by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Michael Kelly’s favorite memory of Jacksonville? Not of the Super Bowl game he directed for the city in 2005. It was the night before.
“I was in my office (in the 501 building on the west edge of Downtown) and I could see all the way to the Main Street Bridge. It was packed with people,” he said. “A lot of our effort then was to bring people to Downtown, not only the visitors but also the locals.
“I thought to myself, ‘This is really great. We set out to do something for Downtown and it worked.’
“The game was the next night, but somehow I knew that all would work out the way everyone wanted.”
Kelly left soon after the game to run the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami and now he’s a man who again can have an impact on Jacksonville’s economy — his opinion will go a long way toward the decision on where the Atlantic Coast Conference football championship game will be placed in the future.
“I decided it would be good for the family to be settled a bit,” said Kelly. “The offer came and I jumped at it.”
The offer was to become the assistant commissioner for football for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Kelly and his family moved into their new home in Greensboro, N.C. earlier this summer; they arrived there after living several years each in Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami, where he ran Super Bowls.
“We have so many fond memories,” said Kelly, a resident from June 2002, when he came from Tampa, to June 2005, when he moved to Miami. “We lived in Jacksonville Golf & Country Club, which was a terrific community, and our youngest was born at the Beaches (Baptist) hospital. We made so many friends, not only among those involved with the (Super Bowl) Host Committee but also the people we met.”
Kelly again holds a piece of Jacksonville’s economic and sports future. He’s the point man on the selection of future sites for the ACC championship game, and whoever is chosen will get a big influx of tourists for a long weekend.
The ACC’s contract with the Gator Bowl Association was originally for two years and was extended for a third this year. It matches the conference’s two divisional winners in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, this year on Dec. 1.
“We’ll have a clean slate when we consider the next contract,” he said during the conference’s annual Football Kickoff in Pinehurst, N.C., this week. “Jacksonville will certainly be a major contender.”
Four cities have answered the RFP (Request for Proposal): Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Charlotte.
“The bids are due August 31,” said Kelly, “and we’ll meet with the bidders in October, and again during the week of the championship game. I expect an announcement sometime in December.”
Three future games will be awarded, said ACC Commissioner John Swofford.
“Our television contracts run through 2010 so we’ll award the games until then,” he said. “We know Jacksonville well. We’ve had four different teams play there and that gives us four perspectives. The Gator Bowl Association people are very solid, very knowledgeable.
“Does it give them an edge? Can’t say. We need to talk with everyone.”
It’s possible that more than one city will be happy.
“The book is open,” said Swofford. “We could give one city the game one year and another city the game in another year.”
Kelly has the same boyish look — a few extra pounds, perhaps — and the same careful demeanor that Jacksonville will remember. He speaks in the same quiet voice and thinks before answering questions. As he stood before about 75 reporters and photographers at the ACC media day on Tuesday, he stated the championship game situation so clearly that no one had a question.
“I came from a college atmosphere,” he said the evening before, “and working for the ACC is something that fits perfectly for me. I’ve had event experience (Super Bowls, etc.) and this puts me back in colleges.
“I’m an ACC guy (he and wife Lisa both graduated from Wake Forest,) too.”
The future?
“Maybe lots of options,” he said. “I think the experience I’m getting will give me a shot at being an athletic director, or maybe a conference commissioner. Something in sports administration (he has a master’s degree in that subject.)
“I know Jacksonville wants a Super Bowl again some day. It was fun to be part of the first one, but I suspect I’ll be involved elsewhere when the next one comes.”