Scathing Article - ACC \'s School Leaders
This guy really puts the petal to the metal about each one of the ACC's illustrious leaders! A very good read and just the facts folks!
ACC PrePosted on Sun, Jun. 29, 2003
The ACC's presidents defy belief
By DAVID TEEL
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - John Casteen has spent the better part of his adult life at Thomas Jefferson's university. Student, graduate student, dean of admissions and, since 1990, president.
Now, in the spirit of Jefferson, Casteen needs to show himself an accountable public servant.
Marye Anne Fox is an organic chemist. She has published extensively and lectured around the world.
Now, in the spirit of science, Fox needs to share her theories.
Casteen is president of the University of Virginia, Fox is chancellor of North Carolina State, and they belong to a group whose collective ineptness mocks their individual credentials and taints the reputation of a once-proud sports league.
They are called the Atlantic Coast Conference Council of Presidents. They are the CEOs of the league's nine members, and their mismanagement of the ACC's expansion quest defies belief and prompts countless questions.
No one faces more pointed questions than Casteen and Fox. Casteen forced Virginia Tech into the ACC. Fox screwed Boston College out of the ACC. Yet both appear inclined to hide in the ivory tower rather than offer answers.
The ACC's plan, two years in the plotting, was to add Big East schools Miami, Boston College and Syracuse. The 12-team conference would conquer the Eastern seaboard, with an eye toward Europe, Asia and eventual planetary domination.
Conference bylaws required seven "yes" votes, and all within the ACC realized that Duke and North Carolina were opposed. And all realized that Casteen, to appease folks back home, had to lobby publicly for Virginia Tech. Most important, all realized that in the end Casteen would support the original plan.
How else to explain the ACC's decision to enter into formal negotiations with Miami, Boston College and Syracuse? How else to explain ACC officials' fawning visits to the three campuses?
But with the deal this close to done, Gov. Mark Warner and other state political heavyweights blindsided Casteen. In a series of private conversations and public statements, they "suggested" that Casteen reject any expansion plan that excluded Virginia Tech, which faced marginalization in a raided Big East.
Casteen caved.
Needing Casteen's vote, expansion advocates added Virginia Tech to the stew. They considered adding all four schools but concluded that a 13-team league would be too unwieldy.
With 12 the preferred number, one of the three initial targets was toast. The choice was unsettling but obvious: Syracuse had been reluctant from the start.
Expansionists weren't thrilled with the Miami-BC-Tech trifecta, but in their myopic view, it beat the status quo.
Then Fox pulled a Casteen. She reneged on Boston College, and her vote against the Eagles left them one shy of the required seven and the ACC staring at an 11-team alignment.
Think about this for a moment. During countless hours of debate, numbers-crunching and navel-gazing, the ACC never considered a Miami-Virginia Tech combo. Not once. But during a conference call Tuesday night, ACC presidents, in a fit of panic and/or boredom, and without consulting their athletic directors or outside television specialist, agreed to invite the Hurricanes and Hokies.
Syracuse? So long, suckers.
Boston College? See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.
Commissioner John Swofford, dazed and confused, made the mea-culpa phone calls to Syracuse and BC.
Stunning. Sad. Unconscionable. In one conversation the presidents managed to all but erase the conference's 50-year-old reputation for fairness and trust, a reputation forged by commissioners such as Gene Corrigan, and athletic directors such as Tom Butters, Gene Hooks and Homer Rice.
None of the presidents escapes blame. Maryland's C.D. Mote, North Carolina's James Moeser, Duke's Nan Keohane, Wake Forest's Thomas Hearn, Clemson's James Barker, Georgia Tech's Wayne Clough, Florida State's T.K. Wetherell, N.C. State's Fox and Virginia's Casteen.
Ironically, their bungling doomed a flawed premise (12 is the magic number for legislative and football relevance). But that doesn't absolve them of guilt or the obligation to answer questions.
Why did Casteen flip? Subtle lobbying from Warner? An outright job threat? A Hokie epiphany?
And why did Fox turn on Boston College? Was she pressured to vote, on at least one count, in tandem with sister institution North Carolina? Or does she believe the ACC can lure Notre Dame, where she just happens to serve as a trustee?
Answers are not likely.
"I don't think that President Casteen will have the time or inclination to be interviewed for a story on ACC expansion," Virginia spokesperson Carol Wood wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Press' Dave Johnson. "I believe that he would think it was inappropriate to discuss the details of these long and delicate negotiations."
In a prepared statement, Fox said commenting would be "a betrayal of the trust we have established among the council"
Spare us the arrogance and self-importance. ACC expansion is not a matter of national security, and you are not George Tenet and Colin Powell.
ACC expansion is, however, a charade. Virginia Tech, an ACC wannabe since the `50s, does not care and waited approximately seven seconds before accepting.
Miami, the linchpin of ACC expansion from the start, does care and is waiting until Monday to reveal its decision. Good. ACC officials deserve to squirm.
In theory, Miami's decision is simple. The ACC offers athletic, financial and geographic assets the Big East cannot match.
But as Monday's deadline approaches, Miami must look beyond theory. It must look at those running the ACC. Are they competent? Can they be trusted?
As Jefferson himself wrote centuries ago: "Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours its own kind."
