New ACC commissioner Jim Phillips’ listening tour brings him to NC State
While he was athletic director at Northwestern, Jim Phillips was known for wearing a purple-and-white striped tie as a sort of uniform. At Christmas, having accepted but not yet assumed the position of ACC commissioner, his family filled the new sartorial void.
The red-and-black striped tie he wore to N.C. State on Monday was one of 15 new ties he received as a gift, and he’s been working through all of them lately. Phillips’ visit to Raleigh was his 11th stop at an ACC school and his sixth in the past seven days, a journey that last week took him almost from one end (Florida State) of the footprint to the other (Syracuse and Boston College).
He’s put his ties to the test.
“I have learned that you can really irritate people with a simple miscue with wardrobe, and I did not want to do that early in my tenure,” Phillips said in an interview.
Phillips was in Chapel Hill last week and Durham last month, with just Virginia Tech, Virginia, Georgia Tech and Clemson still to go, all but one by the end of next week. It’s the kind of endeavor any new commissioner might undertake, but it’s especially important for someone coming from outside of the conference.
That was part of Phillips’ mandate when he was hired, to smooth over any rough spots between the legacy ACC schools and the Big East additions and get everyone pulling on the same rope. He understood that, but so far said he hasn’t found on his travels the kind of fundamental disagreements he might have expected or suspected.
“The experience I had in the Big Ten, going through expansion twice, with Nebraska first and Maryland and Rutgers, I think there has to be a conscious effort and some intentional decision-making in order for there to be and to feel that you are united as a conference,” Phillips said. “It doesn’t mean that there aren’t difficult circumstances and situations where there is great disagreement. Strong disagreement. But in the end, the commitment to one another and commitment to the conference has been really refreshing.”
Meeting with Randy Woodson, athletes
Phillips on Monday met with athletic director Boo Corrigan and the N.C. State athletic leadership as well as chancellor Randy Woodson, but perhaps the most important part of his visit was the hour he spent with five N.C. State athletes, where the new commissioner did more listening than talking. It was an impressive bunch, all members of the Pack United activism group that formed last summer: football players Isaiah Jones and Grant Gibson, soccer player Leon Krapf, swimmer Shannon Kearney and runner Peyton Barish.
Two of them already had at least tenuous connections to Phillips: Krapf was part of the ACC search committee that hired Phillips, and Kearney attended the same suburban Chicago high school as Phillips’ oldest son.
Phillips led them on a wide-ranging discussion that covered their experience at N.C. State, enduring the COVID pandemic, mental health, social activism, ACC championships, NCAA legislation, the impending onset of name, image and likeness rights, and the 2014 attempt by Northwestern football players to unionize, all of which ended up circling back to the future of the NCAA. Phillips heard a wide variety of viewpoints on the latter, even within this small group.
“We have to figure it out, because it’s worth fighting for,” Phillips told the athletes. “I don’t think any of you are wrong. What is the right kind of model for the future? What does the 21st-century model look like?”
A little ACC history
He exited with a promise that each athlete would hear from him within 48 hours with contact information to continue the discussion. As people who have met with Phillips at other ACC schools have noted, it’s a little more hands-on than Phillips’ predecessor, John Swofford, could be. Which is not a criticism of Swofford in any way; every commissioner has their own style. In these early days, this is how the portrait of Phillips’ leadership is emerging: Engaging and curious as he navigates an unfamiliar landscape.
“It helps continue to guide me,” Phillips said. “Again, as the father of two current student-athletes at different levels, we always have to have our ear to what experiences they’re having and try to lead in that manner and try to be supportive if we’re going to stay true to what we say we’re about in college athletics.”
The ACC certainly has its quirks, and while Phillips nailed one of the trickier bits of history -- telling the athletes at one point about the original Sedgefield Seven, with Virginia joining up a few months later in 1953 -- his tour has taken him to places few have seen.
As he was shown N.C. State’s new television production studios in the Murphy Center, senior associate athletic director Fred Demarest took Phillips down the back stairs to the equipment areas below, where the hardwood floors of what’s left of Chuck Amato’s racquetball court are still marked with red lines.
It’s tough to grasp the entirety of the history, personality and timbre of N.C. State, or any ACC school, in one visit. But seeing the remains of Amato’s court, like Roman ruins buried in a modern city, is certainly a start.
This story was originally published May 4, 2021 at 8:00 AM with the headline "New ACC commissioner Jim Phillips’ listening tour brings him to NC State."
