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The ACC's partial turnaround

South Carolina's ball-and-chain is Greensboro's gain.

The ACC baseball tournament will be played here in 2012 instead of in Myrtle Beach, thanks to South Carolina's loyalty to Civil War symbolism.

While I'm pleased for Greensboro, and compliment Don Moore of the Grasshoppers for his persistence in winning this bid, I can't give the ACC much credit. After all, it awarded the event to MB for 2011-13 just a couple of months ago, then reversed course. (Durham will get the tourney in 2011 and 2013.)

The Confederate flag didn't change its position on the statehouse grounds in Columbia during that time. The ACC originally didn't think it had a problem, only to decide later it did.

So, if it's a problem to hold ACC events in South Carolina because the flag is still flying in Columbia, why do ACC teams travel to Clemson for football and basketball games and other athletic competitions?

Oh, and by the way, the ACC men's and women's track and field championships are scheduled at Clemson next April, and the 2010 ACC rowing championships will be held on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. Here's the schedule.

I don't think much of the Confederate flag. The S.C. legislature voted in 1962 to fly it over the Capitol, an obvious act of defiance in the face of the civil rights movement. In 2000, it was pulled down and a different version of the flag was raised over a memorial to Confederate dead elsewhere on the grounds. The NAACP has continued to demand its removal and calls for a boycott of the state.

The flag has a place in museums and historical displays, but it's not an object of honor in my view. It represents a terrible chapter in our past, and South Carolina's key role in instigating a bloody and misguided rebellion against the United States was nothing to celebrate. South Carolina ought to break free of that bleak legacy. The war was lost 144 years ago!

That said, it is up to the people of South Carolina to decide how to resolve this conflict. Outside groups likewise are entitled to respond however they think appropriate.

Personally, I do not boycott South Carolina. When I'm visiting Polk County, N.C., I usually make my way across the state line to fill up with less-expensive gasoline and, at this time of year, to purchase wonderful Inman peaches. Last year, I spent an enjoyable weekend in Charleston.

The ACC's turnaround on the baseball decision works to Greensboro's advantage, but it's hardly consistent on the point.

Unless it wants to give Greensboro the track and rowing championships, too.