The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997           TAG: 9701220542
SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   96 lines

CORRIGAN IS READY TO CALL IT A CAREER HIS LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AT U.VA., NOTRE DAME AND AS ACC CHIEF IS A LONG ONE.

Gene Corrigan is going to retire this summer never having fulfilled his one career goal - to be lacrosse coach at the Naval Academy.

Sitting in that new Charlottesville home he and wife Lena have built - the one that's a short drive from three of their seven children and nine of their 13 (soon to be 14) grandkids - Corrigan should find solace in a career that includes:

Lacrosse, soccer and/or assistant basketball coach, University of Virginia, 1958-67.

Athletic director, Virginia, 1971-80.

Athletic director, Notre Dame, 1981-87.

Commissioner, ACC, 1987-97.

President, NCAA, 1995-97.

Not bad.

Corrigan, who appeared at the Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree Tuesday, may be the most qualified man in America to discuss what college athletics were, are and should be.

At the same time he coached at Virginia, Corrigan also taught four phys ed classes and ran the intramural program. For $6,000.

As Virginia athletic director, he hired Terry Holland to coach basketball. Holland carried the program to national prominence.

At Notre Dame, Corrigan hired Lou Holtz. He, Holtz and NBC turned Irish football into America's Program.

As NCAA president, he was instrumental in constructing the bowl alliance.

He considers himself the head of the ``last old-fashioned major conference in the country,'' because ACC members play every other school in football and home-and-home in basketball.

Many of Corrigan's opinions on college athletics are rooted in old-fashioned values, like honesty, community spirit and giving kids a second chance.

``I never felt like an administrator until I became a commissioner,'' he said. ``Generally speaking, my door has always been open to the kids. I always felt that athletics was part of the total university and that we had to be accessible as possible.

``When I was coaching at Virginia, the guy down at the police department would call my house. He'd ask me, `What's this kid really like?' and if I said that he was basically a really good kid, he'd tell me to come get him and that would be it. Today, it's like people can't wait to get someone. Some things are blown out of proportion.

``I hate the Dallas Cowboys and everything they stand for, but this latest (false accusation against Erik Williams and Michael Irvin) shows how they can become sitting targets. Then again, it's amazing how different the kids are now. Very often, athletes are very, very different from my era.''

Indirectly, Corrigan was part of college football's biggest story of 1996 - Holtz's resignation. Corrigan may have been the world's least surprised person when he heard the news.

``When I hired him, I told him it wasn't a lifetime job,'' Corrigan says. ``Eight, nine years, I said. My committee for that job was (former coach) Ara (Parseghian) and he told me that the job just beats you to death because you can't reach your own expectations. Once you win that national championship, it all comes down on you. Lou came close three or four other times, but didn't get it, and that takes a chunk out of you. He was outstanding, and I hope he's looked at favorably.

``What happened to him happened to Ara and happened to Dan (Devine). They got to a point where they weren't sure of themselves. He got out.

``Knute Rockne is still alive. It's like Thomas Jefferson at Virginia. He's still there. Rockne's still alive, and (Frank) Leahy's players come around all the time. (Johnny) Lujack and those people, and they're wonderful. They played four years and never lost a game. That's always around you, and any coach there wants to do the same thing. You can't anymore.''

Corrigan's conversations with Holtz have convinced him that Holtz will coach again, but only after taking off 1997. That's a strategy Corrigan applauds and one he attempted to get former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps to adopt. He'd even arranged it with university administrators.

``He'd been there 18 years and the program was going nowhere, but he couldn't see it,'' Corrigan said. ``I thought he needed to get away from it for a year. ... But he didn't want to do it.''

Corrigan already had left Notre Dame for the ACC before Phelps was fired.

As commissioner of the conference, Corrigan forced short-sighted athletic directors to address the league's Achilles' heel - the erratic quality of its football. He dove-tailed that with his desire to see the conference expand to Florida and came up with the plan to annex Florida State in 1990.

``The difference between athletic director and commissioner is that the AD is always just trying to get through the day,'' Corrigan said. ``The commissioner has a chance to get involved in some fun things, to look ahead, and I did. When I saw all the major markets in Florida, and how the third-highest ratio of our overall alumni lived there, I knew we had to get in there somehow.''

Corrigan said he isn't sure when, or if, the ACC will expand again. There are no markets he wants to see explored. He's ``pretty sure'' the member schools are happy. He doesn't anticipate any defections.

Besides, in a couple of months his biggest worry will be keeping tabs on all those grandchildren. ILLUSTRATION: Gene Corrigan never fulfilled his one career goal - to

coach lacrosse at Navy.


by CNB