Gene Corrigan, ACC commissioner who added Florida State, dies at 91
When the Big Ten shocked the football world by adding Penn State in 1990, Gene Corrigan, maybe for the only time in a long and distinguished career, felt like he’d been caught flat-footed. There wasn’t much in college athletics, ever, that Corrigan didn’t see coming before anyone else.
The next day, Corrigan commissioned two ACC staffers to compile a dossier on 10 potential expansion candidates. After reviewing the info, he crossed eight off the list with a marker and chose Florida State over either Miami or Syracuse (memories differ on which.) Seven frantic weeks later, the Seminoles were in the league, their presence ensured the ACC prime bowl tie-ins and the ACC’s national stature was secured for more than a decade.
“He knew what the future was,” said former ACC associate commissioner Brian Morrison, who worked closely alongside Corrigan during his tenure in Greensboro. “He always knew what was coming. And he was always right. The league benefited from that. His foresight was phenomenal.”
That was the theme of Corrigan’s nine-year tenure as ACC commissioner, from 1987 to 1997: action and foresight. Corrigan, who died Saturday at 91 in Charlottesville, Va., oversaw an era of exponential growth for the conference, negotiating the television deals with ESPN that helped turn regional basketball rivalries into a national phenomenon and insisting upon an equal split of revenue among ACC teams that served as a catalyst for competitiveness. He also served a two-year term as NCAA president.
“Simply put, Gene was one of the most remarkable individuals, and leaders, I have ever known,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “His impact on the ACC and college athletics was profound and immeasurable, only surpassed by his impact on the individuals he positively affected — and there are a multitude of us.”
Corrigan had roots in the ACC as a lacrosse player at Duke, men’s lacrosse and men’s soccer coach at Virginia and athletic director at Virginia before becoming athletic director at Notre Dame. Those roots continue to run deep among the seven children, 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren he and his wife Lena had in 66 years of marriage.
His son Boo is the new athletic director at N.C. State, his son Kevin is the lacrosse coach at Notre Dame, his son Tim is a producer for ESPN, his grandson Pat is an assistant basketball coach at Charlotte and his grandaughter Sid is a video coordinator for the UNC women’s basketball team, among others involved in pro and college sports.
His professional accomplishments aside, Corrigan’s affable personality made him as much an ambassador for the ACC as its leader. He was famous for ordering multiple desserts for the dinner table and the conference became famous for its hospitality, at his insistence. Everything got bigger on Corrigan’s watch, from the ACC tournament to the summer football kickoff.
“He and Mom found their greatest joy in family and in a profession where you can lose sight of what’s most important, he was authentic and found a way to make time for the most important things,” Boo Corrigan said in a statement. “Since I arrived at N.C. State, there’s hardly a day someone doesn’t tell me about an interaction they had with my father and and how it somehow made their day a little better. He had that kind of impact on people.”
When Dean Smith and Rick Barnes had their famous flare-up in 1995, Gene Corrigan summoned both to his home in Greensboro. Both coaches brought multiple video tapes documenting their grievances, prepared to argue their respective cases.
“I’m not watching the tapes,” an exasperated Corrigan said. “Both of you just sit down and listen.”
North Carolina held a moment of silence to honor Corrigan before its basketball game against Miami on Saturday. Football coach Mack Brown, whose first tenure in Chapel Hill overlapped with Corrigan’s time as commissioner, was among those in attendance.
“The sports community has lost a great man and I lost a great friend,” Brown said.
Brown said that when Swofford, then the UNC athletic director, brought up the proposal to add Florida State, he jokingly asked if they could wait four years until North Carolina was good enough. (Brown was 2-20 in two seasons in Chapel Hill at that point.) It would not be the last time the ACC would look outside its membership to boost its football reputation.
“The moves Corrigan made at that time, and the moves Swofford has made since, have made the ACC a powerful football conference,” Brown said.
A native of Baltimore, Corrigan was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame last year, the Duke Athletics Hall of Fame in 1991, the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Gene Corrigan, ACC commissioner who added Florida State, dies at 91."
