Former NCAA president and ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan has died at the age of 91, the conference announced Saturday.
Corrigan served as ACC commissioner from 1987 to 1996. During his tenure, Florida State joined as the conference’s ninth member and ACC programs captured 27 national championships, including three in basketball and two in football.
In January 1995, Corrigan was elected to serve a two-year term as NCAA president.
“Simply put, Gene was one of the most remarkable individuals, and leaders, I have ever known,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “His impact on the ACC and college athletics was profound and immeasurable, only surpassed by his impact on the individuals he positively affected — and there are a multitude of us. I will miss him immensely, but I am so grateful to have had him as a mentor, boss, friend and colleague for so many years.”
There will be a moment of silence to honor Corrigan before Saturday’s Miami-North Carolina men’s basketball game.
Prior to his role leading the ACC, Corrigan was an athletic director at Notre Dame, Virginia, and Washington and Lee.
Corrigan also spent time at Virginia as the school’s head lacrosse and soccer coach and assistant basketball coach, then as a sports information director. He was an assistant coach in all three sports at Washington and Lee as well.
He served an 18-month stint in the Army in the 1940s, then attended Duke, where he was a four-year starter in lacrosse and was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1991.
His son, Boo, was hired as NC State athletic director in January 2019. Corrigan is survived by his wife, Lena, seven children, 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.