I used
this nifty tool to approximate an answer to the above question. It limits you at 10 points to triangulate, so I couldn't just enter all 18(!?!?) ACC schools. I pared things down to the following 8 points because they feel like a pretty good generalization of where the conference lies now:
- Chestnut Hill, MA (Boston College)--the conference's northernmost point
- Syracuse, NY--a westward arm that I think establishes another important corner of the polygon
- Louisville, KY--establishes another polygonal edge that more or less encompasses Pitt's location SSW of Syracuse
- Greensboro, NC--a central location symbolizing the conference's historic heartland...of course no school located there, but there's the obvious cultural significance, and it's within 80 miles or so of all four NC universities
- Atlanta, GA--a placemarker for both GA Tech and near(ish)by Clemson
- Miami, FL--pushes the polygon southward and swings nearby to Tallahassee
- Dallas, TX--an important new midpoint, location of SMU
- Castro Valley, CA--halfway between Berkeley and Palo Alto, splits the Cal/Stanford difference
This all got me an exact geographic center of
an unincorporated spot in Cheatham County, Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Nashville. To me this makes perfect sense and is exactly the kind of stupid answer I would have wanted to this stupid question.
I'd be interested in thoughts as to how I might adjust my inputs if anyone can think of a more accurate way to approximate our conference's heart, because this is the important work I'm doing today.