ACC Commissioner John Swofford to Speak at Greensboro College Nov. 20
GREENSBORO, N.C. – John Swofford, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, will speak to the Leadership Fitness class of Greensboro College’s School of Business at 12 noon Wednesday, Nov. 20, in the Gail Brower Huggins Performance Center in Odell Building on campus.
The event is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in the lot behind the college’s Admissions Welcome Center at West Market Street and College Place.
Swofford’s association with the ACC began more than 40 years ago. A three-sport MVP at Wilkes Central High School, he was a part of Bill Dooley’s first football recruiting class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he attended on a Morehead Scholarship.
By his sophomore year he had become starting quarterback, a role he held until converting to defensive back in the middle of his junior year. A member of UNC’s 1971 ACC Championship team and a participant in two bowl games, he also made the ACC’s Academic Honor Roll.
After obtaining his master’s degree in athletics administration at Ohio University, he spent three years working for University of Virginia athletics director Gene Corrigan and was named athletics director at UNC in 1980 at the age of 31.
During his 17-year tenure, UNC teams won more national and ACC championships than during the tenure of any other athletics director in ACC history. He hired six coaches who would win national championships – five at UNC, plus football coach Mack Brown, who would later win a national title at Texas before returning to UNC this year.
In 1997 he was named ACC commissioner and is now the longest-serving commissioner in conference history. During his tenure, the league has expanded from nine teams to 15 and played a key role in designing the current college-football playoff system.
He has enhanced ACC bowl affiliations and has negotiated a robust multi-year television contract with ESPN, including the launch of the ESPN/ACC Linear Channel this past Aug. 22. He was instrumental in starting the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. He also started the ACC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and launched the ACC Community Outreach Program.
Swofford has been inducted into the NACDA Hall of Fame; the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame; the N.C. High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame; the Chick-fil-A Bowl Hall of Fame; and the Wilkes County Hall of Fame. In 2011 he received the Corbett Award which is the highest administrative honor given nationally to a collegiate athletic administrator.
He also has received the Homer Rice Award, given by the National Athletics Directors Association, the Ohio University Distinguished Alumnus Award, and, most important to him, in 2011 received one of Greensboro’s Father of the Year Awards.
Leadership Fitness is a management course based on the book of the same name by coach and administrator Homer Rice. For more information about the course and its speakers, please contact Bill MacReynolds, dean of the School of Business, at 336-272-7102, ext. 5289, or bill.macreynolds@greensboro.edu.
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and, spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
Founded in 1838 and located in downtown Greensboro, the college enrolls about 1,000 students from 29 states and territories, the District of Columbia, and seven foreign countries in its undergraduate liberal-arts program and six master’s degree programs. In addition to rigorous academics and a well-supported Honors program, the school features a 17-sport NCAA Division III athletic program and dozens of service and recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.greensboro.edu.
Think critically. Act justly. Live faithfully.
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Media Contact:
Lex Alexander, Director of Communications
lex.alexander@greensboro.edu
Greensboro College
815 W. Market St.
Greensboro, NC 27401
336-272-7102, ext. 5398
Cell: 336-707-6617
www.greensboro.edu
