EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: The ACC forsakes the Triad

Like Krispy Kreme, several thousand random New Yorkers and Fantasia Barrino, the Atlantic Coast Conference has officially moved from the Triad to Charlotte.

The announcement came on Tuesday morning after a long deliberation in which Greensboro, the ACC’s current home, never really figured.

And it’s a damn shame.

Everyone who gives a damn knows that the ACC was founded in Greensboro, in 1953 at the Sedgefield Country Club. And everyone knows that all of the best moments in ACC Men’s Basketball history happened inside the Greensboro Coliseum — Dean Smith’s first and last ACC championships (1967 and 1997), the first nationally televised ACC Tournament (1978), Michael Jordan vs. Ralph Sampson (1982), Wake Forest’s back-to-back titles (1995-96), some Duke stuff….

Being the home of the ACC was important to Greensboro. The whole city transforms for the tournament, the population swells, teachers used to roll AV carts into the classroom so students could watch the games.

Is all that over?

I suppose we’ll still get the men’s basketball tournament in Greensboro once in a while — it’s locked in for 2023, and the women’s tournament seems to have found a home here, which reminds us that there are a lot of other programs besides men’s basketball (and, to a lesser degree, football) under the umbrella of the ACC.

In that regard, Charlotte is probably a good move. It became the 15^th largest city in the US as of the 2020 Census, making it a real player in marketing terms. Its economy runs on cadres of reliably overpaid bankers who will buy tickets to absolutely anything. Sponsorship opportunities abound.

They’re moving to Charlotte for the same reason anyone from the Triad moves to Charlotte: A Bigger and Better Deal.

But the Triad still has a better airport. And, it should be noted, an actual legacy ACC team in Wake Forest.

And it might have been even worse. They could be moving to Brooklyn.