Northwestern AD Jim Phillips is the ACC’s pick to succeed retiring Commissioner John Swofford, sources say. The conference is working with Phillips to finalize the hire in the coming days. Phillips, a Chicago native, has been the AD at Northwestern since ‘08 and was the runner-up to Kevin Warren for the Big Ten Commissioner job last year after being considered the frontrunner when Jim Delany retired. Phillips’ name had not been linked to the ACC until late last night, when Yahoo Sports first reported that the conference had targeted him and was preparing an offer. Turnkey Search has been working with the ACC to find its next commissioner.
Phillips rose to the top of the list of candidates because of the job he has done elevating athletics at a small private institution in the Big Ten against the likes of major state universities. That was of particular interest to the ACC, where six of the 15 member institutions are private. Phillips, who was named SBJ’s AD of the Year in ‘18, also has distinguished himself as one of the most influential voices among ADs in college athletics. He previously has chaired the NCAA’s D-I Council and currently sits on the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee, which he is scheduled to chair during the ‘21-22 season.
His rise within intercollegiate athletics while at Northwestern led to his name being linked to AD openings at Michigan, Stanford, Penn State and Illinois, his alma mater, but he preferred to stay on the Evanston campus. Being a Power Five commissioner, however, will put Phillips in one of the most powerful and influential positions in college sports.
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Even though Phillips has a distinctly Midwestern background, having grown up in Chicago, attended Illinois and worked at Notre Dame and Northern Illinois, sources say it was his surprisingly deep connections with several ACC leaders that helped position him to be the next commissioner. Both co-chairs of the ACC’s search committee -- Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch, a longtime Notre Dame professor and administrator before going to Wake, and Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins -- have known Phillips since he worked at Notre Dame from ‘00-04. North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham was part of that staff at Notre Dame as well. That is when Phillips’ mentor, Duke AD Kevin White, was the AD at Notre Dame. White’s current president at Duke, Vincent Price, is the vice chair of the ACC’s Council of Presidents, the ACC’s oversight body that must approve the hire.
Phillips will leave Northwestern with some of the finest facilities in the country. In the last three years, Phillips has overseen the building of the $270M, 500,000-square-foot Ryan Fieldhouse and Walter Athletics Center along the Lake Michigan shore, and a $110M renovation of Welsh-Ryan Arena, the Wildcats’ basketball home.
The Wildcats are scheduled to play in the Big Ten football championship game on Saturday against Ohio State.
