As the ACC turns 60 this year, an eyewitness to the birth recalls its origins. Retired journalist Irwin Smallwood, 87, who devoted his entire career to the Greensboro News & Record, was on duty as a sportswriter when seven Southern Conference members withdrew to form a new league.
The 1953 annual meeting of the old Southern Conference turned out to be anything but routine. It was at the Tudor-style Sedgefield Inn in Greensboro (N.C.), where the league fathers liked to gather largely because of the adjacent golf course. Most of them liked their golf, and this being the scene of the old Greater Greensboro Open, now the Wyndham Championship, made it even more inviting.
The day before, there was more than a hint that something big was up. Several member presidents, including North Carolina’s “Big Four” — Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, N.C. State — had just met in Chapel Hill. The fact that several of them were in town merely added to the speculation. They obviously did not come to play golf. My story the morning of the meeting carried the headline: “Split Of Conference Appears Imminent.”
That night, the scene outside room 230 of the inn was classic Hollywood. Smoke-filled room, anxiety, all the rest. A bunch of us writers were sitting outside the door, trying desperately to hear what was going on inside. In the wee hours, they came out and told us it was a done deal.
The next morning, the resolution of separation was read, and that was that. Politely, but firmly, those representing the withdrawing institutions were invited out of the meeting. What was the first (though unofficial) meeting of the ACC took place in lounge chairs overlooking the swimming pool and ninth green.
The split was not over basketball, even though the sport was a big money-maker then. It was in large part because of the conference ban on bowl games and football ambitions in general. Many of the 17 members, like The Citadel and Furman and VMI, weren’t going anywhere in major college football.
The sprawling nature of the Southern also was a factor. The compactness of the new conference played a big role. Representatives could sit around a table and draw up all the schedules they needed for the whole year. In addition, these were fast-growing, research universities whose goals were not necessarily the same as at some smaller institutions.
The name was selected a short time later and stuck pretty quickly. I think they wanted to be an eastern counterpart to the Pacific Coast Conference.
The ACC was first defined nationally when North Carolina won basketball’s NCAA championship in 1957. ACC basketball grew stronger nationally as racial barriers came down in the mid-’60s — it now has won a dozen NCAA titles — and intense rivalries caused one prominent referee to exclaim: “It isn’t just competition. It is war.”
With recent expansion that reflects what is going on in college sports, it is also big business.
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