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ACC HISTORY
The Atlantic Coast
Conference (ACC) is an American
college athletic conference, affiliated with the
NCAA's
Division I, that was founded on May 8, 1953. The current member
institutions are located in the mid- and south-Atlantic coastal states
of Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Virginia.
Charter members of
the ACC were
Clemson,
Duke,
Maryland,
North Carolina,
North Carolina State,
South Carolina, and
Wake Forest. In early December, 1953, officials convened in
Greensboro and agreed to invite Virginia to the ACC. The seven charter
members were aligned to the Southern Conference before formally
withdrawing at the annual Spring Meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953.
Prior to this meeting, a set a bylaws were drafted, but not ratified
until June 14, 1953.
In 1971, the ACC lost a
member for the first and only time, The University of
South Carolina, which now belongs to the
Southeastern Conference. The ACC then operated with seven members
until April 3, 1978 when
Georgia Tech joined. On July 1, 1991,
Florida State joined, raising the total to nine. In 2003's cycle of
conference alignment, the ACC picked up three more teams:
Miami and
Virginia Tech were invited in June 2003 effective July 1, 2004, and
Boston College was invited in October 2003 for a join date of July
1, 2005.
Current members and year
joined
* The ACC expanded from
nine to 11 schools in 2004, with
Miami and
Virginia Tech joining from the
Big East Conference.
**Boston
College joins in 2005, bringing the total to 12 schools.
Traditional rivalries in
the ACC
As with most ACC
traditions, the conference's classic rivalries began on the (men's)
basketball court. Before the 2004 expansion, the ACC was able to
maintain a full home-and-home double round-robin basketball schedule,
meaning each team played each other team both at home and away each
season. Coupled with the conference's geographic compactness (especially
before Florida State joined in 1991), this enhanced conference
cohesiveness and built a strong, interlocking web of rivalries, as each
school could generally find something historical to be upset with each
other school about. Some rivalries were, of course, stronger than others
— notably those among the four "Tobacco Road" schools located in
North Carolina.
Lesser-known are the ACC's
football rivalries. With the recent expansion, intra-state rivalries in
Florida
and
Virginia that have always been more significant in football than
basketball are now under the conference banner. This gives them added
meaning, as these games will have more direct impact on postseason bowl
game invitations.
Some of the ACC's classic
rivalries include:
Extra-conference rivalries
involving ACC members include:
In addition, Maryland has a
long-held bitter rivalry in men's lacrosse with
Johns Hopkins.
Since the 1999-2000 season,
ACC teams have played Big Ten teams in the annual
ACC - Big Ten Challenge men's basketball tournament; the ACC has
"won" this tournament every year since its inception (ACC teams have won
a majority of the games played in every season).
See:
ACC Men's Player of the Year
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