Dec. 5, 2007
ACC Basketball Timeline
GREENSBORO, N.C. - This Friday (Dec. 7) marks the 50th anniversary of C.D. Chesley's first live weekly ACC basketball telecast. On December 7, 1957, Chesley unveiled the first of his live weekly ACC TV telecasts with North Carolina's 79-55 victory over Clemson in the Tar Heels' Woollen Gym. North Carolina's Tommy Kearns led all scorers with a game-high 32 points while the Tigers were led by Walt Gibbons who scored 12 points.
Jim Simpson and Bill Creasy call the game, which is shown on a network of 12 stations in the South and along the Eastern Seaboard. Chesley is inspired to telecast ACC basketball after watching the drama of North Carolina's narrow victory over Wake Forest in the 1957 ACC Tournament semifinals. He sets up a temporary five-station network that spring to telecast North Carolina's games against Michigan State and Kansas from the Final Four in Kansas City.
The response is so strong that Chesley puts together an 11-game package of Saturday afternoon games for the 1957-58 season. His expanding network, sponsored primarily by Pilot Life Insurance, would help fuel the ACC's drive to become the nation's premier basketball conference.
