Barry Jacobs, the author of several books on ACC basketball and a columnist for ACCSports.com and the News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C., has followed the league since the late 1960s and covered it since 1976. He notes that ACC teams’ proximity fueled intense rivalries, which expansion will change.
When I came to the ACC, the rivalries were intimate and intense, often fueled by families whose members went to the different ACC schools. Fans knew every player on each team, and that knowledge and emotion added to the intensity.
Driving to the games, I saw land, trees and fields that became familiar parts of my life experience. I valued and considered them, in a way, my own. But just as the rural and semi-rural places in the Southeast have gotten highly developed, so the ACC has transformed as well.
It has gone from an intimate family to a large corporate enterprise that is constantly trying to expand its market reach and make money for its constituents. What we fans lose in that translation is a sense of belonging. What you thought you held an ownership stake in, you really didn’t. ACC fans never owned what we thought we belonged to.
Maryland’s departure is the biggest loss. It was an original ACC member and had developed a good rivalry with Duke, especially with Gary Williams at College Park. And the supposed Boston College-Clemson rivalry? I could make fun of it, but it’s not worth my time.
Still, I do want to see how good Syracuse really is. I want to see if that zone Jim Boeheim is noted for is really that good. I want to see how three other Hall of Fame coaches try to counter it.
I want to see what the new coaches, like Mike Brey of Notre Dame, do. When Louisville comes, with one of the most self-assured coaches in all of sports, it will be interesting to watch him up close.
The culture is changing. Almost half the league is from the Big East, so they bring the ACC vs. Big East rivalry. The Big East teams view the move as a merger; the old ACC teams look at the new teams as refugees from a conference that the ACC killed.
The ACC first formed when the Southern Conference got too big. The schools wanted a smaller, more congenial group. We’ve now come full circle, with college leagues following the pattern of American business, where fewer and larger corporations control the market. We’ve seen this in TV, airlines, banking and now with expansion of collegiate athletic conferences like the ACC.
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