SBJ College: Rare Tag Team Effort For ACC Commissioner Search

College students are beginning to return to campus. The next couple of weeks will be critical for the conferences still trying to play football.

Here is what's cookin' on campus.

ACC TAKES DIFFERENT APPROACH WITH TWO SEARCH FIRMS

• Tag-team efforts are not common in the world of collegiate searches, but in the case of the ACC, it made sense. The conference launched its search for a new commissioner today by hiring Turnkey Search and Ventura Partners. Both are well-known in college circles for working on some of the biggest searches in the space, including coaches and ADs.
  
  
• Len Perna and Gene DiFilippo lead Turnkey’s college search business, which has placed ADs at Michigan, Alabama and USC. Ventura’s sports practice under Chad Chatlos and Katy Young Staudt supported coaching searches at Wake Forest (men’s basketball) and Texas (women’s basketball), as well as football searches at Rutgers and Ole Miss in the last year.
  
  
• It’s unusual for a conference to hire two search firms -- honestly, I’ve never heard of it happening before, although it’s supposedly more common for major hires in the business world. From what I understand, Turnkey and Ventura submitted their proposal together.
  
  
• That Jed Hughes from Korn Ferry didn’t get the search might be considered something of an upset. He led commissioner searches for the most recent hires at the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12.

BILL BATTLE BACK AT HOME AFTER COVID BOUT

• It was great to hear Bill Battle’s voice today. The former Alabama AD and CLC founder was released from the hospital at UAB on Monday and he’s back in Tuscaloosa recovering at home after a two-week battle with COVID-19. He spent one week in intensive care.
  
  
• Both Bill and wife Mary tested positive after experiencing symptoms, but their experiences were very different, even though they believe they contracted the virus from the same source. Bill was admitted to the hospital for chest congestion and trouble breathing, which he compared to pneumonia. Mary, who fully recovered, had a fever, cough and headache.
  
  
• Battle had more good news. The book he’s been working on is nearly finished. Whitman Publishing out of Florence, Ala., is editing and publishing the book, which chronicles his days as a football player and coach, and ultra-successful business man who created the collegiate licensing industry in 1981 with the formation of CLC.
  
  
• A parting thought from Battle: “I sure am glad I’m not an AD these days,” he said with a laugh.

SPEED READS

• A group of U.S. Senators has unveiled a college athletes’ bill of rights, which the elected officials say provide more equity and opportunity. The Washington Post notes the proposal "would give athletes greater opportunity to receive compensation, better health and safety benefits, more leeway to transfer schools without penalty and calls for an oversight commission for college athletics."
  
  
• When announcing the Big 12 would move forward with fall football, Commissioner Bob Bowlsby cited geographical differences in the decision to play, and specifically mentioned a "really tough situation" in Southern California with respect to COVID-19 and the Pac-12's decision to postpone. SI.com's Pat Forde, appearing on "The Paul Finebaum Show," took issue with Bowlsby's COVID assessment: "How are things in Texas, where half of the Big 12 is? ... When a commissioner says that I just have to shake my head."
  
  
• Could a bubble be a potential solution for March Madness in the spring? NCAA Senior VP/Basketball Dan Gavitt didn't get into specifics, but sounded confident there will be a tournament in 2021 when talking to NCAA.com's Andy Katz: "Our first and primary goal and preference is to have the tournament on the dates that are set and at the venues that are predetermined. ... There are all sorts of contingencies that are going to be in place. ... We're just not in a place to talk about those in the middle of August." Meanwhile, one Houston event operator is proposing a 20-team bubble over three weeks in December that would allow hoops programs to play an entire non-conference schedule. 
  
  
• UMass and New Mexico State are the two independent FBS schools that now plan to play football in the spring (there's also Old Dominion, which will go it alone in the spring after opting out of Conference USA play in the fall). Can these schools get a schedule done? UMass AD Ryan Bamford told the Daily Hampshire Gazette: "There’s still so much to be determined there and so much uncertainly, but I have a lot of hope that in talking not only with the 12 opponents that we contracted with for this fall but a number of other schools, that we’ll be able to get, if we can play football in the spring, a full complement of games to go out and compete.”

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THROWBACK THURSDAY

• It was this week in 2012 that reports surfaced linking CBS Sports exec Mike Aresco to the commissioner’s job at the Big East. Aresco inherited a difficult set of circumstances. The Big East dissolved and Aresco was left to rebuild what became the American Athletic Conference two years later.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand and SBJ Esports with Adam Stern and Trent Murray. Also check out the SBJ Unpacks newsletter every Monday-Friday night, as we look at how the sports industry is being impacted by COVID-19.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).