National Football Foundation

A native of Baltimore, Md., and 1946 graduate of Loyola High School, Gene Corrigan participated in nearly every sport available in his school and community.  Before embarking on his collegiate career, he completed an 18-month stint immediately following high school with the United States Army.  Despite his yearning to play intercollegiate ice hockey, he enrolled at Duke University in Durham, N.C., where a similar fast-paced sport—lacrosse—was offered.  He became a four-year starter for the Blue Devils, leading them to the national title game in 1951. 

Corrigan graduated from Duke in 1952 with a degree in liberal arts and returned to Baltimore where he taught Latin, English and History at St. Paul’s School where he also coached prep football, basketball and lacrosse. He moved to the collegiate coaching ranks in 1955, serving as the head men's soccer and lacrosse coach at Washington and Lee from 1955-58 and at Virginia from 1958-67, tallying a career college soccer mark of 55–49–9 and a career college lacrosse record of 67–64. From 1981-87 Corrigan was the athletics director at the University of Notre Dame, and then served as the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) from 1987-97.

During his athletics administration career, he helped shape intercollegiate athletic policy as a member of the powerful NCAA Council and Executive Committee.  In addition to serving on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee and chairing the Division I Men’s Lacrosse Committee, he was intimately involved in the protracted and complicated football television negotiations involving the College Football Association, the NCAA and its member schools and networks.  From 1995-97 in his final two years as ACC Commissioner, he concurrently served as the President of the NCAA. He had also previously served as President of the United States Lacrosse Coaches Association.

Corrigan remains a member of the National Football Foundation Board of Directors and College Hall of Fame and serves as the chair on the NFF Honors Court. Corrigan was named recipient of the Marvin “Skeeter” Francis Award in 2006 by the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association, recognizing notable achievement and service to the media in the coverage of ACC sports.  A year later, he was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.  He and his wife Lena have seven children, 19 grandchildren and four great grandchildren, and reside near Charlottesville, Va. In retirement he remains active as a college athletics consultant and with various fundraising projects for the Charlottesville Catholic School.