John Swofford

Swofford (right) with Ken Haines

John Swofford (born 1948) is the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

Swofford was born on December 6, 1948 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While at Wilkes Central High School, he played as quarterback for the Wilkes Central Eagles football team and was twice selected to the all-state football team. He was awarded a prestigious Morehead Scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also played for the football team. He holds a master's degree in Sports Management from Ohio University. From 1980 to 1997 he was the athletic director for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 1997 Swofford was named the Commissioner of the ACC. During his tenure he has doubled the ACC's annual revenue, served as Chairman of the Bowl Championship Series in college football in 2000 and 2001, and expanded the ACC to include Boston College, Virginia Tech, the University of Miami, the University of Pittsburgh, Syracuse University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Louisville by 2014.

Swofford is the brother of William Oliver Swofford (1945–2000), a pop singer professionally known as Oliver who performed from the late 1960s through the late 1970s. Swofford and his family live in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the ACC has its headquarters.

On October 22, 2014, a report produced by Kenneth L. Wainstein was released, which reported that 3,100 students took no-show or “paper” classes between 1993 and 2011, which overlaps with Swofford's tenure as Athletic Director by four years. An excerpt from the report states, "These counselors saw the paper classes and the artificially high grades they yielded as key to helping some student-athletes remain eligible."[1]

References

External links

• Atlantic Coast Conference profile