ACC Commissioner John Swofford hands NC State guard Aislinn Konig the 2020 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament Most Valuable Player after they defeated Florida State 71-66 in the championship at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, Mar. 8, 2020. Photo © Landon Bost
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ACC Commissioner John Swofford to Retire After 2020-21 Season

Landon Bost

GREENSBORO, N.C.  – Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Commissioner John Swofford announced today that the 2020-21 athletic year is his last season as commissioner.

Swofford’s 24-year tenure is the longest of any ACC commissioner in the league’s 67-year existence. According to a press release by the ACC, Swofford will continue in the Commissioner’s chair until his successor is installed and will assist with the transition as needed.

“It has been a privilege to be a part of the ACC for over five decades and my respect and appreciation for those associated with the league throughout its history is immeasurable,” said Swofford, a native of North Wilkesboro, N.C.

“Having been an ACC student-athlete, athletics director and commissioner has been an absolute honor. There are immediate challenges that face not only college athletics, but our entire country, and I will continue to do my very best to help guide the conference in these unprecedented times through the remainder of my tenure. [His wife] Nora and I have been planning for this to be my last year for some time and I look forward to enjoying the remarkable friendships and memories I’ve been blessed with long after I leave this chair.”

ACC Comissioner John Swofford hands NC State guard Aislinn Konig the 2020 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament Most Valuable Player after they defeated Florida State 71-66 in the championship at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, Mar. 8, 2020. Photo © Landon Bost
ACC Commissioner John Swofford hands NC State guard Aislinn Konig the 2020 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament Most Valuable Player after they defeated Florida State 71-66 in the championship at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, Mar. 8, 2020. Photo © Landon Bost

As the fourth commissioner of the league, Swofford is credited with the ACC’s expansion from nine to 15 members, the creation of the ACC Championship (football), the partnership with the Orange Bowl, the ACC/Big Ten Challenge (basketball) and the establishment of the ACC Network with ESPN in August 2019.  

“Commissioner Swofford has guided the ACC through many challenges including expansion and the launch of ACC Network,” stated N.C. State University Chancellor Randy Woodson in the press release.

“Thus positioning the conference for continued success well into the future. Our entire league owes so much of its success to his steady hand and thoughtful leadership.”

Swofford attended UNC-Chapel Hill, class of 1971,  as a Morehead-Cain Scholar and was a four-year letterman on the varsity football team.

He became the athletics director at North Carolina at the age of 31 in 1980 and held the position for 17 years until he became the ACC commissioner in 1997.

North Carolina had not won a national championship in any sport since 1957 before he took the position. But North Carolina won at least one national title every year of his tenure, and Swofford is the all-time, most winningest athletic director in ACC history. He also hired the first Black head coach in the ACC in 1981.

Swofford won the Corbett Award, the highest administrative honor given nationally to a collegiate athletics administrator, in 2011.

He is a member of five Halls of Fame — the NACDA Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, the Chick-fil-A Bowl Hall of Fame, and the Wilkes County Hall of Fame.

(Feature image courtesy of Landon Bost)