‘It is just frustrating’: Athletes voice concerns as ACC adds Stanford, Cal and SMU

Piper Hampsch, like many, watched from the outside as the ACC expanded its membership beyond the Eastern Time Zone for the first time.

But for Hampsch, a former Duke field hockey goalie and the chair of the ACC 2023-24 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the expansion was more than just a seismic change in the makeup of the conference — it was a stark reminder of how athletes’ voices can often be sidelined in major decisions.

“I was never, never a part of it,” Hampsch said, “Which is definitely interesting to me being like, what some would say, the highest ranking student-athlete in the conference.”

As the ACC celebrates adding SMU on July 1, with Stanford and Cal to join on Aug. 2, many athletes expressed excitement.

Others, though, are frustrated by the increased travel and missing classes. The answers to their resulting questions have been, at times, absent.

In an effort to address athletes’ concerns, the conference initiated several campus visits last fall following the Sept. 1, 2023 vote to admit SMU, Cal and Stanford. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, associate commissioner Shelby McKay and other conference representatives spoke with college athletes across several campuses.

Elise Byun, a former Cal gymnast and chair of the Pac-12 Leadership Team, recalls speaking to Phillips last fall.

As part of what she called an ‘honest conversation’ with Phillips, she voiced her concerns about scheduling two-meet weekends, where teams travel east and have meets on Friday and Sunday of the same weekend.

For some athletes, it was too little, too late.

SAAC serves as, in Phillips’ words, “the collective voice for our nearly 10,000 student-athletes.” Yet, at this year’s annual ACC spring meetings , Hampsch and fellow SAAC representative Christopher Holliday were the only athletes physically present out of more than 150 attendees, highlighting a disconnect between SAAC’s purpose and its execution.

Hampsch was excited to put ACC SAAC’s mental health proposal, two years in the making, up to a vote. She said it was tabled ten minutes before the 2024 ACC spring meetings closing session.

“For them to use you in a theatrical, performative way is really frustrating,” Hampsch said. “Because on a ground level, you do a ton of work, and you connect student-athletes, and you have these plans. And at the end of it, you didn’t get asked about expansion, your [mental health] proposal got shut down, like it is just frustrating.”

‘I was never, never part of it’

Holliday, a former Tar Heel defensive back and UNC SAAC chair, said the ACC realignment vote was unexpected for a lot of athletes.

“It was kind of made more from the administrative level, which I think a lot of student-athletes are frustrated by,” Holliday said. “Because at the end of the day, it’s affecting a lot of student-athletes and our input wasn’t really taken into consideration.”

The main frustrations, said Holliday, stemmed from initial uncertainties regarding the logistics of travel schedules and their specific implications for athletes.

“They could answer more so, what the impact would be to the conference level and to the TV revenue, but not necessarily the minute impacts of the student-athletes,” he said.

ACC schools are already subject to far-flung travel, but now, games in Dallas and California will become part of the regular season. In October, for instance, N.C. State men’s soccer will traverse 2,800 miles — both ways — to play a single conference game against Stanford.

Holliday, Hampsch and other SAAC representatives agreed Phillips and conference administrators have effectively reached out to athletes since the vote. Still, the effort has largely been retroactive.

Jack Carter, who served as ACC SAAC Chair from 2022-23, understands athletes’ frustration. But realignment is an inherently tight-lipped process between university chancellors and presidents and, as the former Boston College long-distance runner put it, “these things are all driven by money.”

“The Pac-12 was, for lack of a better word, falling apart,” Carter said. “We had these schools that fit our academic profile — which is huge thing in my mind with the ACC — and Commissioner [Jim] Phillips went out and got them. More props to him and his team.”

‘It’s a tough issue’

Long-distance runner Liam Anderson emailed Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir last August, emphasizing two priorities amidst realignment: competitive conference membership and accommodating extended travel schedules.

“We thought it was more important to be having access to that higher level of competition than it was to be, you know, not traveling across the country,” Anderson, the former co-president of Stanford SAAC, said.

Realignment will undoubtedly increase travel for West Coast teams in an East Coast-dominated league. For instance, Cal football will travel 20,720 miles in 2024, covering nearly 83.2% of the Earth’s circumference over five away games.

Athletes from eleven ACC schools and ten sports, speaking to The News & Observer, commonly expressed concerns about missing classes due to excessive travel. This issue is compounded by varying accommodations across institutions and even among professors.

According to UNC Faculty Athletics Representative Lissa Broome, professors should provide traveling athletes “a reasonable opportunity to make up that work.”

“I think one question mark is, what does that mean?” Broome said. “That’s where it differs from class to class, and how professors interpret it. It’s a tough issue.”

Of the nine schools that responded to The N&O’s emails this week, none are changing academic accommodations due to realignment with most saying travel requirements for their respective institutions weren’t shifting drastically.

As a general rule, schools already give athletes priority in choosing their class schedules. Missing class while on the road for games is considered excused because such activity falls under official university business.

Florida State spokesman Douglas Walker said the school is considering expanding its test proctoring guidelines to allow tests, exams and quizzes that may be required during extended travel. But no final decision has been made.

League newcomers Cal and Stanford were among the schools did not respond to the N&O’s request for comment while Virginia Tech and Notre Dame officials both said they “respectfully decline” to comment or participate in the reporting.

‘Not enough athletes made enough noise’

Anderson feels his West Coast companions “are not that worried” right now.

“I don’t think it’s something that’s really on the minds of athletes every day,” Anderson said. “Folks are training. Folks are worried about the day-to-day of being an elite college athlete and less so the logistics of getting to a game six months from now.

“That’ll probably change pretty quick.”

Peyton Barish, who ran long distance at N.C. State, wrote a thesis on the impacts of ACC realignment. He said decisions like this are made “all too often” without athlete input. In his opinion, “not enough athletes made enough noise.”

“As there becomes a push for greater and greater voices for college athletes within athletics,” Barish said, “athletes need to start thinking really seriously about what they would do with that sort of power and what they would make better.”