Val Ackerman’s Exit Leaves College Hoops Searching for Its Next Champion

Whenever Val Ackerman wanted to show someone what college sports was about—or what it could be at its absolute best—she would take them to the Mecca in March.

It was the ultimate trump card for the Big East commissioner to make a point about the sport she so closely guarded and guided over the course of nearly four decades, all as the “World’s Most Famous Arena” hosted the most meaningful men’s basketball tournament. The energy, passion, conference branding and even corporate hospitality in the pulsating heart of New York City has few parallels before you even sit down for 40 minutes of high-level action on the hard court.

“I’m new to the job. I got a million things going on, I’m just trying to figure out where my office is. Actually, I just can’t do that. And [Ackerman] said, ‘You know, you’re really never going to understand that job you have until you come watch the Big East at Madison Square Garden.’ And there was just something about the way she said it that was so definitive and declarative that I was like, O.K. I’ll figure it out,” NCAA president Charlie Baker says of his early invite. “As a Bostonian, I’d never been there and I got to say that is one of the greatest places to watch a basketball game when you get to watch a couple of teams from the Big East. The fan bases are completely maniacal and everybody’s pretty close to the floor, the game was ridiculous.

“She was right.”

Ackerman, who announced her retirement from the conference this week, has been right about a lot of things involving basketball. She became one of the foremost advocates for it across every level. From the entire women’s side to the men’s professional ranks, to guiding her league back from the brink of extinction to numerous national championships, there have been few areas where she has not left a mark over the course of her 13-year tenure with the Big East and beyond. She has been a sounding board and an advocate, a hard-nosed competitor who has also been happy to dole out advice.

“I’m no kid anymore. I’ve worked what I hope will be seen as a good shift. I really believe the time is right to hand off the baton and set in motion a transition to the next phase of my life and the next phase of the Big East,” Ackerman said Tuesday. “I feel like I’ve been a front-row witness to so many exciting changes that have happened in sports and the game of basketball over the past four decades, and I put the Big East and what we’ve experienced here at the top of the list.”

That’s quite the statement to make for someone hired by current NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to work under notoriously hard-nosed NBA commissioner David Stern in order to help take the game to new heights and new places. Ackerman also worked with the Dream Team in Barcelona, helped launch a Team USA dynasty in Olympic women’s basketball, got the WNBA off the ground and most recently presided over navigating the Big East through the most turbulent time in college athletics history.

As she prepares to step away this summer, Ackerman does so as perhaps the preeminent champion of college basketball, both men’s and women’s, in the country. It leaves big shoes for someone—or a collection of someones—to fill and take up the mantle of pushing a vision for hoops in a football-centric universe.

“In college speak, it’s called shared governance. I would sort of counsel whoever follows, you’ve got to understand your stakeholders. You’ve got to understand the operating environment that you’re operating in, how complex it’s gotten,” Ackerman said. “You just can’t function in the space unless you’re a relationship builder. I’ve been very lucky to have good relations and I work hard at that. If you know you can get that part right, then I can promise the good things will follow.”

Basketball faces real challenges at the collegiate level. Tournament expansion feels fait accompli. With it comes logistical issues as well as figuring out how expanded fields will impact a regular season that continues to be devalued. Eligibility concerns, highlighted by an influx of professional or semi-professional athletes this past year, are also added.

There’s also the larger existential schism in college athletics looming. The early 2030s, when most media contracts expire, are a likely inflection point whether major football programs continue under the current structure or break out from NCAA oversight. Super-league or not, everyone is circling the next four years as setting the stage that future leaders will have to navigate.

The good news is there’s still a game that shows growth potential no matter how many thorny issues it may have to navigate.

“I do think the future for women’s basketball is really good. I mean, we have one of the greatest, if not the greatest, programs of all time in our league in UConn,” Ackerman said. “I do hope that the NCAA can continue its good work in building the women’s tournament and that that can trickle down to the conference as well. Because I do think there are commercial possibilities associated with all women’s sports; 250,000 women are playing every year under the NCAA umbrella. There’s loads of possibility there that I think is untapped. Hopefully, good minds will come together and we’ll realize those possibilities in the years ahead.”

A larger question is who can help the sport realize it.

Start with Ackerman’s coaching tree of former Big East employees who have taken commissioner jobs elsewhere in hoops-centric leagues: Joe D’Antonio (Coastal Athletic Association), Stu Jackson (West Coast Conference) and Dan Leibovitz (Atlantic 10 Conference). Big West counterpart Dan Butterly, Big Sky boss Tom Wistrcill and new Horizon League commissioner Jill Bodensteiner didn’t work for the Big East but have been passionate in speaking up for the game from a mid-major viewpoint. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark remains convinced basketball is one of the most undervalued products from the media rights perspective.

SEC associate commissioner Garth Glissman, VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin and UC Santa Barbara AD Kelly Barsky have all tried to push the game forward. UCLA head coach Cori Close and her recent national championship game opponent Dawn Staley of South Carolina both are among the numerous coaches to passionately and tirelessly speak up about positive changes whenever they get a chance.

None can be a lone point of reference in writing marquee white papers and appearing in numerous media forums like Ackerman did the past few decades, but they can certainly follow the same playbook to support the sport.

“Val is an outstanding leader. She is a tireless advocate on behalf of her conference and she is a very strategic thinker with great vision,” says Jackson, who has known Ackerman since the 1990s but needed one of those Big East tournament trips to be convinced to work for her. “She is also a very compassionate, loving person who I’m fortunate enough to call a friend.”

Ackerman may be one of the few heavy hitters in college athletics to have close to a universally respected reputation, a testament to her career as much as it is her savviness operating in an industry where feelings can be frayed easily both between the lines of play and outside them. She is also a shining example of how those from the professional ranks can have a truly profound impact on the college side of things if they fully invest into what they’re getting into.

“We knew we needed a leader that could parlay our basketball excellence and our brand and our East Coast metropolitan marketplaces into a conference that could succeed and compete with conferences that had much more revenue from football than we have,” said Rev. Brian Shanley, the St. John’s president and current chair of the Big East board of directors. “[Ackerman] has succeeded in shepherding what I think is like a unicorn conference into continued basketball excellence over the 13 years she has been present. I think it’s one of the underwritten stories in college athletics that we’ve been so successful in basketball.”

That it has been written at all is owed in part to the commissioner who has now finally decided to tap out after a long career built upon serving the game.

It won’t be easy to follow what Ackerman has done in leading the hoops-focused Big East and helping advance basketball’s interests across the globe. But if anyone needs a reminder of why they should at least try to, all they have to do is take in a few games at the Garden in March to remind them.

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