kids encyclopedia robot

Atlantic Coast Conference facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a big group of colleges and universities in the United States. These schools play sports against each other. The ACC started in 1953. Seven schools from another group, the Southern Conference, decided to form their own new conference.

ACC Schools

The ACC has 15 schools. For sports like football and baseball, these schools are split into two groups: the Atlantic Division and the Coastal Division.

  • Notre Dame is a special case. It does not play football in the ACC. Instead, it is an "independent" school in football, meaning it doesn't belong to a conference for that sport. However, Notre Dame does play five of its football games each year against other ACC schools.
  • Syracuse does not have a baseball team. So, for baseball, Notre Dame plays in the Atlantic Division instead of Syracuse.

Here are the schools that are part of the ACC:

School Location Started Type Nickname Joined ACC ACC Division
Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 1863 Private (Catholic) Eagles 2005 Atlantic
Clemson University Clemson, South Carolina 1889 Public Tigers 1953 Atlantic
Duke University Durham, North Carolina 1838 Private Blue Devils 1953 Coastal
Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 1851 Public Seminoles 1991 Atlantic
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) Atlanta, Georgia 1885 Public Yellow Jackets 1979 Coastal
University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky 1798 Public Cardinals 2014 Atlantic
MiamiUniversity of Miami Coral Gables, Florida 1925 Private Hurricanes 2004 Coastal
North CarolinaUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1789 Public Tar Heels 1953 Coastal
North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina 1887 Public Wolfpack 1953 Atlantic
Notre DameUniversity of Notre Dame South Bend, Indiana 1842 Private (Catholic) Fighting Irish 2013 Atlantic
PittsburghUniversity of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1787 State-related Panthers 2013 Coastal
Syracuse University Syracuse, New York 1870 Private Orange 2013 Atlantic
VirginiaUniversity of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia 1819 Public Cavaliers 1953 Coastal
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
(Virginia Tech)		 Blacksburg, Virginia 1872 Public Hokies 2004 Coastal
Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1834 Private Demon Deacons 1953 Atlantic

Former ACC Schools

Two schools used to be part of the ACC but have since left:

School Location Started Type Joined ACC Left ACC Current Conference Nickname
University of Maryland, College Park College Park, Maryland 1801 Public 1953 2014 Big Ten Conference Terrapins
University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 1801 Public 1953 1971 Southeastern Conference Gamecocks

Sports Played in the ACC

As of the 2014–15 school year, the ACC holds championships in 26 different sports. This means they have tournaments to find the best team in each sport.

  • 12 of these are men's sports.
  • 13 are women's sports.
  • One sport, Fencing, has separate championships for men's and women's teams within the ACC. However, for the national championship (NCAA), men and women compete together.

Here are some of the sports played in the ACC:


Images for kids

  • John Swofford

    Commissioner John Swofford

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Atlantic Coast Conference para niños

kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Atlantic Coast Conference Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.