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Swofford Announces Plan to Retire as ACC Commissioner

DeacDaddy said:
Is that real? With ND not a full member? Or is that an indication they will be?
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Interesting that ND and son of ND are in charge of picking the next ACC Commissioner.

ND is a full member for football this season, if played. They are ACC member for all other sports. Perhaps one more tie to bind ND to the ACC.
 
I mean, on balance it's great that Nolan/Nathan Hatch is 1/2 of the search team, of course

but really strange to give the other half to a university that is not a full participant in the ACC
 
Particularly when the sport in which ND isn’t a conference member generates by far the most athletic revenue.
 
Switzerlands, both -- one from the traditional NC core, the other from the newbie hinterlands.
 
Just picking a guy with a sky high graduation rate, like Hatch did with Wellman. Has Northwestern won anything in 12 years? Expect the ACC to crash and burn like Wake did. The Nathan Hatch legacy.
 
All the Northwestern grad sports media people are lamenting losing him. Supposedly the Big 10 passed him over already.
 
So the premier college basketball conference hires some donk AD from a school that has historically been terrible at the sport.
 
Phillips was the associate AD at Notre Dame from 2000 to 2004, which coincides with Hatch's time at ND.

A little surprised that the ACC would hire a candidate with almost no connection to the conference:

Here is thumbnail of his resume:

1990 -- Graduated from Illinois
1992-96 -- Restricted earnings basketball coach at Arizona State
1997-1999 -- Worked for the AD at AZ State
2000-4 -- Associate AD at ND
2004-8 -- AD at Northern Illinois (the NIU football program had some good years then, which continued for a long period)
2008-2020 - AD at Northwestern: The NW athletic department had substantially raised its profile over Phillips' tenure, pretty much across the board

I can understand the concerns from a superficial perspective; he's not from the ACC area; he's never really worked at an ACC school (ND wasn't affiliated with the ACC when Phillips worked there); he's never run or assisted with the running of an athletic conference. Phillips passes the test as to how to run an athletic department, whether that translates into how to run a conference remains to be seen. Will say that he's an out of the box hire, as there were other candidates that had a more direct role in the ACC. Would think that those that made the hiring decisions, must have been really impressed for Phillips to surpass other more connected candidates.
 
A Phillips hire certainly won't hurt the prospects of the private school force that is in the ACC. Seeing how we have 6.5 small private schools out of the 15 [giving GT half a private school nod], he certainly knows what it is like to be surrounded by huge state universities and be odd man out.
 
He has a connection with Bubba Cunningham. If it's good for Carolina, it's good for the conference?
 
He's out of the box unless you consider that President Hatch and Rev. Jenkins from ND led the selection committee. Then it looks like a crony hire with a little Big Ten envy.

I assume this is going to lead to ND joining the ACC full-time.
 
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