Syracuse football player named to advisory committee to help select next ACC commissioner

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse football defensive end Kingsley Jonathan has been selected to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) search advisory committee to help identify the ACC’s next commissioner.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford in June announced that the 2020-21 athletic year would be his last in the position.

The 20-member committee is responsible for providing guidance and collecting information and feedback from member schools as part of the search process to select the next commissioner, Syracuse said in a Thursday news release. Jonathan joins Syracuse Director of Athletics John Wildhack as the university’s representatives on the committee.

Jonathan — a senior from Baltimore, Maryland — is one of five student-athletes on the committee. The others are North Carolina women’s soccer player Rachel Jones, N.C. State men’s soccer player Leon Krapf, Notre Dame baseball player Jack Sheehan, and Florida State women’s basketball player Morgan Jones.

In addition to the student-athletes, the committee is comprised of several presidents, athletic directors, senior woman administrators and faculty athletic representatives.

“The search advisory committee will play an important role in helping us define the qualities we are looking for in our next commissioner,” ACC Board Chair and Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud said. “By bringing together a diverse group of people from across the ACC to inform our process, including our student-athletes, we will position ourselves to find highly qualified candidates, and ultimately select the right Commissioner to lead the conference into the next era.”

About Jonathan

A nominee for both the William V. Campbell Trophy (for best football scholar-athlete) and the Wuerffel Trophy (for community service), Jonathan earned College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District honors and was picked to the All-ACC Academic Team last season.

He is a member of the Syracuse student-athlete advisory committee (SAAC) board and is in the second year of a two-year term as one of the ACC’s three representatives with voting privileges under the Division I autonomy process, Syracuse said.

Jonathan has played in 33 career games with two starts. He has amassed 49 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, and 7.5 sacks. He had 24 tackles, three tackles for loss, and 1.5 sacks in 2019.