ACC looking ahead
Upcoming meeting of league's leaders will focus on football scheduling for 2004
and 2005
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer
The next important development in Atlantic Coast Conference expansion likely
will take place Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in Charlottesville, Va.
That's when Virginia will host the league's athletics directors, including
Miami's Paul Dee and Virginia Tech's Jim Weaver, plus various conference
officials for two days of concentrated planning meetings.
"A lot probably will get ironed out during those working sessions," N.C. State
athletics director Lee Fowler said. "There's a lot that has to get done, too."
Foremost on the agenda will be football scheduling for the 2004 and 2005
seasons. The task will be complicated -- so much so that league assistant
commissioner Mike Finn will spend most of the next two months plotting schedules
and divisional mock-ups for the ADs to consider .
"One way or the other, the schedules for '04 will have to be locked up by the
middle of December at the latest," Finn said. "But there'll also have to be at
least a loose scheduling format put together for '05 at just about the same
time. Basically, the conference games have to be worked out on a two-year plan
to make sure that all 11 teams will have four road and four home games both
years."
Finn will draw up plans for two contingencies. One would allow for divisional
play leading up to a conference championship game. The other will be for a
non-divisional alternative.
If the ACC is granted permission by the NCAA to hold a league title game,
divisional play will begin in 2004. If the league doesn't get that permission,
there will not be divisional competition.
Current NCAA rules prohibit conference title games in leagues with fewer than 12
members. The ACC would like to get that number reduced to 10 and expects to get
support for that from the SEC, Big 12, Pac-10 and Big Ten.
To start the process, the league must file by Tuesday a request for a
legislative amendment with the NCAA's competition committee. The committee would
forward the request with its recommendations to the NCAA's 49-member Management
Council. The council would vote for or against the change. But regardless of the
council's vote, the request would still be forwarded to the 18-member NCAA board
of directors in April. If a simple majority of the board voted for it, the
change would go into effect Aug 1, 2004, setting the stage for an ACC
championship game in December 2004.
If there are divisions, six teams would compete in one group, five in the other.
How those teams will be separated is the pressing issue that could be sorted out
in Charlottesville.
"The one thing we've emphasized over and over again in the talks we've had is
trying to get the best possible balance," Fowler said. "But any way you do it,
you're guessing to a big extent. There's no way anyone can know sure who'll be
the strongest teams two or three years out."
A priority will be given to preserving traditional rivalry games. Regardless of
how the divisions would be settled, NCSU and North Carolina will play each
season. So will Florida State and Miami, Virginia and Virginia Tech and very
likely, Georgia Tech and Clemson and Maryland and Virginia.
But piecing together the schedules for all 11 teams will require some tricky
maneuvering. That's because several non-conference games are essentially set in
stone.
Clemson's annual game against South Carolina is one example. So are the Georgia
Tech-Georgia and FSU-Florida games. Just because the ACC has expanded, those
nationally significant rivalry games are not going to be moved to early or
mid-season. All will remain regular-season finales.
But it doesn't stop there. In 2005, NCSU and Ohio State are scheduled to play
Sept. 18 in Raleigh. Because of television commitments, there is almost no
chance that date could be changed even if the ACC would prefer to do so in order
to smooth out conference game scheduling.
Deeper into the future, NCSU is also set for two games against Notre Dame and
two games against Tennessee. The Wolfpack is scheduled to play the Irish on
Sept. 5, 2009, in South Bend and on Nov. 13, 2010, in Raleigh.
The Pack is scheduled to travel to Knoxville to play Tennessee on Aug. 30, 2008.
The Vols would come to Raleigh in 2012, but the date for the game hasn't been
set.
Notre Dame also is coming up on North Carolina's schedule: Nov. 4, 2006, at
South Bend and Oct. 18, 2008, in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels already had added
Virginia Tech for 2004. That game now will become a conference game, meaning UNC
suddenly will have an opening for a non-league game.
"The non-conference games are pretty much going to have to go on as scheduled,"
Fowler said. "It's not a huge hurdle in scheduling, but it's something that has
to be taken into account. And you're talking about 11 different teams with 11
different sets of non-league games on the books. A small number of those games
might be flexible, but not many."
The obvious risk is the potential for teams having to face a succession of
powerful opponents in a compressed time frame. NCSU coach Chuck Amato, for
example, wouldn't want a schedule with a game against Miami the week before Ohio
State and a game the week after against, say, Florida State, followed by a trip
to rival UNC.
"Everyone is going to have input," UNC athletics director Dick Baddour said.
"But really, there aren't going to be any easy conference schedules. Difficult
game stretches will be something every team in the conference will face."
But changes are coming. Neither Baddour nor Fowler would rule out the chance
that the State-Carolina game might now fall later than its normal mid-season
date. It could even come at season's end in some years.
"We've told the conference that we'd go along with that kind of move if it's
needed," Baddour said. "Traditionally, we've ended with Duke, and both schools
seem to like that arrangement. But we've told the conference that some sort of
rotation with Duke and State at the end would be fine with us."
Basketball scheduling also will be pondered at Charlottesville, but there will
be fewer pressing demands on that front. Divisional competition almost certainly
won't be held in basketball, but certain rivalries will be protected, including
Carolina's series against Duke and State. The ACC will have until mid-summer
2004 to set the basketball schedules for the 2004-05 season.
Miami baseball coach Jim Morris has an idea of the sense of community that will come from his Hurricanes' new membership in the ACC. He also knows when it will really hit home.
"Right now we only get Florida and Florida State scores over the loudspeakers during our (home) games," said Morris. "I can already vision in my mind them announcing North Carolina and N.C. State are playing and so-and-so won. That will create so much interest here."
Morris knows about the ACC. He grew up in North Carolina, attending high school in Greensboro and at South Mecklenburg before going to Elon. He coached at Georgia Tech for 12 years before going to Miami in 1994.
He also will be one of the key figures in the ACC's new landscape when Miami and Virginia Tech come aboard in 2004-05 -- beyond the well-publicized arrival of the schools' football and men's basketball programs.
In Miami, the ACC -- already one of the country's top baseball leagues -- gets a perennial national-championship contender. Virginia Tech also has an impressive baseball history. Also, the Hurricanes and Hokies both qualified for the NCAA women's basketball tournament last season, as did Virginia Tech's volleyball team.
Miami's baseball success is of dynastic proportions. The Hurricanes have played in every NCAA baseball tournament since 1973, played in 20 College World Series and have won four national championships, the most recent in 2001.
The Hurricanes have done it as a baseball independent, opting not to join the Big East in that sport.
"We're used to playing a lot more home games, and we'll have more road games in the ACC," said Morris. "So that makes it a two-way street for us. It'll be a little tougher because of that."
The Big East's northeastern base is a hindrance for baseball, which is why Miami stayed away. That's not so with men's soccer, where the conference is always strong. Connecticut, St. John's, Boston College and Rutgers are often among the country's top teams.
Still, Virginia Tech -- Miami doesn't field a men's soccer team -- will move up a step to the ACC, where there's a national power at all but one (N.C. State) soccer-playing school.
"We're going to try and do a little bit more with a little less at the beginning," said Hokies coach Oliver Weiss, an assistant at North Carolina when the Tar Heels won the 2001 NCAA championship. "This will help us in recruiting, where people might have shunned us before. A kid from Virginia now knows he can play in his neighborhood, because he's playing in the ACC with us. That will be the case with players from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, too."
Weiss said his travel budget will be more than sliced in half -- from $35,000 to $17,000 -- when Tech enters the ACC. The Hokies' shortest Big East road trip -- to Georgetown -- is 41/2 hours. That's the same amount of time it will take to get to Clemson, their longest ACC trip (Georgia Tech and Florida State also do not have men's soccer programs).
But Weiss believes the lighter travel, mentioned as a positive reason for Tech's inclusion in the league's expansion, is double-edged.
"The travel in the Big East was crucial for preparing for NCAA play," said Weiss. "We have three-day trips, with flights, to places like Boston College and Connecticut. That experience helps you later if you've got to play a (NCAA tournament) road game against Creighton in Nebraska.
"That's an element that's missing from the ACC's geographical setup."
The women's soccer programs at Miami (9-9-1 in 2002) and Virginia Tech (6-11-1) are also entering more challenging territory. North Carolina has won 17 national championships and several other programs -- notably Clemson, Virginia and Florida State -- have made strides in recent seasons.
"The nature of them joining the conference will drive them to be more competitive," said North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance. "A lot of kids want to play in the ACC. It will benefit their recruiting. Sure, they'll get roughed up a bit at first. But then they'll get that first upset, earn a bit of respect and they'll be in the thick of the conference race.
"When Florida State came in (first fielding women's soccer in 1996) they weren't (competitive) either. But now they are."
VERNON, Conn. - A lawyer for the Atlantic Coast Conference has no problem with the Big East ties of the judge overseeing a lawsuit between the two conferences.
Four Big East football schools are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in the lawsuit filed in Connecticut, which contends Miami entered secret talks to join the ACC and sought to destroy the Big East.
Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza, who is hearing the lawsuit, went to law school at the University of Connecticut, the lead plaintiff in the case. He also received his undergraduate education at Providence College, another Big East school.
"We looked into that, and based on everything else we knew about him we didn't think that was going to create a prejudice," attorney Steven J. Errante, who represents the ACC, told the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. "He has such a good reputation for being impartial, both as a prosecutor and a judge, that we think it's a non-issue."
The lawsuit contends Big East members Connecticut, Rutgers, West Virginia and Pittsburgh have spent millions on their football programs based on presumed loyalty from schools it had been aligned with, including Miami.
Big East schools are seeking to recover what they say will be losses in ticket sales and broadcasting fees, and the cash value of diminished recruiting power and scarred relationships with donors.
Connecticut's Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to "avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety," to "uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary," and to be impartial.
Courts consistently have ruled that a judge's old school ties are insufficient to require disqualification from a case involving the school, said Associate Professor Stephen Latham, a specialist in legal ethics at the Quinnipiac University law school in Hamden.
The parties will be back in court July 14 to discuss scheduling of the case.
No charges in Simon sausage incident
Associated Press
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Milwaukee -- Pittsburgh first baseman Randall Simon was questioned by sheriff's officers after hitting one of the Milwaukee Brewers' sausage mascots with his bat during a game.
Simon insists he was simply trying to play along with the mascots, calling himself a "fun player."
Prosecutors decided Thursday not to file criminal charges, though Simon was fined $432 for disorderly conduct. He can contest the citation at a Sept. 3 hearing, Sheriff David Clarke said.
Simon maintains he did not deliberately try to knock down the female mascot.
"That wasn't my intention in my heart for that to happen," he said before Thursday's Brewers-Pirates game. "I was just trying to get a tap at the costume and for her to finish the race."
Simon said he hopes to apologize to the woman before he leaves Milwaukee.
"I thought at the moment they were trying to play with us. They were running right next to the players," he said. "I'm a fun player, and I've never hurt anyone in my life."
Simon was taken to the Milwaukee County Jail after the game, won 2-1 by the Brewers in 12 innings. He was booked, released and ordered to appear in the district attorney's office.
Simon had been handcuffed in what is standard procedure for those taken to jail, Deputy Inspector Sherry Warichak of the sheriff's department said. She said he was "totally cooperative."
Four people in sausage costumes race around the infield warning track between the sixth and seventh innings at Brewers' games to entertain fans.
When the group went past the Pirates' dugout, Simon took a half swing at the Italian sausage character, hitting her from behind and causing her to tumble. When she fell, she knocked over the woman dressed as the hot dog.
"They both were treated at the scene for scraped knees, but at this point I don't think they have any other complaints," Warichak said.
Warichak identified the person in the Italian sausage costume as a 19-year-old woman from South Milwaukee whose first name is Mandy, and the person in the hot dog costume as a 21-year-old woman whose first name is Veronica.
The deputy inspector and Brewers spokesman Jon Greenberg declined to identify them further.
"The Pittsburgh Pirates apologize to the Milwaukee Brewers organization and to the Brewers' fans for this unfortunate incident," the team said.
Rick Schlessinger, Brewers' executive vice president for business operations, called Simon's conduct "one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen inside a ballpark or outside a ballpark. It sickened me to see it."
Greenberg said the racing sausages were scheduled to compete against racing pierogies (dumplings) at a series with the Pirates in Pittsburgh Aug. 15-17 and then again during a series between the teams Aug. 22-24 at Milwaukee.