ACC Commissioner Swofford Announces Retirement Plans

John Swofford, who has been the ACC's commissioner since 1997 and led the conference through a chaotic era of change and growth, has announced that he plans to retire from the position at the end of the 2020-21 athletic year

John Swofford, the longest tenured commissioner in the ACC's 67-year history, announced Thursday that he plans to retire from the position at the end of the 2020-21 athletic year.

The 71-year-old Swofford is just the fourth commissioner in ACC history. he took over in 1997, succeeding Gene Corrigan -- father of current NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan -- and has successfully steered the conference through one of the most eventful and transformative periods ever in college athletics.

"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,” Swofford said in a statement announcing his retirement plans.

“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.”

The ACC has grown from a compact nine-team league to a 15-member mega-conference spread out along the entire length of the Atlantic Coast and west to Kentucky and Indiana during Swofford’s watch.

It was his foresight and preemptive action that not only helped the ACC survive the chaos of conference realignment, but come out of it stronger than ever.

Commissioner John Swofford announced today that the 2020-21 athletic year will be his last.https://t.co/6InMoFZ4rh

— The ACC (@theACC) June 25, 2020

Among his other accomplishments are a grant of media rights that has secured the conference’s stability for the foreseeable future, the establishment of an ACC Football Championship game, a financially lucrative affiliation with the Orange Bowl, basketball’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge, the hiring of the league’s first full-time women’s basketball administrator and a long-term partnership with ESPN that led to the league’s own decided television network last year.

Boo Corrigan, who has known Swofford since his youth because of the connection to his father, praised the outcoming commissioner for his service to the ACC.

"On behalf of NC State, I want to congratulate John Swofford on his retirement and offer my sincere thanks for his strong leadership over the past 23 years," Corrigan said in a statement. "I appreciate how he has guided our league through a time of unprecedented growth with a calm and steady hand. We wish him the best."

A native of North Wilkesboro, Swofford was a Morehead Scholar who was part of coach Bill Dooley’s first football recruiting class at North Carolina. He started at quarterback as a sophomore and finished his career as a defensive back on the Tar Heels’ 1971 ACC championship team.

Swofford became the athletic director at his alma mater at the age of 31 in 1980. Under his leadership, UNC won more ACC and NCAA championships than any previous AD in league history. As commissioner during the past 23 years, the ACC has won 92 national team titles in 19 of the league’s 27 sponsored sports.

According to Thursday’s announcement, “he will remain as commissioner until his successor is installed and will assist with the transition as needed” as the league and college sports in general negotiate their way through the current coronavirus crisis.