MIAMI —
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — So much for a lazy summer at Atlantic Coast Conference headquarters.
Realignment rumors. An NCAA investigation into agent involvement with players at one of its marquee institutions.
No wonder the ACC is ready for the offseason to end and the football games to begin.
“I guess this is our year to experience those problems and all that,” Wake Forest running back Josh Adams said Sunday during the league’s preseason media day.
There surely hasn’t been any shortage of news around the ACC over the past few months. And not all of it was bad: the league recently announced a new broadcast package for football and men’s basketball that will be worth $1.86 billion from ESPN over 12 years, doubling the conference’s TV revenue.
But most of the attention lately has focused on the NCAA investigation at North Carolina into whether two players received improper benefits from agents. With similar probes popping up at several Southeastern Conference schools, the issue of athletes’ involvement with agents quickly turned into the hot-button topic du jour in college sports.
“It is kind of a distraction, but we kind of look at it as we’ve already taken our adversity for the season,” Tar Heels quarterback T.J. Yates said. “So once we get over this little speed bump, we’ll be able to put it behind us and go forward through the season.”
ACC commissioner John Swofford — the former athletic director at North Carolina — dedicated nearly one-quarter of his hour-long question-and-answer session to the issue, voicing his support for the North Carolina Secretary of State’s investigation about potential misconduct involving agents and saying “we probably need to look at strengthening the law in this area.”
The state requires sports agents to register in North Carolina and prohibits them from offering gifts before a contract is signed, with violators possibly facing criminal or civil penalties.
“I suspect (the problem) has (worsened) some because of the dollars at the next level, in the NFL and the NBA,” Swofford said. “I think it’s also being paid more attention at this given point in time. While uncomfortable, I think that’s good. Having been an AD for 17 years ... the problem’s been there, and believe me, as an AD, you feel, or as a coach, you feel vulnerable ... because it’s not an easy situation to control from an institutional standpoint.
“You have to educate, educate, educate the athletes that are on campus,” he added. “And I think our schools do that.”
A month earlier, all the talk in college circles centered around the possibility of another round of conference realignment, with concerns that uncertainty in the Big 12 and expansion by the Pac-10 and Big Ten would set off a chain reaction that would reshape the Football Bowl Subdivision.
There were lingering questions about whether another conference would make a play for one or more ACC schools before the league ultimately stood pat.
“There were a lot of conferences that certainly were more active in terms of what was done or potentially being done than we were,” Swofford said. “But rest assured, we were quietly evaluating that landscape and our internal discussions to determine what’s in our best interests moving forward, and what ramifications on the (ACC), if any, might come from expansion by other conferences.
“Without question, at the presidential level of this league, there continues to be a strong commitment to each other, a strong commitment to the ACC, the belief that 12 is the right number for us, but a willingness, if the world changes around us, to take a look at what those changes mean. ... We’re very comfortable with, not only 12, but the 12 that we have.”
The league’s powers-that-be spent the first of its two-day preseason media gathering to look ahead to not only the season’s beginning — but also its end. After five years in Florida, the ACC championship game moves closer to the center of the conference’s footprint when it comes to Charlotte — roughly a 90-minute drive from league headquarters — on the first weekend in December.
“The road to Charlotte is going to be something that’s very special,” said Michael Kelly, the league’s associate commissioner for football.
The start of preseason practice means something to everyone who will snap on a helmet. But it means even more to a pair of linebackers who were kept out of the 2009 season for serious health-related reasons: Boston College’s Mark Herzlich, who stepped away to fight a rare form of cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma, and North Carolina State’s Nate Irving, who suffered a collapsed lung and a broken left leg in a grisly auto accident.
“As of right now, I feel like I’m back in full effect,” Irving said.
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ACC ready for football season
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Comeback falls short
A five-run seventh inning wasn’t enough to carry the Valdosta State Blazers past reigning national champion UC-San Diego on Day One of the NCAA Softball Championship Tournament in Louisville.
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Four Blazers garner All-America honors
Just before the Valdosta State softball team loaded onto the team bus to head to Bellarmine University for its Day 1 matchup with the University of California-San Diego, three Blazers were informed they were All-Americans.
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Title quest begins today
The only thing standing in the way of Valdosta State’s quest for claiming a first-ever softball national championship is four games.
The Blazers (52-4) will play the first of those games today at 12:30 p.m. in Louisville, the site of this year’s National Championship Tournament and the site of the Division II Spring Sports Festival. -
Vikings wrap up spring football practice
The Lowndes football team wrapped up spring practice with its annual spring game on Tuesday at Martin Stadium.
It was an informal game. No score was kept, and the clock was turned off. The offensive and defensive units rotated on each series — with the varsity and junior varsity squads each getting plenty of snaps — and nearly every player participating in spring practice got to play. Lowndes used six different quarterbacks (two with the varsity offense), and 18 different players got to carry the ball. Ten players caught at least one pass. -
Lowndes’ LaRenick Rollins heading to Brewton-Parker
On Monday, Lowndes High’s LaRenick Rollins signed a letter of intent to wrestle for Brewton-Parker College next year.
Rollins looks forward to the opportunity to wrestle in college.
“Very excited,” he said. “(Signing) was just one step closer to going to college. I’m so happy.” -
Lowndes Middle coach suffers burns in accident
Ed Mitchell, a coach at Lowndes Middle School, suffered second- and third-degree burns in a cooking accident at his house on Saturday.
Mitchell was airlifted to a burn center in Augusta on Saturday night, and had surgery on Sunday morning. -
Column: ‘All eyes forward’ while learning from the past
Following his team’s 2-0 win over Florida Southern on Saturday, which clinched the South Super Regional Championship, Valdosta State head softball coach Thomas Macera was asked if his team will look back at the 2010 national tournament as a reference moving forward to this year’s national tournament.
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South Region champions!
For the second consecutive day, Natalia Morozova was the hero for the Valdosta State softball team.
On Friday night, Morozova’s RBI double in the 16th inning carried the Blazers past the Florida Southern Moccasins. On Saturday, it was Morozova’s two-run home run in the top of the fourth inning that carried the Blazers to a 2-0 win and a trip to the NCAA Division II National Tournament. -
Lowndes tennis team falls in semifinals
Lowndes’ girls tennis team fell 3-0 to Roswell in the Class AAAAA state semifinals on Saturday at the Clayton County International Park.
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Blazers win South Region, advance to national tournament
The Valdosta State softball team is headed back to the national tournament. The top-ranked Blazers advanced to their second National Championship Tournament in three years Saturday behind a 2-0 win over Florida Southern in game 2 of the South Super Regional Tournament.
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