Bilas’s Choice For John Swofford’s Successor
And one from us too
Down at Charlotte’s WFNZ Kyle Bailey had Jay Bilas in for a conversation and a good bit of it was about John Swofford.
Bailey asked Bilas the most relevant question which is who should replace Swofford. Bilas’s recommendation: Virginia A.D. Carla Williams.
She’s been at UVA since 2017 and she’s the first African-American woman to be an A.D. at a Power Five school.
The next relevant question to ask: is she interested? It’s a logical step but she may have reasons to stay at Virginia, at least for now. No one would know but her.
We’d like to suggest one other potential candidate: Ivy League Commissioner Robin Harris. She’s been there since 2009 and prior to that worked for the NCAA.
In her case we’re either a bit biased or have some insight because we got to know her when she was at Duke. She’s highly intelligent and gutsy, as we saw this year when she was the first person in college sports to acknowledge the seriousness of the pandemic and put sports on hold.
In either case the ACC would get a major advantage: both candidates are relatively young and have very different perspectives on athletics, society and how technology affects sports.
Just for a casual example, neither would have a problem getting around on Twitter or understanding how to avoid bad situations. Both, we think, would immediately think of ways to use Apple Glasses for sporting events.
And we’re quite sure both would shake up the sometimes complacent ACC offices.
Bilas went on to talk about other things as well. For one, Bailey asked if he’d be interested in the job himself.
It’s a fascinating idea in some ways, and Bilas would certainly shake things up, but as far as we know, he has no administrative experience. He did say though that there are other things in sports he might not mind doing but didn't elaborate.