Swofford receives apology from Tranghese
Expansion talk won't go away

John Swofford says the ACC wants a 12th team, but that they are taking a break from expansion talks.

By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   GREENSBORO, Ga. - In a meeting with his governing board earlier this month, University of Virginia President John Casteen decried what he termed "mean-spirited" coverage of ACC expansion. A columnist referred to John Swofford as the ACC's "pot-bellied commissioner."

    "I better eat a little more," said Swofford, appearing reasonably fit Tuesday for a man in his mid-50s, "and live up to my reputation."

    Swofford was only too happy to give the media a laugh at his expense after a contentious two-month period in which he was criticized from near and far.

    "It wasn't my idea of fun toward the end," said Swofford after presiding over a football forum to conclude the ACC's three-day football kickoff at Reynolds Plantation.

    Despite repeated efforts to turn the focus toward the upcoming football season, few interviews did not touch on the 2004 addition of Virginia Tech and Miami.

    "What have there been, 55 institutions who changed conferences during the 1990s?" Swofford asked. "The ACC certainly didn't invent expansion."

    Nevertheless, Swofford and the ACC were blistered for their perceived greed and cold-hearted raids on the Big East Conference.

    "I think that has more to do with the reaction at the other end," said Swofford, referring to a mid-April newspaper story in which Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese referred to the ACC leadership as hypocrites.

    "You don't anticipate another conference attacking you verbally in the media. You don't anticipate a lawsuit."

    Swofford revealed for the first time Tuesday that he had received a letter of apology from Tranghese.

    "When [Tranghese went] public, nothing had been decided," Swofford said. "At some point, we would have talked to Mike. It's not like somebody picked up the phone and said, 'What are you all doing? We understand something's going on here.'

    "I called him, as I always told him I would, when we got to seven [votes] with our presidents. We've worked together for a long time on various things and we will again. As far as I'm concerned, it's over."

    That was a reference to the feud between the ACC and Big East. Swofford admitted there is considerable sentiment for adding a 12th team, although he denied that serious talks are taking place.

    "In a sense, we're taking a break," he said. "We haven't had any meeting since our [July 8] press conference, nor have there been any conference calls."

    The ACC football coaches were virtually unanimous in their support of a 12-team conference in which there would be two divisions and a championship game that would be worth between $7 and $10 million, according to Swofford's calculations.

    "Twelve was optimal, if you're thinking purely finances," Swofford said. "It has been written that this was all about money, but, in the end, it wasn't about the optimal money."

    That's only because a Miami-Syracuse-Boston College package never came to a final vote despite the support of the athletic directors. A proposal to add Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College fell one vote short of the required seven when the presidents voted by conference call July 1.

    Swofford disagreed with the assertion that he might have misjudged the intentions of either the ADs or presidents.

    "At each stop along the way, there was a belief by at least seven of our members that it was best for our league to expand," he said. "Did I underestimate it? Not necessarily. I was involved in the Florida State expansion [in 1991]. It wasn't as long and drawn out as this, but internally it was not an easy road."

    Swofford, the athletic director at North Carolina from 1980-1997, referred to concerns over the addition of Georgia Tech and its downtrodden men's basketball program as a decision that was second-guessed but proved successful.

    "I think there's been a general belief that the Big East basketball and football schools were going to split up, whether we did anything or not. We could be a nine-team conference squeezed in between numerous 12-team conferences.

    "It's kind of like when the world is the way you want it and you'd like it to stay that way, but you know it can't. I think that's where our schools came down on this. Most of the people in our conference felt that [staying at nine] was a greater risk than going to 10, 11 or 12."

    There has been speculation that Florida State and Georgia Tech might have looked to other conferences if the ACC had not been expanded, but Swofford confirmed that no ACC teams had ever made that threat.

    "I don't think that was a probability," Swofford said. "Some people would stare and say, 'Aw, that never would have happened.' But, in today's world, I don't think you could ever say that.

    "I don't think anybody's uncomfortable now with nine [teams] and with who we are and what we are, but when you look five years down the road or 10 years down the road, that's not a place you want to be."

Weaver to ask for stadium expansion to begin
ACC move to cost Tech, but not that much

The Hokies have fees to pay, but ACC revenue sharing will have a positive affect, says Jim Weaver.

By MARK BERMAN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   BLACKSBURG - Virginia Tech has some big bills to pay because of its planned conference switch, and it will have to wait a few years to get a full slice of the ACC revenue pie.

    However, with Tech now headed to the ACC, athletic director Jim Weaver is eager to proceed with the next round of Lane Stadium expansion. He will ask the Board of Visitors next month to begin construction so a new press-box tower on the west side of the stadium will be ready for the 2005 season.

    "Because we're in the ACC now, we're trying to take advantage of the momentum that's in place and get it ready for 2005," Weaver said. "I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get the green light to begin construction after this season."

    Tech has to pay a $1 million exit fee to the Big East and a $2 million entrance fee to the ACC, but the school won't be asking boosters to help pick up the tab. Tech wants donations to go to the stadium expansion.

    "We need our donors to help us with fund-rasing for the west side, get that project done because that's so important," Weaver said.

    The next round of stadium expansion will cost $48-$53 million. Tech officials aren't yet sure how much of that cost the Hokie Club will be asked to raise, but athletic development director Lu Merritt figures the goal will be $12-$15 million.

    Tech accepted the ACC's membership invitation last month and will switch leagues next summer. Tech must give the Big East a $1 million check by June 1, or the Big East will simply take that sum out of Tech's Big East revenue-sharing portion. Tech has yet to choose one of those payment options.

    If Tech writes the check, the money will come from the $5.5 million in cash reserves. The cash reserves are from surplus athletic revenue in recent years, such as bowl money.

    Tech also will use cash reserves to pay the $2 million entrance fee to the ACC. The first $1 million of that must be paid to the ACC by May 1, 2005. The annual athletic department budget won't be affected.

    The money Tech has been paying the Big East for joining as an all-sports member does come out of the athletic budget. Those payments will continue even after Tech changes leagues.

    When Tech joined the Big East for all sports in the 2000-01 school year, it was required to pay $200,000 per year for its first five years in the league. Tech will again pay $200,000 in the upcoming school year, its fourth and final year of Big East basketball. Tech will also pay $200,000 in 2004-05, even though that will be Tech's first year in the ACC.

    "That's for sure part of our obligation," Weaver said. "That was part of the original agreement; we pay a million dollars."

    Tech wasn't going to take part in Big East basketball revenue-sharing until 2005-06, which would have been its sixth year of Big East basketball. The ACC isn't going to make Tech wait that many years to share in its revenue.

    Weaver said Tech and fellow ACC newcomer Miami will receive $6.25 million apiece in ACC revenue-sharing (including football and basketball money) in each of their first two years in the league. Tech and Miami will be full partners in revenue-sharing in 2006-07.

    The ACC gave each of its nine members a gross payout of about $9.7 million in 2001-02. Virginia's net take was $7.8 million once conference fees and bowl expenses were met. How big the ACC pot will be after expansion is unknown.

    Weaver isn't forlorn about not getting a full share until 2006-07. The $6.25 million is more than the $4.6 million in Big East football money Tech reaped in 2001-02; Tech's annual Big East share depends on how good a bowl it goes to. Weaver figures the $6.25 million in 2005-06 is about the same as Tech would have gotten that year from Big East football and basketball revenue-sharing.

    Weaver put Lane Stadium expansion on hold temporarily in May, after Tech was snubbed in the ACC expansion process. Two weeks later, Tech officials decided to spend $1.9 million on additional design work but did not commit to construction. That was before the ACC asked Tech to come aboard.

    Among the features in the west-side addition will be a new press box; about 2,000 chair-back seats in a glass-enclosed section; 23 luxury suites; stadium clubs; a two-story memorabilia display for Tech teams; academic-support offices; ticket offices; and Hokie Club offices. Some existing seats would be eliminated, resulting in a net gain of about 1,000 seats.

    Construction would likely begin in December, January or February. The press box and the other floors in the top part of the tower will be imploded after the 2004 season. The new press box will be built on top of the current concrete support beams.

    When the Board of Visitors approved the expansion last year, the plan was for the Hokie Club to raise $20 million toward the cost. Merritt said the likely revised goal of $12 to $15 million will be easier for the Hokie Club to handle in light of the economy, the $15 million it already raised for the south end-zone expansion, and the university-wide fund-raising campaign that will also be vying for donors' money.

    "The concern I have is getting the economy back on track. It's tough to raise $15 or $20 million with the uncertainty in the economy," Merritt said. "If we weren't in a university campaign and we hadn't just raised $15 million for the south end zone, we feel like we could raise [more], but we have to kind of scale that back a little bit because you can't really go ask somebody to help you on the west side if they just made a major gift to the south end zone."

ACC weighs option plays on title game
Waiting a year possible course
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 23, 2003

GREENSBORO, Ga. - In late April, the NCAA's Board of Directors will rule on an ACC proposal that would permit conferences with as few as 10 members to stage title games in football. requirement is 12 schools, lower the minimum, the ACC could hold a championship game as early as December 2004.

It also could wait a year to better plan and promote its inaugural title game, which would match the winners of two divisions. Commissioner John Swofford said yesterday that the ACC, which will have 11 members after adding Virginia Tech and Miami next summer, hasn't decided which path it will follow if the NCAA approves its proposal.

"That's a question we'll have to talk about internally," Swofford told reporters on the final day of ACC Football Kickoff at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge.

"I think it's important when you go down that road to do it the well from the beginning."

Whatever the case, the ACC ACC "could not wait till April and put a game together [for December 2004]," Swofford said. "We'd have to go to work soon and put it together on a tentative basis."

The timetable for a title game will be among the agenda items when the ACC's athletic directors meet Sept. 10 in Greensboro, N.C., and again in early October in Charlottesville, Va. Officials from Miami and Virginia Tech are expected to participate in the October meeting.

ACC officials, Swofford said, are creating "a master 'to-do list,' if you will," of issues that must be addressed as soon as possible.

Swofford said four cities have expressed interest in playing host to an ACC title game: Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Orlando, Fla.; and Jacksonville, Fla. Whether the ACC would play its championship game in the same city every year - as the SEC does in Atlanta - or rotate sites hasn't been decided.

When the nine-member ACC began pursuing expansion, it planned to add three schools, in part so it could hold a title game in football, an event that league officials expect to bring in at least $7 million each year. A number of ACC schools remain interested in expanding to 12, Swofford said, but there's no guarantee the league will do so.

"Do we have to? No," Swofford said. "We feel very good about where we are, and that could be the end point."

And if the NCAA rejects the ACC's proposal?

"I don't think it forces us to go to 12," the commissioner said. "I think we can operate very effectively at 11. I think this can work satisfactorily from a financial standpoint, particularly over the longer haul, which is what this is about."

Swofford added: "Our presidents are not going to go to 12 just to go to 12. I think that's pretty obvious right now."

The ACC could have gone to 12 when its presidents voted last month, but N.C. State's Marye Anne Fox joined the leaders of Duke and North Carolina in voting against Boston College. At least seven affirmative votes were needed for an invitation to be issued.

Asked about basketball, Swofford said the format the conference adopts "may not be as dramatically different" as many believe. The ACC could choose, he said, to continue its practice of having every team play a home-and-home series annually with each of its counterparts in the league.

"I think anything is possible at this point," Swofford said. "I don't think you should rule anything out as we jump into these issues."

He hasn't ruled out the possibility the ACC might play a championship game in football next year. But Swofford said he doesn't know how the NCAA's Board of Directors will rule on the ACC's proposal.

"I think that's a coin flip at this point in time," he said. "We'll just have to wait and see."

 

Big East media day shouldn't be routine
Exit of Tech, Miami hot topic
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 23, 2003

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - The Big East Conference's football media day is today. It promises to be a media day unlike any other.

For the final time, the current eight football members will gather at Giants Stadium for a morning session with the press. The scene will be much different from years past.

"I would bet so," Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer said.

Media days are usually predictable and bland.

Each coach is there; each school brings several players. Everyone is 0-0, and everyone is optimistic. We're looking forward to a good year and all that.

This year, more questions figure to be about 2004 than 2003.

As most everyone knows, Miami and Virginia Tech are leaving the Big East after the upcoming school year to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. That deal was reached after a couple of uncomfortable months. For the longest time, it looked as if Miami, Boston College and Syracuse would be leaving. Instead, BC and Syracuse were jilted and Tech was ACC bound.

And now they get to rub elbows and make nice.

The Big East office said it expects a larger turnout than usual for today's event.

It has set aside a special session with Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who normally addresses the group briefly at the beginning of the event.

Beamer knows he'll get a lot of questions about next year.

"Well, I'm going to talk mostly about this year," he said. "I think that's what is important, and it kind of follows my philosophy that if you're thinking ahead, you're thinking wrong. You're forgetting what is right in front of you.

"We still have a league that's very good. Our thoughts need to be on what is coming up right here.

"When you look at it top to bottom, this could be the Big East's best year ever."

That's a valid point, that a possibly excellent year could be virtually ignored today. Miami, Pittsburgh and Tech have shown up in various preseason top 10s.

Beamer, though he wants to talk about this year, admits he is curious about the future, too. He's said a million times that the Big East has been vital to Tech's development as a football power. He truly enjoys the competition and camaraderie of the league and, while excited about the change, will miss that.

"I think where the Big East goes is a big question," he said. "I hope it goes well. I have great friends, and there are great coaches in that league.

"I read where they'll keep their [Bowl Championship Series] bid through 2005 and that's a good start."

 

O'Connor has high hopes for U.Va.
New coach aims for 'great things'
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 23, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE It seems foolish to mention the University of Virginia and the College World Series in the same sentence. U.Va. has made but three appearances in the NCAA baseball tournament and only one since 1985.

But the program's new leader, 32-year-old Brian O'Connor, has lofty goals, and with good reason, according to his friend Bobby Moranda, Georgia Tech's associate head coach.

"I think it's a great job," said Moranda, a U.Va. assistant from 1989-95. "I think if you look at the so-called 'sleeping giants' across the United States, Virginia is one of the few left. Rice used to be a sleeping giant, and look at what they've done."

Rice won last month's CWS at Omaha, Neb. Don't expect to see U.Va. in Omaha any time soon, but O'Connor has been there twice - first as a Creighton pitcher in 1991 and then as a Notre Dame assistant in 2002 - and has fixed his sights high.

"I think if you work hard and you can evaluate talent and communicate the right way with the kids on your team and the university gives you support - which they're doing here - you can accomplish great things," said O'Connor, Baseball America's choice as the nation's top college assistant in 2001.

After nine seasons at Notre Dame, the last two as associate head coach, O'Connor left South Bend, Ind., this month. The native of Council Bluffs, Iowa, replaced Dennis Womack, who retired after amassing a 594-605-7 record in 23 seasons at Virginia. Coincidentally, the only U.Va. baseball team to win the ACC title ousted Notre Dame from the NCAA tournament May 25, 1996, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

In 2003, Virginia finished 29-25 - its first winning season in five years. A strong nucleus from that club returns, and O'Connor said he told his players last week, "I'm not going to look at this as a rebuilding thing. I said, 'Let's win now.'"

With O'Connor on its coaching staff, Notre Dame went 399-160-1, won six Big East titles and advanced to the NCAA tournament six times. He became known for his recruiting prowess and his work with pitchers.

In eight of Womack's final 12 seasons, the Cavaliers finished below .500. There were extenuating circumstances. Until 2002, U.Va.'s baseball facilities were decidedly inferior to those of most of its ACC counterparts, and financial support for Womack's program lagged.

"I love the university, but they just didn't put anything into the program then," Moranda said. "When I was at Virginia, really no one cared. It was really soccer, basketball, lacrosse and football, and then the rest of the sports, and baseball was way down the totem pole."

In April 2001, in fact, a U.Va. task force recommended that several sports, including baseball, lose their athletic scholarships and receive only need-based financial aid. But university officials rejected the task force's report and strengthened their commitment to the entire athletic department.

Today, U.Va. baseball enjoys unprecedented support. In February 2002, Virginia unveiled a renovated baseball stadium, and starting this year, the sport will be fully funded for the first time.

"I really think it can be something special, and I know it's going to be," O'Connor said. "Failure is not an option here."

 

ACC patient with plans for title game
By NEIL AMATO : The Herald-Sun
namato@heraldsun.com
Jul 22, 2003 : 11:34 pm ET

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- The ACC isn't certain it will play a football championship in 2004, even if the NCAA approves such a game.

Earlier this month, the conference submitted a proposal requesting that the NCAA lower the minimum number of schools needed for a title game. The number stands at 12, and the 2004 ACC will have 11 schools with the addition of Miami and Virginia Tech.

Football schedules generally have been released in December or January for the next season. However the NCAA's Executive Council won't rule on the proposal until April, meaning the ACC will have to make contingency plans on the game and its regular-season schedule. One model will have to work for a divisional breakdown if there is a title game and an 11-team, no-division setup if there is not.

Also, Commissioner John Swofford said that the league wants to cover every detail before it has an inaugural game similar to those in the SEC and Big 12.

"We could not wait until April and put together a game," Swofford said Tuesday at Reynolds Plantation. "I think it's important when you go down that road that you do it well from the beginning."

The ACC needs to make inroads on other issues, many of which will be addressed at meetings in September and October among athletics directors, faculty representative, presidents and chancellors.

Swofford was asked Tuesday about scheduling in basketball, a sport many fear would be hurt by adding schools. Traditional powers Duke and North Carolina opposed expansion, partly because it meant losing the double round-robin schedule that helped build the ACC's intense basketball following.

With nine schools, each team played 16 conference games, twice against every other team. With 11 schools, continuing the home-and-home series seems unlikely. But Swofford didn't rule out some way to keep the schedule as it had been, though that could mean 20 conference games.

"Some of the impact people think will happen to the basketball schedule may or may not happen," Swofford said. "I think anything is a possibility at this point. That's something we're going to continue to discuss. I don't think we should rule out anything."

Swofford would not rule out the ACC going to 12 teams -- which was the original plan. But political pressure in Virginia and hesitance from Duke and UNC meant that two of the league's original targets, Boston College and Syracuse, went through the formal process of hosting an ACC contingent but never received an invitation to join the league.

Virginia Tech was a late addition to the process, which included five long and often contentious conference calls among the members of the ACC's President's Council. Swofford, who was athletics director at UNC when the ACC added Florida State in 1991, said that process was similar to the one of the past few months, except that it was far less public.

"Whether it's public or whether it's not, it's seldom easy," Swofford said.

This expansion became public April 17, when Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese blasted the ACC, saying the league operated "in the dark" and calling its members "hypocrites."

The ACC voted a month later to enter into formal talks with Miami, BC and Syracuse. Virginia Tech didn't get the necessary votes, but a lawsuit filed by other Big East schools against the ACC, BC and Miami put the process in the media glare. Swofford said Tuesday that some of the criticism -- the league was portrayed as money-grubbing -- was unwarranted.

"The ACC didn't invent expansion," he said. "I think [the negative publicity was] more about the reaction on the other end than anything else. You don't anticipate attacks in the media; you don't anticipate lawsuits."

Swofford said he would rather have gotten a phone call from Tranghese in April, but none came. Well, not until after the process ended June 30. He said Tranghese apologized for his public comments about the league.

"When you go through something like this, and people have differences in opinion, it's disappointing," Swofford said. "We've worked together a long time on some various things, and we will again.

"That is, as far as I'm concerned, over with. I have a lot of respect for Mike, and you move on."

Moving on will include looking for a 12th school. Notre Dame is tops on the list, but Swofford said the Irish weren't interested when approached in the spring.

"Any conference would have some interest in Notre Dame if they were interested," he said. "I don't know if they are."

Swofford also said it was not guaranteed that the league would add a 12th member. The Big Ten has had 11 schools since adding Penn State more than a decade ago.

"I think we can operate very effectively as 11," he said. "I think this can work satisfactorily from a financial standpoint. I don't think we have to go to 12. There is continued interest in that, but not having a [football] championship game I don't think forces us to go there."

However, several coaches said they hoped the league would add a 12th member soon.

"It would certainly be a lot smoother," Wake Forest's Jim Grobe said. "I was in the Mid-American Conference and we had 13 teams, six in one division and seven in the other. It would be a lot better if we had it balanced. I know John Swofford and [other ACC officials] will do their best to even the divisions."

All the coaches said they were in favor of expansion, and one said he already had realized a recruiting benefit just from all the discussion. More players in the Northeast are paying attention to the ACC, even though the league hasn't yet added any northern members.

"I didn't really anticipate that, but that has happened," Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said. "It's been a positive thing for us, especially in Northeast."

NOTES--Swofford said that a football-title game could bring in between $7-$10 million. n Officials from four cities have contacted the ACC about staging such a game: Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville and Orlando. n ACC associate commissioner Mike Finn said the league's tie-in with the Humanitarian Bowl runs for two seasons. That bowl, in Boise, Idaho, is the sixth affiliated with the ACC. At least for the first season with 11 teams, the league is unlikely to add any tie-ins. Most bowl contracts expire after the 2004 season.