Swofford says he's humbled by honor

First in a series on N.C. Sports Hall of Fame inductees with ties to Northwest North Carolina.

John Swofford knew the seasons of the year long before he discovered what was beyond the North Wilkesboro city limits and the Wilkes County line.

The changes for him weren't necessarily autumn to winter, or spring to summer. He knew the seasons best as football, basketball, baseball and track.

"I wanted to play anything and everything at the time," Swofford said. "Whatever the season was, that's what you played."

Swofford, the ACC Commissioner, will take another step in his career Thursday when he is inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in Raleigh as an administrator. He is one of six members of the Class of 2009, joining Dave Odom and Sylvia Hatchell (basketball), Jerry Moore and Willie Burden (football) and Roger Watson (golf).

Swofford, 60, called his selection humbling, given the number of outstanding sports figures the state has produced.

"When you've grown up in this state and you have such an appreciation as I do for the terrific athletes and coaches and administrators that are in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, it's extremely meaningful," Swofford said.

Swofford was selected because of a career that took him from the playing fields of Wilkes Central High School to North Carolina's Kenan Stadium, where he played quarterback and defensive back for the demanding Bill Dooley.

He won a Morehead Scholarship, UNC's highest undergraduate academic honor, and helped Dooley revive a downtrodden program before his career ended after the 1971 season. By then, he and Dooley had taken the program to its first outright ACC championship.

Finding common ground

Swofford then started a career in athletics administration. He has been the ACC Commissioner for 12 years and presided over the conference's boldest move ever -- expansion to 12 schools. Before taking the job in 1997, he spent 17 years as UNC's athletics director.

He is the only conference commissioner to twice serve as the coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series -- a job that recently had him testifying before a House of Representatives subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection about the benefits of the BCS over a playoff system to determine a national champion.

Gene Corrigan, who preceded Swofford as the ACC Commissioner, said that calling Swofford one of college athletics' most powerful and influential figures is not off base.

"He's done a fine job as commissioner," Corrigan said. "He's done everything well. Running a 12-team conference is not an easy job."

Corrigan saw firsthand how Swofford worked to find solutions to problems by getting everyone on common ground when he was UNC's athletics director.

In Corrigan's time as commissioner, not all ACC revenues were shared equally. The ACC was raking in about $18 million a year from men's basketball, mostly because of successful programs at UNC and Duke. Since those teams played in the most television games, they took home most of the money. But Corrigan could sense resentment from the other schools and a potential problem if the ACC didn't find a way to rectify the inequity.

Swofford and Athletics Director Tom Butters of Duke came up with the solution, persuading their schools to share the money equally.

"I couldn't have done it without their help," said Corrigan, who is now living in retirement near Charlottesville, Va. "He made it work; he and Tom Butters."

Sound career advice

Swofford didn't decide to enter sports administration until the late stages of his academic career at UNC. He wanted to be an athletics director, mostly because of a fondness for the college atmosphere, but in the early 1970s, an AD's job was much different from what it is today. A retiring coach was usually named a school's AD, and more often than not, the man was a football coach.

Swofford didn't want to wait 35 years to become an athletics director, and he didn't want to coach. Near the end of his senior year he asked Homer Rice, UNC's athletics director, for advice on landing an administrative job sooner rather than later.

Rice told Swofford of master's-degree programs in sports administration at the University of Massachusetts and Ohio University.

"From a career standpoint, it was like somebody screwing in a light bulb in a dark room," Swofford said. "I told Coach Rice, ‘That sounds perfect for me. It's so up the alley of what I want to do.' I didn't even know there was such a program at that point in time."

Swofford chose Ohio and spent a year there earning a master's. He worked the next three years at Virginia as an assistant to the director of facilities and finance, then returned to UNC in 1976 as an assistant athletics director and business manager.

When Bill Cobey, UNC athletics director, left in 1980 to enter politics, Swofford took over. Corrigan's retirement opened the door for Swofford to take his career up one notch.

Swofford acknowledged that most people regard the expansion that brought Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami into the ACC as his top accomplishment, but said he considers something else his most noteworthy achievement.

He is confident that the spirit of collegiality that has marked the ACC's inner workings since the conference was founded in 1953 has become stronger in the last 12 years.

"I think now it's as good as it's ever been, and I think that's important," he said. "I'm a big believer that as long as you have that, you can deal with whatever problems are going to come up."

Swofford wasn't the only sports-minded member of his family. His three older brothers also had outstanding athletics and academic careers.

The oldest, Carl, played golf at Davidson. The next oldest, Jim, was an offensive tackle at Duke in the late 1950s and participated in the Orange Bowl after the 1957 season.

The next brother, Bill, now deceased, attended UNC on a Morehead Scholarship and ran on the track team. He also recorded one of the biggest selling pop songs of the 1970s, "Good Morning Starshine," using his middle name, Oliver, as his stage name.

Swofford said that their achievements inspired him, especially after their father died when he was 13.

"I was lucky enough to be the fourth one and benefit from the standards set by my three older brothers," Swofford said. "I didn't have much of a choice. I would have really been a black sheep."

■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.

■ Wednesday: Dave Odom, former Wake Forest basketball coach

The Swofford file

• Full name: John D. Swofford

• Age: 60

• Hometown: North Wilkesboro; lives in Greensboro

• Education: Wilkes Central High School; University of North Carolina; Ohio University

• Current position: Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner, since 1997

• Previous position: Director of Athletics at UNC (1980-1997)

• Major accomplishments: Oversaw expansion of ACC to 12 teams and the creation of the ACC Championship game in football…. Helped develop the Bowl Championship Series and serves as BCS coordinator…. Helped created the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in basketball…. Oversaw construction of the Smith Center at UNC.