Growing up in western North Carolina, current Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Commissioner, John Swofford never knew how much football was going to influence his life. He was introduced to the game by his older brothers and would go on to be a star quarterback for the Wilkes Central High School Eagles.

His skills on the football field and in the classroom earned him the prestigious Morehead Scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Swofford would be instrumental in helping turn the program around for the Tar Heels, including winning the ACC conference championship in 1971, the school's first in almost a decade.

He would go on to become Athletic Director at his alma mater from 1980-1987 and was named to his current role as Commissioner of the ACC in 1997. Recently, Swofford took time from his busy schedule to talk about his time as a player on the gridiron, his memories of Head Coach Bill Dooley at North Carolina, and the path that led him to his current role as commissioner.

EM: So, growing up, I understand you got interested in playing football by watching your older brothers. What was it about football that really “spoke” to you? What did you love about the game?

JS: Well, I did grow up in a small town in western North Carolina and I did have three older brothers and all three of them played football. From the first day that I can remember, football has been in our family. I wanted to play as soon as I could so I could follow them.

Football, especially high school football, was something that was very important in our town. It brought a real sense of community to everyone. I think I was able to pick up on that at a young age.

There really wasn't anything about football that I didn't love though. The competition, the camaraderie of having teammates, the physical skills involved, the desire to improve those skills – all of that I really enjoyed about football then and I still do now

EM: I'm assuming like a lot of kids, especially when you were growing up, you played multiple positions on both sides of the ball. What did you play and when did you settle in as a quarterback?

JS: Well, I was a running back when I first started playing. That's what I wanted to be at the time. I played running back all through growing up and into my freshman year of high school. In my sophomore year, my coaches moved me to quarterback. I really had never focused on throwing the ball up until that point, so there was a lot of work for me to do on that.

EM: How long did it take you to adjust to the role of quarterback? As an all-around athlete the way you were, were schools recruiting you as a quarterback?

I spent all of the rest of my high school years at quarterback and safety on defense. I played both ways a lot of the time, but less so as a senior. I was fortunate enough to play on some really good teams and also fortunate enough to play in two high school all-star games in North Carolina.

After my senior year, I had the opportunity to continue playing at a number of places. The service academies were something I took a really hard look at. I ultimately, of course, ended up going to the University of North Carolina and I went there on an academic scholarship and not an athletic one. I started as a quarterback my sophomore year and the first half of my junior year. I got mono and had to sit out for a season and when I came back, I played defensive back and on special teams.

EM: What are some of your favorite memories of playing for the Tar Heels?

JS: Well, the program wasn't very good when I got here. I came in as part of Bill Dooley's first recruiting class. He had coached with his brother, [College Football Hall of Famer Vince Dooley] at Georgia and Carolina had hired him after my senior year of high school, so I was recruited by two different coaching staffs.

He convinced me that he was going to lead Carolina to ACC championships and as it turned out he did that. While I was there, the program went from 2-8 to ACC champions my senior year. That was a great experience for me. I saw what it took to build a program and I experienced what it was like to go from not being a very good team to a bowl team. Not that I knew it at the time, but the experience there both personally and from a team standpoint gave me a lot of growth.

From an individual standpoint, my favorite memory was tying the school record for touchdown passes in one game against Vanderbilt. At the time, the record was three, which doesn't sound like a lot against today's game, but that was the school record in 1969.

EM: Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do career-wise after you were done with school? Was sports management something on your radar back then?

JS: Well, my original course of studies for my undergraduate degree was industrial relations, which in today's terms would be a management degree. I thought I knew what I wanted to do when I got out of school. I thought I wanted to go into business in some fashion and I did that in our family business right out of college for about a year.

My father had started the business and my two older brothers had taken it over after he had passed away. I did that long enough to feel that wasn't where I wanted my future to be. I was grateful for the opportunity, but I knew it wasn't for me.

I had a relationship with Homer Rice, who was the Athletic Director at North Carolina and he told me about the sports management program at Ohio University. When he outlined it for me, it was as if my whole future opened up. This would allow me to combine my interest in business with my love of college sports. I graduated with a master's degree from there and have been on the administration side of sports ever since.

EM: How has playing football helped you in your career in sports administration? Is there still a lesson or a skill that you got from the game that you still use to this day?

JS: Having been in the arena, so to speak, it has really helped me to understand our student-athletes and empathizing with them in what they go through. I had the experience of playing on some not so good teams and some really good teams and because of illness and injury, I had to fight to get back on the field at times. Ultimately, football taught me about how to deal with all of that and to learn from both the good and bad experiences.