CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The gold glitter was gone by the time Jim Phillips took the stage Wednesday morning. The new ACC commissioner made his first state-of-the-conference address in the same room that only 12 hours earlier had been the scene of a gala celebration of his predecessor’s 24 years in the job.
Tuesday night’s big ACC party was the final formal hurrah for John Swofford, who was ushered into retirement in February amid exceptional circumstances instead of finishing out his last year in June as originally planned. It was a fitting venue for a farewell: As the ACC football kickoff grew into a massive multimedia — and now televised — event, Swofford’s presence always loomed over it.
So if the actual peaceful transition of power took place five months ago, this was always going to be the ceremonial one, Phillips’ first turn in the spotlight as the public face of the league. He stood Wednesday in the exact footprints where Swofford stood for so many years to extol, explain, expand … and occasionally filibuster.
Phillips’ 25-minute opening statement was straight out of the Swofford playbook, and too much so; Phillips should and surely will find his own approach to this kind of thing as he grows into the job. He’s too good at connecting person-to-person — the athletes, coaches and staffers he met during his tour of ACC schools this spring were almost unanimously impressed with him — to recite from a script.
But once the questions started coming, Phillips showed the ability to extemporize the thorough grasp of issues facing college athletics that got him the job in the first place, at one point urging a “complete holistic review” of the NCAA’s role and structure in the wake of the stinging Supreme Court loss in the Alston case.
It was the most ominous statement yet from any Power 5 commissioner on the uncertain future of the governing body, which spent millions upon millions fighting incremental change on every front only to find itself made increasingly obsolete by the twin hammers of legislation and litigation and exposed as unable or unwilling to adapt.
Still, it’s important to remember that the NCAA is what the college presidents want it to be, and those same presidents (including N.C. State chancellor Randy Woodson) just renewed the contact of galactically ineffective NCAA president Mark Emmert. People in positions of power like Phillips will have to push from below to affect real change.
“The timing is right,” Phillips said. “No predetermined outcomes. Let’s take a look.”
If there was a sour note, it was Phillips’ emphasis on “personal choice” with regard to athletes being vaccinated. Seven ACC schools already require their students to be vaccinated and N.C. State’s experience at the College World Series should have left no doubt: The “personal choice” of turning down a life-saving vaccine is not compatible with the personal choice of participating in college athletics.
The SEC’s Greg Sankey took a commendably stronger line earlier this week in the face of much stiffer political headwinds, and Phillips pushed harder in response to follow-up questions, but the original equivocation left a mark. The ACC has yet to finalize a policy on COVID-related postponements and forfeits for this fall so there’s a chance for Phillips to take a harder line there where it would really matter.
He was better in other areas, especially when fending off an inquiry about Notre Dame’s relationship with the ACC after what Phillips called its “beautiful and beneficial” COVID year of full football membership. It’s an old question, but if the proposed expansion to the College Football Playoff removes the potential benefits of playing for a conference championship, as Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick has said the 12-team format would, the underlying equation has changed in a very distinct way.
While Notre Dame is still legally pledged to join the ACC if it ever does join a conference, is this half-pregnant business tenable if it’s permanently permanent? It’s awkward: Phillips touted Notre Dame’s fencing title and the interlocking ND logo was projected on a screen behind him as he talked, but the Irish obviously aren’t in Charlotte despite the ACC’s “less than bashful” interest, as Phillips put it.
Phillips worked at Notre Dame. He has a son and daughter who go there. He does know the landscape. But he doesn’t have any answers, either, just an old joke.
“Notre Dame loves two things. One is being Catholic. Second is (football) independence,” Phillips said. “Sometimes those things get in reverse order.”
That’s a joke Phillips, a devout Catholic, can make and Swofford could not, as tangible a representation of the change of command as anything else Wednesday. Five months after he actually took over, the job is now officially his.
