Q&A on ACC Expansion

July 25, 2003

On June 30, the Atlantic Coast Conference voted to admit two new members—Virginia Tech and the University of Miami. For much of this summer, ACC expansion has been a frequently discussed topic among Wake Foresters, and it continues to capture space and airtime in the news media. In response to questions from Window on Wake Forest, President Thomas K. Hearn, Jr. offers his perspective on expansion.

Why has athletic conference expansion suddenly become an urgent need?
The matter was not sudden or, at the moment, urgent. The question of conference expansion has been a perennial item on the agenda of the Atlantic Coast Conference presidents. This continuing interest is a reflection of the fact that conference memberships and alliances have been changing since the late 1980s. Beginning with the Pac-10 (which took in Arizona and Arizona State), we saw the breakup of the Southwest Conference and the expansion of the Big 12; the expansion of the Southeast Conference and the Big 10; and the Big East expanded several times in the 90’s. Florida State, of course, joined the ACC in 1991. There have been other major and minor shifts across the country in the 1990s, totaling 18 conference expansions/consolidations, involving 55 institutions.

Thus, the idea of conference expansion is not new to the Atlantic Coast Conference or to its presidents. It has been a consistent interest and concern. In recent years, expansion has seemed more a question of “who” and “when” rather than “whether.”

The ACC is such a strong conference already. Why was it deemed necessary for the ACC to follow other conferences’ trends?
Although there are no answers with guaranteed outcomes, this general process of consolidation and expansion seems destined to continue. A consistent and firm majority of the ACC membership has regarded it as unwise to take no action and let events unfold around us as they might. Inaction now might lead to a time when expansion would be desirable or necessary but with few prospective conference members available. As we have seen, conferences can and do lose their members to other conferences. No one, for example, would have thought that the great, historic Southwest Conference could disappear. The majority of our members were not willing to place the ACC at some potential future risk when expansion was a present available option.

Is it true, as many in the news media claim, that this change is simply motivated by money, even greed?
It is easy to take the cynical view that the competition for dollars is the real reason for expansion. Our plan was motivated by the desire to ensure that the Atlantic Coast Conference remains one of the premier athletic and academic associations in the country. That status concerns, of course, our collective financial health now and in the future. Our discussions were prompted by the desire to secure the future viability and strength of the ACC. Expansion was a prudent step to secure that future. So, yes, expansion is in part about financial viability, but that viability grows from our overall strength, not greed in a pernicious sense.

Was football the real driver of this process?
Much has been said and written about the demands of football. The needs of all of our sports programs were considered. Even in basketball, there is concern that the larger conferences are receiving a proportionately larger share of invitations to the NCAA tournament. Expansion was considered comprehensively from the perspective of all our programs.

How did the process of ACC expansion evolve?
About two years ago, the ACC decided the time had come to study expansion in detail—from every perspective—and to survey a variety of institutions that might match our academic and athletic membership profiles. The work was undertaken by a Committee on Strategic Planning, with representation from every ACC School. A nationally recognized consulting firm also provided analysis for the Committee’s review. Ron Wellman was on that committee from Wake Forest.

All options, including no change, were evaluated. Profiles of possible members—including academic data, athletic compliance records, graduation rates of both student-athletes and all students, Title IX issues and athletic competitiveness—were reviewed. The Committee examined all criteria relevant to the suitability of potential members for the culture and requirements of our league.

Ultimately, the Committee made a unanimous recommendation to our conference faculty representatives and athletic directors that the Atlantic Coast Conference expand to twelve, and further presented three prospective merger candidates: Boston College, the University of Miami and Syracuse University. The Council of Presidents, after careful and sustained discussion, voted by a majority that exceeded our super majority requirement (seven votes) to proceed with discussions with those candidate institutions. Site visits and presidential conferrals followed as required by our bylaws and approved by our presidential vote.

How thorough was the review? Isn’t student athlete travel time something that got lost in the mix?
Nothing was omitted. Some have expressed concern about travel time and cost as a result of expansion, though this issue was studied. At Wake Forest, and throughout our conference, our teams play national schedules and regularly travel across the country. By playing a larger conference schedule in some sports, Wake Forest will probably require less travel time on our student-athletes and lower travel costs to the Athletic Department. It is considerably easier and less expensive to get to Miami than it is to Los Angeles, or Portland, or Hawaii which were all destinations of our teams in the last couple of years.

Why did the process become so complicated after it became public knowledge?
The ACC presidents and chancellors experienced a serious communication problem with unfortunate consequences. When the final public steps of consultation were approved, the majority of our members, including myself, believed that we had taken a decisive vote that would lead to offers of admission to Boston College, the University of Miami and Syracuse University, absent any negative findings—of which there were none—from the site visits. (Otherwise I would never have voted to go forward.) A smaller group thought they approved merely the completion of the due diligence required by our bylaws and that the critical vote was yet to be taken. At the end of that process of due diligence, we thus lacked the seven votes required to conclude the process, though a strong majority was in favor of issuing formal invitations to the three schools. We entered a period of procedural paralysis, trying to find a way out of the impasse created by our failure to understand one another.

Had we done what we had proposed on the planned schedule, this period of indecision would have been avoided. The benefits and challenges of ACC expansion would have been the focus of the public debate. Our failure to act on time and as planned opened our process to sustained criticism, and called our objectives into question.

What is your opinion of the result of ACC expansion?
For the ACC, this process—with unforeseen complications—yielded a good conclusion. We are delighted by the membership of Virginia Tech and the University of Miami. They are fine schools with great athletic departments and will support our growing academic relationships. Wake Forest and Virginia Tech already have a joint School of Biomedical Engineering and other emerging shared academic programs. The University of Miami, with its reach to the Americas, is one of the nation’s most promising private schools.

However, we must acknowledge the embarrassment our process brought to the ACC institutions, our presidents and chancellors and, more importantly, to Boston College and Syracuse University which were affected by our flawed process. Speaking for myself and for Wake Forest, I deeply regret the misunderstanding that occurred among our presidents.

What role did the ACC commissioner play in this process?
I commend the leadership of Commissioner John Swofford. The commissioner guided our process appropriately, and, also appropriately, left final judgment in the hands of the Council of Presidents. He is a fine administrator and leader of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Criticism of his leadership is misplaced. The errors and indecision were our own.

You have been personally involved in collegiate athletic reform. Doesn’t expansion run counter to the aims of the reform movement?
No, that’s another leap of cynicism. Let me simply point to, as I did earlier, the history of conference alignments and realignments involving institutions everywhere. Conference affiliation is an evolving fact. I suspect our process failure led to much of the negative public reaction. The ACC carefully studied the compliance and academic outcomes of possible members. Our new members will have the same high standards we presently support and require. The purpose of expansion was and is the protection of the integrity of the ACC as a premier conference, and finding ethical fault with this object is, in my opinion, a mistake or a misunderstanding.

We spoke to no institution that did not want to speak with us. There were no “hostile raids” going on.

As the ACC’s smallest member institution, does expansion really serve Wake Forest’s best interests?
From the perspective of Wake Forest, the future security and strength of the ACC is a primary concern. When the common interests of the ACC and all our members are involved, it is our responsibility to consider the interests of the entire conference as well as our own institutional concerns. Ron Wellman, a member of the committee, and Ed Wilson, President of the Conference last year, were firm in their support of the Committee on Strategic Planning and the plan to expand. A strong and vital ACC is essential to all our members, Wake Forest included.

It is difficult for sports fans to view conference matters from a conference point of view and with a long range perspective. The presidents and chancellors were required to make decisions reflecting the interest of the entire conference for the future. The firm majority of conference opinion was and is that expansion in the foreseeable future was inevitable, and that we should expand when desirable institutions were available and eager to join us. To do nothing—to wait and see what evolves within the shifting structure of intercollegiate athletics—might have placed the ACC in future jeopardy, for lack of suitable new members. Our own members might have been tempted by other offers, and no one should discount that possibility had we taken no action in the face of strong majority opinion.

Conclusion

Fifty years hence, there will be, I trust, another celebration like the one just passed [the 50th anniversary of the ACC] that will recall these events as another chapter in our history as one of the nation’s premier academic and athletic associations. This step was taken to secure that future.