ACC Commissioner Swofford Addresses UNC Concerns

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Responding to a question about conflict-of-interest concerns in North Carolina's NCAA investigation, ACC commissioner John Swofford said that peer review has been part of the NCAA's investigative process for "a long, long time."

"I think forever," Swofford said last week, speaking after the ACC's annual spring meetings.

Swofford acknowledged that the ACC is closely following the NCAA investigation at UNC, which responded on Tuesday to the NCAA's third notice of allegations. UNC received that notice after Greg Sankey, the chairman of the NCAA committee on infractions, encouraged the NCAA enforcement staff to evaluate whether the second NOA properly addressed the case.

Besides his role as the infractions committee chairman, Sankey is also the commissioner of the SEC, the ACC's primary rival conference. In a letter last month, the attorney for Deborah Crowder, one of the central figures in the case, called for Sankey to recuse himself from his role as the chairman of the infractions committee.

Sankey refused that request, and wrote that the committee "would fairly decide this case."

This isn't the first time during his tenure as ACC commissioner that Swofford has heard about conflict-of-interest concerns regarding the chairman of the infractions committee. It also happened when Miami joined the ACC in 2004. Back then Paul Dee, then Miami's athletics director, served as the infractions committee chairman.

"I can remember having conversations with him about how uncomfortable that was, at times," Swofford said. "So it's not any different now than it's been. Whether that should be changed in some way actually has been under discussion for a while, multiple years.

"So until someone comes up with a better way to approach that kind of situation, we'll see."

Swofford declined to comment on any other potential concerns with the UNC investigation but, as he has in the past, he did criticize the length of the case. This part of the UNC investigation, which began as an offshoot from the UNC football investigation that concluded in 2012, began in 2014.

"My biggest complaint has consistently been how long these kinds of things take sometimes," Swofford said. "And, unfortunately, we've had several that have fallen into not as long this one, but still lengthy. Because it would help a great deal all the way around if we can come up with a process that brought things to culmination more quickly."

UNC officials are expected to appear at some point in August before the committee on infractions.

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