Two-plus months ago, the University of Virginia opened a $75 million Olympic Sports Center, the operations hub for many of the Cavaliers’ historically successful non-revenue programs.
The ribbon-cutting was a symbolic precursor to a remarkable fall sports season not only in Charlottesville, but also across the ACC.
Late summer/early fall is a unique time for college athletics, the start of the fiscal, academic and competition years. There are fewer sports than in the winter and spring seasons, but one of them is King Football, the economic engine that drives the entire enterprise and that is, at many institutions, too big to fail.
Often lost in our collective football fixation are sports such as soccer, cross country, volleyball and field hockey, and in the wake of legal settlements that ignited six- and seven-figure salaries for football and basketball players, many feared that institutional and/or donor support for Olympic programs would wither.
History says that’s unlikely in the ACC. Indeed, given new roster limits set by the House antitrust case, league schools added more than 900 new scholarships, 53% of them (476) for women’s sports.
“I’m incredibly pleased about that, but that’s been the ACC,” league commissioner Jim Phillips said earlier this month at the ACC’s preseason basketball media days. “… For nearly 75 years, this conference has been about broad-based programming for women’s and men’s sports, and also excelling obviously in football and basketball…
“I think it’s a testament to our presidents and our athletic directors, because these are individual campus decisions.”
Mia Abello, foreground, and Emma Watchilla #23 are among the leading scorers for the University of Virginia field hockey team. 2025 (UVA Athletics)
As Phillips often touts, the ACC’s 29 NCAA team championships in the last four academic years (2021-25), won by 10 schools, are the most of any conference in its respective league-sponsored sports. Olympic programs account for all 29, with fall sports contributing 11.
This fall’s national rankings should embolden the conference’s 18 members to sustain their investments. Every ACC school has at least one fall team in the polls, and at least three league teams are among the top 16 in all the conference’s seven sponsored sports, including football, where four programs that have never reached the College Football Playoff — undefeated Georgia Tech and once-beaten Miami, Virginia and Louisville — reside in the top 16.
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But the ACC is especially deep in field hockey (five of the top 10 in the NCAA’s Ratings Percentage Index), women’s soccer (five of the top 11) and women’s volleyball (four of the top eight). Moreover, there have been times this season when Notre Dame, Stanford and Virginia were 1-2-3 in women’s soccer.
North Carolina’s Kate Faasse and Pitt’s Olivia Babcock are the reigning national players of the year in soccer and volleyball, respectively. UNC field hockey’s Ryleigh Heck was the 2023 national player of the year and is poised to become a four-time All-American.
And they are a mere sampling.
The quality of competition is manna for the ACC Network, and championship-caliber matches like Florida State’s come-from-behind women’s soccer victory at UVA last week have produced riveting finishes.
Yes, ACCN most often caters to the largest audiences with football and basketball programming. But the exposure it provides for Olympic sports is invaluable to those teams, and starting Friday morning with men’s and women’s cross country, ACCN will air each of the league’s fall Olympic sports championships.
Virginia and North Carolina have long been the ACC’s Olympic sport gold standards, witness the six national championships each has won in the last four years, and their perennial top-20 finishes in the Directors’ Cup all-sports standings. Stanford’s entrance into the conference last year changed the calculus.
The Cardinal own 26 Directors’ Cup titles in 31 years, have never placed lower than third and this fall rank among the top 15 in women’s cross country, women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer. No ACC team has ever won an NCAA volleyball title, a void Stanford — the Cardinal have claimed three in the last decade — could fill.
But no ACC school this fall approaches Virginia’s heater. Not even Stanford.
Albin Gashi #12 and University of Virginia men’s soccer team have lost only one match this 2025 season. (UVA Athletics)
The Cavaliers boast top-15 teams in men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey and football, the product of athletes such as reigning ACC cross country champion Gary Martin, men’s soccer breakout freshman Nick Simmonds (first Virginia hat trick in 13 years) and three-time women’s soccer All-American Lia Godfrey (five game-winning goals).
Then there are coaches such as George Gelnovatch, a soccer All-American at Virginia who in seven seasons as a men’s assistant and the last 29-plus as head coach, has celebrated each of the program’s seven national titles. Vin Lananna arrived as director of track and cross country in 2019 with Hall of Fame credentials after coaching teams at Oregon and Stanford to a combined 11 NCAA championships.
“𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗢𝗹𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝙜…𝙞𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮.” Check out all the highlights of the brand new OSC and the Grand Opening ceremony!
#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/NQhP6hkTxO
— Virginia Cavaliers (@VirginiaSports) September 12, 2025
UVA’s soccer, lacrosse, track/cross country, field hockey and rowing teams call the new Harrison Family Olympic Sports Center home, this after years in decrepit University Hall and later in trailers.
“For us as student-athletes, it’s more than walls, fields and an equipment room,” men’s soccer senior Umberto Pelà told the crowd at the complex’s September opening. “It represents opportunity.”
With 28 sponsored sports, 15 for women, the ACC offers unsurpassed opportunity.
David Teel, david.teel@virginiamedia.com
