ACC: Image needs boost
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published July 6, 2003
Eighty-one days ago, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese fired his verbal Fort
Sumter. Ranting to the New York Daily News, he labeled the Atlantic Coast
Conference "a bunch of hypocrites" for trying to pillage his league without the
courtesy of a phone call.
Since that surprising introduction, this saga has seen lawyers, politicians and
college presidents - all, supposedly, the best and the brightest - create a
process that has been called everything from goofy to illegal. National
columnists and talking heads - some are one and the same - have declared a
time-honored conference to be no different than a ruthless corporation.
As it celebrates its golden anniversary, the ACC needs to restore its once-pure
image.
"We're committed to it, and we will recover from it," Wake Forest athletic
director Ron Wellman said. "We recognize that we did not do everything
perfectly, and we've got to recover from that and make amends and get back to
where we were. The tradition of excellence that you see on our banner, we're
committed to that. We've taken a beating. And we recognize why we've taken a
beating."
Nobody emerged with clean hands - not Tranghese, not ACC counterpart John
Swofford, not our elected officials, and certainly not the university CEOs who
continually stumbled over each other. The Boston Globe's Mark Blaudschun
suggested the conference change its motto from "Tradition of Excellence" to
"Greed is Good" - Michael Douglas' famous line in "Wall Street." Wrote the
Washington Post's Sally Jenkins, "Congratulations to the ACC presidents and
their commissioner, John Swofford, who have created this landscape of scorched
earth and greed."
Ouch. But conference officials say it was never about money.
"It was about our position in the shifting landscape and the real possibility
that a conference as great as the ACC could become a second-tier league,"
Florida State athletic director Dave Hart said. "And I believe that. If we were
going to wait and be reactionary, and if we woke up with 12-team leagues
surrounding us, where would we go to stay in the position we've become
accustomed to?"
Yet no matter how its leaders try to spin the past several weeks, the ACC can't
deny that its actions have left another conference in danger of falling apart.
The ACC flirted with Miami, Boston College and Syracuse - three established
members of the Big East - without coming clean to Tranghese. Miami entertained
those overtures despite past promises that it would remain true to the Big East,
a major part of the lawsuit that pits four Big East schools against the
Hurricanes and ACC.
Perhaps the biggest disgrace for ACC officials came on the night of June 24,
when a humiliated Swofford had to call the CEOs at Boston College and Syracuse
to inform them their schools had been voted down. Less than a month earlier,
each institution had received a glowing report from the conference's visitation
committee and had been all but assured of an invitation.
"Obviously we haven't distinguished ourselves in how we've gone about this,"
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said last month. "And that's sad. There's
a business part to everything we do, there's no question about it. But we're
still a university and we're a conference that has great universities. We have
to be sensitive to our brethren in other conferences.
"Hopefully we'll mend fences. We've obviously gone into another person's yard
with our John Deere and knocked down a few trees."
Not everybody in the conference sees it that way. In Tuesday night's press
conference to welcome Virginia Tech and Miami, league officials never apologized
for - or even acknowledged - their secrecy in going behind Tranghese's back.
They never mentioned how devastating this round of expansion might be to the Big
East, or the likely domino effect that will touch other conferences across the
nation.
Swofford expressed regret for two elements: The treatment of BC and Syracuse,
and the expansion process in the ACC bylaws. The conference's nine-member
Council of Presidents held five teleconferences totaling 131/2 hours. On the
final call, two members phoned in from Europe, where it was well past 2 a.m.
when things finally wrapped up.
Needing seven votes to expand, Swofford went into that final call with only six.
Duke and North Carolina were opposed, and U.Va. president John Casteen had
wilted under political pressure to block any plan that did not include Virginia
Tech. Swofford then tried, unsuccessfully, to amend the bylaws to make six the
magic number.
So on June 24, a compromise had been reached: Virginia Tech would replace
Syracuse in the original trio to join Miami and Boston College, allowing Casteen
to vote yes. But N.C. State chancellor Marye Anne Fox stunned her colleagues by
joining UNC and Duke to vote against BC, for reasons she has not publicly
explained.
"There were times in the process when I wasn't sure whether a series of visits
to the dentist for a root canal wouldn't have been less painful and probably not
caused less anxiety," Hart said.
Miami president Donna Shalala called the process "bizarre, strange and goofy."
Virginia faculty rep Carolyn Callahan described its path as "meandering."
Syracuse chancellor Kenneth Shaw termed it "a debacle."
And there's this bit of analysis from Virginia Sen. George Allen:
"As chairman of the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations
Committee, I must observe that the expansion of NATO with countries from Central
Europe was more clear, understandable and cordial than the expansion of the
ACC."
Nor did Swofford apologize to the media, some of whom spent a ridiculous night
outside the conference's Greensboro headquarters. Around 5 p.m. on June 24, the
ACC summoned local reporters to its office and promised an announcement was
forthcoming. Not allowed to enter the building, about 20 media reps waited
outside as Swofford conducted the teleconference.
As word leaked out that Virginia Tech and Miami had been voted in, no league
official came out to address the media. Finally, shortly before midnight, nearly
seven hours after the reporters had been called, Swofford emerged. "We are very
close to being at the end of this," was the closest he came to confirming or
denying anything. Though Tuesday night's press conference offered some closure,
this story isn't going away. The lawsuit still exists, though most legal experts
believe the plaintiffs have no case. The next several months will see the Big
East, left with only six football-playing schools for the 2004 season,
vigorously attempt to replenish. Tranghese, by the way, vows never to do
business the way Swofford did.
It's been an ugly offseason.
"I think the public is disgusted with all of us, to be perfectly honest with
you," Tranghese said this past week. "And that includes me."
GREENSBORO - There was nothing left for ACC commissioner John Swofford to do.
The league's clumsy expansion process, which had turned into a public relations fiasco, was down to its final hours. Nearly 1,000 miles away, Miami officials were weighing the merits of accepting the ACC's invitation to join Virginia Tech, and Swofford had been told he'd done enough.
Don't call us. We'll call you.
With an empty and nervous Saturday ahead, Swofford told his wife, Nora, "This is one of the most difficult things I've ever been through."
There had been five conference calls totaling more than 13 hours. Campus visits. Quarreling constituencies. Political pressure. Accusations of greed and deception. Broken deals. Long days and longer nights.
Swofford's public image, golden for so long, had been tarnished in some eyes.
Nora Swofford looked at her husband of less than four years and said, "No, it's not."
She reminded Swofford that his father had died when he was 12 years old. His mother died later.
More recently, Swofford donated bone marrow in an attempt to save the life of his brother Oliver, a former pop music star. It didn't work, and the loss had devastated Swofford, a former North Carolina quarterback.
Those were personal. This was professional, though it was shaded with personalities.
Let it go, Nora Swofford told her husband.
She took Swofford to the golf course where he played nine holes, and then they spent Saturday night at the movies, watching "Finding Nemo," the animated story of a father fish searching for his lost son.
The next day, Swofford got a call indicating Miami was going to say yes. By Monday, it was official.
On Tuesday evening, Swofford was sitting on a dais, dressed in a black suit, crisp white shirt and a gold and black patterned necktie. He was pouring a glass of water for Virginia Tech athletics director Jim Weaver and kidding Paul Dee, the Miami AD.
Weaver had the look of a man still trying to figure out how he got there. Dee was careful not to look too delighted, knowing the bruised feelings left behind in the Big East Conference.
Swofford had a look of blessed relief on his cheeky face.
It was over, at least for a while. The nine-member ACC had become 11 and the only change to the conference seal was the addition of two new stars on the map indicating Blacksburg, Va., and Miami.
If there are black marks, they will fade with time.
For Swofford, who has been tied to the ACC for 32 of his 54 years, it was a moment of triumph, tempered by a bittersweet reality. A native of North Wilkesboro, Swofford appreciated as much as anyone the fraternal nature of the ACC and, no matter how quickly the new members are assimilated, he understood the league would never be the same.
Swofford also came to believe through the process the ACC needed to be proactive. To sit back and watch the college landscape shift meant risking the league's powerful place in it.
"When you love an entity the way I love the ACC, that's when the intangibles kick in," Swofford said late Tuesday night, an arm's length away from the microphone where he had officially welcomed Miami and Virginia Tech to the league.
"It makes you more determined to try to push things through to a result that's positive."
The cost to Swofford, at least a temporary one, was having his face out front in a process in which almost no one looked good. When critics ripped the league for being greedy and predatory, it was Swofford's mug on the dart board, though it was the school presidents who pushed the issue.
"During a process like this," Swofford said, "the commissioner is, in essence, the face of the league, so you expect (the criticism).
"Do you like it? Not really. Do you understand it's part of the role? Yes."
Swofford is the fourth commissioner in ACC history, succeeding Gene Corrigan six years ago this month. He came to the Greensboro office after 24 years as an administrator at Virginia and North Carolina (where he was athletics director for 17 years).
A Morehead Scholar at North Carolina, Swofford has been one of college athletics most effective leaders for many years. He helped create football's Bowl Championship Series, helped negotiate expanded television agreements for ACC football and basketball and established a new rotation of sites for the ACC's men's basketball tournament, taking it to Atlanta, Tampa, Fla., and Washington, D.C.
For at least two years, Swofford implored league administrators to consider expansion possibilities. He wasn't endorsing the idea but, in his mind, doing his job to alert everyone to the idea that they live in a changing world.
His message to the presidents and athletics directors was simple -- be proactive. Be aware. If staying at nine teams is the right thing to do, Swofford told them, then do that. But don't do it because it's easy. Do it because you've studied it and know it's in the best interest of the league.
Adding teams was suggested to Swofford, not by him.
Dr. G. Wayne Clough, president of Georgia Tech, said expansion had been discussed in each of his seven years on the ACC's Council of Presidents.
"I would 100 percent say it was never John Swofford's idea to do this," N.C. State athletics director Lee Fowler said. "He went on that side because the majority was telling him that's what we needed to do."
This year, expansion became a priority. Swofford used his position to survey the national landscape and provide the data needed for what became an aggressive approach.
Among Swofford's strengths, those who have worked with him said, is his ability to see the larger picture. He understood the anger the Big East directed at the ACC. Mike Tranghese, the Big East commissioner, declined comment on Swofford, whom he has worked with for many years, for this story.
Swofford also knew the collective interest of the conference couldn't completely hide the individual interests of each member school.
Like others, Swofford was disappointed in how the process played out. If it could be done over, Swofford would prefer more face-to-face meetings among the presidents rather than conference calls with some members chiming in from overseas.
That's because Swofford has a talent for consensus building and knows it is easier to get people to agree when they have to look each other in the eye.
"John's job is to herd the cats," Wake Forest athletics director Ron Wellman said. "His position is not a dictatorship. He's forceful when he needs to be and he lays back when he needs to. His timing is impeccable also. When he speaks, we listen."
During one expansion conference call among athletics directors, Wellman remembers Swofford taking command of a disintegrating situation.
"He was much more direct with the athletics directors than he had ever been," Wellman said. "He told us what he felt about how we were behaving. In a couple of sentences, he had us on course again."
Late Tuesday, an hour after the ACC's introductory press conference, Swofford held his wife's hand as he walked through a hallway at the Grandover Resort.
They were headed to the beach for a long weekend, this time without the burden of waiting on a phone call.
Someone asked how they liked "Finding Nemo."
"Great," Swofford said. "It had adult messages."
In another day, Nora Swofford would send her daughter to Guatemala on a missionary trip.
"It teaches you about letting go," she said.
John Swofford found a different message in the father's relentless quest to find his son.
"It teaches you to keep swimming," he said. "Just keep swimming."
The ACC got bigger through expansion, adding Miami and Virginia Tech. By getting bigger, and by trashing the college landscape during the clumsy process, the ACC also got smaller.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski - an early and late expansion critic but curiously quiet during the decisive middle innings - portrayed the conference's erratic lunges as undistinguished. 'I hope we mend fences because we've obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor-trailer and knocked down a few trees,' Coach K said only hours before the school presidents and chancellors rewrote their expansion ticket.
The conference's reputation for prudence, integrity and athletic-academic balance plummeted as the story evolved. After embracing Boston College and Syracuse, the ACC threw them overboard. After pushing a 12-team concept, the ACC settled for 11 now and maybe one later, especially if the NCAA refuses to lower the minimum population required for a football-championship game.
Commissioner John Swofford, his recipe for controlling the Eastern seaboard now packaged as a brilliant reduced-fat alternative, walked away from the teleconference tango with an enhanced football lineup.
'The ACC is stronger today than yesterday and may well be at its strongest point in its history,' Swofford said during the coronation of the new football kingpins.
In terms of bowl and TV revenue potential over the long haul, Swofford is absolutely right. In terms of basketball quality and depth, he is absolutely wrong.
The biggest loser was the Big East. The second-biggest loser was ACC basketball - and not because Miami floundered last season or because Virginia Tech has made the NCAA field just once since 1986. With weaker teams aboard, the conference's overall Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) will decline, which will lower the computer rankings of individual schools competing for NCAA Tournament bids and high seeds.
Now that the expansion deal has gone down, the ACC must expose the new format to public light. Gone are the days when all teams will play everyone twice in the same basketball season (and once in football), a radical change that turns a true conference into a loose confederation of franchises.
Gone are the days when finishing first will mean undisputed bragging rights. In the future, a team might dodge second games against Duke and Maryland while playing the softer new entries.
If the ACC lets teams keep only two permanent partners on the schedule year after year, all Big Four schools would no longer play each other twice a season. TV demands will preserve the Duke-North Carolina rivalry. If N.C. State becomes Carolina's second partner and Maryland aligns with Duke for TV reasons - both virtual certainties - then Wake Forest could wind up with one Big Four home-and-home series (against N.C. State).
Another possible format would allow four permanent partners, which could solve the Big Four problem but punish those same teams because of the tougher schedule.
'Right now with 11,' Swofford said, 'you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel because the Big Ten has been operating quite effectively as 11 since Penn State joined that conference.'
That's a matter of opinion. The Big Ten doesn't factor rivalry partners into its 16-game basketball schedule. Consequently, Purdue had to schedule Indiana as a nonconference opponent last season.
In football, the ACC evidently will try to preserve obvious rivalries (Duke-Carolina, Virginia-Virginia Tech, Miami-Florida State) and rotate other matchups within an eight-game conference schedule.
Big Ten teams get to choose two permanent football rivals and play them every year. That heightened the debate last season when Ohio State, the eventual national champion, and Iowa shared the title with perfect records. They didn't play each other. Ohio State fans argued that their team played a tougher schedule with Michigan and Penn State as annual rivals. Iowa's permanent rivals are Minnesota and Wisconsin.
With Virginia Tech and Miami raking money from the pot, every share of the ACC's profit distribution should decline for a few years but then rise as football prospers. In basketball, the financial headaches will reach into the fund-raising nerve centers of each school - especially at Duke, which leverages its allotment of tournament tickets into huge contributions.
The ticket inventories will drop with 11 schools dividing the seats rather than nine (and the four-day, 10-game ACC marathon could lose its competitive edge). The ACC eventually will flock to domed stadiums as a remedy, but that will take years - and construction, if North Carolina wants to remain a site. Tournament cities have been picked through 2011, with only Atlanta's dome involved one year.
Of course, the money will work out somehow. Wealth is a relative concept anyway. The ACC will continue to drive luxury cars, stay in swanky hotels and order fine wine. It's no coincidence that conference officials endorsed this latest grab for wealth and power during meetings at a Ritz-Carlton resort on the Florida coast.
While inflating its self-importance, the ACC deflated the basketball dirigible that transported the conference through most of the first 50 years. Expansionists said that the ACC had to beef up football or risk losing Florida State and perhaps Georgia Tech to the SEC.
That was a scare tactic, full of fearful images but light on substance. A school leaving the ACC would forfeit three-fourths of its annual cut from the league pie. In 2002, when each school received $9.7 million, the withdrawal penalty would have exceeded $7.2 million.
FSU's new president despises constantly bad football news, such as the trial of quarterback Adrian McPherson that ended with a hung jury and a no-contest plea on theft and gambling charges. President T.K. Wetherell has demanded more accountability and stricter discipline within the athletics department. He hardly seemed in the mood to ditch the ACC and stir his own stew of oblong excess. Besides, the SEC doesn't have any openings and might not have the appetite for fielding FSU's falling star. Georgia Tech left the SEC in the 1960s and no longer fits the profile.
Coach K blistered those expansion prodders. 'We're a great conference,' he said. 'If anyone has an attitude they should get out, go somewhere else.'
Expansionists took the opposite approach, narrowing the issues down to markets and TV ratings and money. After internal discord and Virginia politicians foiled the original plan, the ACC landed its main target (Miami) and fourth choice (Virginia Tech, which had sued the league for conspiracy).
The expansionists understand the economic issues. They can smell power, and they chase power like hunting dogs. They don't let tradition stand in the way. They don't let the chemical bond between a sport and loyal fans interfere with the business agenda.
They don't get it. Most presidents and athletics directors - migrant careerists who arrived late to the ACC basketball's historic charms - don't get it.
For those millions of fans who have spent winters entranced by ACC basketball games, the extent of the expansionists' insensitivity will become clearer in 2004-05.
The true costs - a mangled basketball schedule and a watered-down race - will seem higher when reality replaces vague fantasy, when Duke or Carolina doesn't show up on your campus one February, when the ACC network rolls out Virginia Tech-Miami for the region's viewing pleasure.
The new football car looks big and sleek, which the bill will reflect in due course.