ACC: A dozen will do

Boston College accepted an invitation from the Atlantic Coast Conference to become its 12th member Sunday, ending a roller coaster ride of an expansion process.

"The ACC is a strong, stable conference," Boston College President Rev. William Leahy said. "The move to the ACC will generate greater revenues in the future."

The ACC member presidents voted 9-0 to extend an offer to Boston College during a Sunday morning teleconference. The rationale behind the ACC's courting of the Eagles was multi-faceted: academics and athletics and, more pressingly, football and money.

Duke's support of expanding to 12 teams was a shift from just a few weeks ago, when president Nan Keohane told The Chronicle that the school was "not advocating expanding to 12 teams, in any case, no matter who the 12th team would be."

But in an e-mail to The Chronicle Sunday, Keohane explained Duke's re-evaluated position.

"Now that we are at 11, however, we appear to be in something of an unstable equilibrium, and an eventual move to 12 seems almost inevitable. Duke found the arguments for Boston College as a 12th member attractive on several grounds, and we are satisfied that the divisional concerns that worried us earlier are being taken care of. Since we can't go back to the status quo before June, we think this is a good outcome."

Before partaking in Sunday's conversation and vote, Keohane said she spoke with Athletic Director Joe Alleva and Faculty Athletics Representative Kathleen Smith, among others.

Three Duke head coaches confirmed that they had not been consulted by school administrators regarding the addition of Boston College, though women's basketball coach Gail Goestenkors noted that "we were made aware that there would be an expansion, and the idea from the beginning was to have a 12-member conference."

"I think that the conference did what it had to do in inviting Boston College," Kimel said. "There would have been no point in staying at 11 teams and, other than Notre Dame, I think Boston College was the best option."

Hillier concurred, saying that he believed "the decision to expand the conference was based on helping the conference as a whole. Unless things change--which might not be in my lifetime--unless your conference is strong in both football and basketball, you don't have a great conference. We brought in primarily strong football programs to make us a better football conference because we already had a good basketball conference."

Kimel's and Hillier's take on adding Boston College echoed that of ACC Commissioner John Swofford and Council of Presidents leader James Barker.

"I think they'll be superb members of this conference; I think they'll fit extraordinarily well," ACC commissioner John Swofford said during a press conference Sunday night. "They've shared this conference's values all along. They've had an interest in being part of this. And I think it just adds one more excellent school to what will now be a 12-member mix."

Meanwhile, Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese said he was "extremely disappointed" with Boston College's decision, of which he was notified by Rev. Leahy early Sunday.

"Our membership is very surprised that the ACC presidents continue to come back to our league for membership," Tranghese said. The ACC has already lured current Big East members Miami and Virginia Tech, which accepted ACC invites in July and will assume their new place in July 2004.

Along with Miami, Boston College and Syracuse were the original targets for ACC expansion in May. However, the necessary votes could not be assembled by the ACC presidents to approve of the northeastern schools. Duke and North Carolina were opposed to expanding beyond 10 schools; N.C. State voted against adding Boston College; and Virginia would not support expansion unless Virginia Tech was offered membership.

The time frame for Boston College's admission to the ACC is yet to be decided.

"When B.C. joins us, our presidents this morning affirmed that we would play a championship game," Swofford said. "We just don't know exactly when we will be 12 at this point. The next question is would we try to have a championship game if were 11 for a year or two." He added that the question had not yet been answered.

"It could be 2006, but that's really an issue for B.C. and the Big East Conference to determine," Swofford continued. "I think we all know there are going to be other things happening in terms of conference affiliations in the very near future, and we'll just have to see how that sorts itself out."

Boston College brings much to the table for the ACC academically, athletically and economically.

"If you look at their graduation rates for their student body as a whole and for their athletes, B.C. will jump right into the higher echelon of our conference," Swofford said.

Athletically, the Eagles are competitive in football, basketball and several Olympic sports, therefore providing an all-around athletic program that will supplement the competitiveness of the ACC.

Other than the fact that Boston College's membership will allow the ACC to hold a football championship game--which is projected to generate anywhere from $7 to 12 million in revenue--the Boston metropolitan area is one of the nation's largest at 5.8 million, thereby aiding the ACC in product sales, television market deals and more.

"[Boston College] takes us into a market and a part of the country where obviously we have not been on a regular basis in the past," Swofford said.

The school is geographically displaced from the rest of the ACC, but it does maintain the league's name--the campus is along the Atlantic coastline. Such would have not been the case had Notre Dame been invited, the school which Boston College replaced in the ACC's search for a 12th member.

However, the ACC logo will still have to be redrawn, as the current logo stretches only to Maryland.

Now the Big East is forced to resuscitate its efforts to maintain itself, though a plan had been in place to raid Conference USA of four of its current member schools, a plan that would have allowed the Big East to maintain separate football and basketball divisions.

Boston College is now the subject of the latest Big East lawsuit--along with three leading ACC officers, including Swofford--Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

"Our claim is that Boston College is part of a continued conspiracy to weaken and destroy the Big East as a competitor for broadcast revenue and other rights," he said.

Blumenthal, as the Big East's lead attorney, currently has litigation pending against Miami, a lawsuit which was originally filed in July when Miami first announced its intention to leave for the ACC. The ACC was also a defendant in the case, but a Connecticut judge removed the ACC as a defendant last Friday.

Swofford responded to the most recent allegations of collusive actions Tuesday evening.

"It is a sad day for higher education and intercollegiate athletics when Universities initiate this kind of unwarranted action--suing faculty members and conference officials over an institution's freedom to associate itself with whatever conference it chooses. As was the case with the previous lawsuit, which was dismissed last Friday, we feel that this one has no merit."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.