Giglio: Retirement announcement by John Swofford a smart move after a great career
Posted June 25, 2020 2:06 p.m. EDT
Updated June 26, 2020 8:16 a.m. EDT
If the past three months are any indication, ACC commissioner John Swofford won’t have time to take a victory lap before he retires.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and pending significant changes in the amateur model, there’s too much going on for Swofford to kick back and relax. That’s too bad. He has earned a break.
Swofford, who announced his intention to retire after the 2020-2021 athletic year on Thursday, has had an incredible run as the ACC’s commissioner since 1997 and before that for 17 years as North Carolina’s athletic director.
He oversaw two waves of expansion during his tenure with the ACC. The league went from nine to 15 members between 2004 and 2014. He kept the league relevant during a transition in major college sports that left others by the wayside (or worse).
It could have gone sideways when Maryland decided to bolt for the Big Ten but Swofford was able to come up with a tenable solution with the addition of Louisville and a football agreement with noted conference recalcitrant Notre Dame.
Last year, Swofford, 71, was instrumental in the creation and launch of the league’s own cable network. Recently, Swofford has emerged as a leading mental health advocate in major college sports.
And that’s just his resume with the conference. During his tenure at UNC, where he was a Morehead Scholar and football player, the Tar Heels won 17 NCAA titles.
The league will be hard-pressed to find a replacement who could be as folksy as Swofford, when necessary, and as cut-throat, when necessary.
Swofford is rightly being regaled by current and former ACC coaches across all sports after his announcement. From the wreckage left behind of the old Big East, they’re singing a slightly different tune, which is understandable.
Leadership has a cost, and there’s no time in the multi-billion dollar industry of college sports for hurt feelings. Swofford faced a choice in the early 2000s: follow the lead of the SEC and Big Ten or perish.
History shows he chose correctly, even if the “New ACC” doesn’t have the same quaint or welcoming feel as the “Old ACC.”
And now the league faces another choice. COVID-19 wiped out the postseason for college basketball and the majority of the spring season for all sports. It’s threatening to, at the very least, alter the college football season.
Add on top of that the pending seismic shift in the amateur model with the advent of Name, Image, Likeness legislation and you have a new fork in the road.
Swofford is choosing correctly again. The launch of the ACC Network was Swofford’s last White Whale. He caught it.
The league’s financial haul from its media deal pales in comparison to the Big Ten (consider Iowa has enough money from the Big Ten Network to pay its strength coach $1.1 million not to be the strength coach) and the SEC but it still has a steady seat at the table. The Big 12 and Pac-12 can't quite say the same thing.
But Swofford was only 31 when he got the AD gig at UNC. That's a long race. Swofford has run his. It's time to let someone else have a turn.
These new crises, with fights looming on multiple fronts, require new energy and new blood. At his last public press conference at the ACC tournament in Greensboro in March, Swofford looked tired and confused.
His decision on the morning of March 12 to continue with the tournament without fans – only for it to be overturned hours later at the behest of Duke’s cogent leadership – was a low point for him.
It was incongruent with his track record as a forward-thinking leader. His decision to know when it’s time to turn it over to the next generation is not.
Where the ACC turns for Swofford's replacement will determine if it can build off of Swofford's successes. There are two ready-made candidates in a pair of former Swofford lieutenants – Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade and South Florida AD Mike Kelly.
Or the league could decide to tap Syracuse AD John Wildhack for his ESPN connections. Either way, the next commissioner will be lucky, and so will the league, if their tenure is half as successful as Swofford’s.
