Meet Clyde B. McCoy, Ph.D., chairman emeritus of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and president of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). No, that last part wasn't a typo -- McCoy sits atop an athletics empire that generates $250 million annually and is the sports sanctioning body for the University of Miami, Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.

Having been an athlete, preacher, civil rights activist and academician over the course of 68 wide-ranging years, McCoy is delighted to add athletics czar to his eclectic CV. His term as president began this year and expires in August 2011.

"When I was inducted as the president of the ACC in May, I actually said: 'This is a dream that I couldn't have even dreamt,' " McCoy says with a twang evocative of his Grady, Virginia, hometown. "It's so far afield, but what an ideal position! I've been a jock my whole life, I love sports. My wife says to this day: 'You should have been a coach!' "

Back in 2003, when UM announced it was leaving the Big East Conference for the ACC, McCoy was chairman of epidemiology and public health, as well as the director of the Comprehensive Drug Research Center, a post he still holds. He's directed the drug-abuse research facility ever since it opened in 1974 and has been involved in UM athletics for almost as long.

A descendent of the McCoy family embroiled in the infamous Hatfield-McCoy battles of the late 1800s, McCoy was a jock of all trades who competed in track, football and basketball as a Norview High School student in Norfolk, Virginia, where McCoy is being inducted onto the `Wall of Honor.' While earning two theology degrees at the University of Cincinnati, as well as degrees in sociology and demography, McCoy was a first-stringer on the school's basketball and baseball teams, and a co-founder of the school's first black student association. He's also listed as one of Cincinnati's most distinguished alumnus.

McCoy's clearly someone whose yen for competition is embedded in his DNA, along with an inclination to fight for what he believes in. Convinced he had the background to be a good ACC president, McCoy's deep desire for the non-paying post led to him being elected into office, with the backing of UM President Donna E. Shalala.

At any given time, a million and one things are vying for the ACC president's attention, as McCoy has discovered since taking over. But a couple of objectives have percolated to the top of McCoy's to-do list, and one concerns making sure that student athletes receive top-notch educations.

"That still is not where it should be, so I really want to push that," says McCoy, who as a young man was fired by the Church of Christ for giving a sermon condemning Jim Crow and racial segregation. "I want to continue this theme of the integration between academics and athletics.

"The ACC, of all the BCS (football's Bowl Championship Series) conferences, by far has the best academic progress rate," says McCoy, whose Ph.D. is in sociology and was earned at the University of Cincinnati. "And I think because of the way we're governed, the way we're structured, our priorities go toward academics."

However, McCoy is ever-mindful of the fact that the ACC is a business. Not surprisingly, his other major priority has to do with the conference's bottom line.

"During my presidency, one of the biggest things we need to do is renegotiate our TV contract," McCoy says. "We have to recognize where we are, relative to a business model.

"The Southeastern Conference just renegotiated their TV contract for 15 years, and they're getting over $200 million per year," McCoy continues. "Renegotiating the ACC's TV contract is critical to us as a conference, and to the exposure that we get as a conference."

McCoy has plenty of ACC-oriented displays in his office, as one might expect. But emphasizing the duality of his existence, he takes pains to point out a leadership award presented to him last year by the late state senator Jim King for enhancing biomedical research in Florida.

"My Number One job at the University of Miami is to be a professor," McCoy says. "UM has made allowances that give me time for my ACC obligations, for which I am grateful."

When his stint as ACC president ends, McCoy is looking forward to making a full return to research and teaching. And to keep his competitive juices flowing, he'll be looking to maintain a National Institutes of Health annual funding streak that's remained unbroken since October 1974.

To McCoy, that's every bit as important as ensuring that the ACC stays a championship-caliber conference while he's at the helm.