I’ve been posting a lot about my favorite sportswriter—N&R columnist Ed Hardin—but what can I say he’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read Hardin’s take on the ACC’s decision to move the football championship to Orlando:

This isn’t just about HB 2 and the election. This is ultimately about much more than football. It’s about money. It’s about prestige.

The collegial little league founded at Sedgefield is growing out of its original footprint. The landscape of college athletics is changing around us.

This latest game of political football is just another cleat to fall, along with expansion and the subsequent decision to play the
ACC men’s basketball tournament in Brooklyn. The further we get from Sedgefield, the more uncomfortable we are.

North Carolina has always been the ACC’s home. Greensboro has always been its soft place to land. When we next see a basketball tournament in Greensboro, presumably in 2020, what will it look like? When we next see the football championship game in Charlotte, it might be wearing mouse ears.

If we see it at all.

Gosh you wouldn’t have known that based on all the doom-and-gloom columns from sportswriters all over the state a couple of weeks ago. But as yours truly posted at the time, it’s indeed all about money with the NCAA and the ACC, which makes their so-called ‘principled stances’ ring hollow.