miami president Donna Shalala.

The two have been friends for years, and there was much speculation among Hurricanes fans that Shalala's faith in Fox's advice was instrumental in the expansion movement.

But, from the start, Shalala and Miami strongly backed Syracuse and BC in a three-way venture. At no point during the deliberations did Miami do any lobbying for Virginia Tech.

One thing is certain: The original support for BC by ACC members crumbled Tuesday. In a way, maybe it's not really that surprising. In this seemingly endless ACC expansion saga, something strange occurs almost daily.