The Summer Olympics have long been a venue for making political statements. This year promises to be no exception, with at least one message apt to come from an unlikely American source.

Years before Adolph Hitler precipitated World War II, he used the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a benign showcase for his malevolent Third Reich. Taking quite another tack, American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos mounted the medal stand at the 1968 Games at Mexico City -- boycotted by many African-American athletes from the United States -- and raised a closed-fisted salute to Black Power as a form of protest.

More often, Olympic protest came in the form of boycotts, common since seven countries sat out the 1956 Games at Melbourne, Australia, for various reasons. The U.S. and 64 other nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians and their allies in Eastern Europe returned the favor by boycotting the Summer

The ACC’s weakest draft since 2004 came and went the other day, and understandably garnered little fanfare in these parts. But what was revealed by the selections, or lack thereof, is eminently worthy of discussion.

J.J. Hickson of N.C. State was the sole first round pick from the league, a dearth of front-rank talent not seen since ’04, when Duke’s Luol Deng was similarly alone at the top. Like Deng, Hickson left after a single season, and so hardly built up a reservoir of interest and attachment among fans, no matter how pleased they might be for their school or conference or for the young man.

That relative emotional disconnect has become increasingly common. One-third of the ACC players selected in the first round over the past half-decade were freshmen: Hickson, Deng, UNC’s Marvin Williams (2005) and Brandan Wright (2007), and Georgia Tech’s Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton, both taken in 2007.

Hickson’s

Odd that Sam Cassell, an aging member of the Boston Celtics, won an NBA title the same week Duke football took another, somewhat undeserved hit in public perception.

What we choose to believe, or hear, and what actually happened can be subtlely different things, as a comment from Cassell, the former Florida State guard, aptly illustrated following his team’s first ACC basketball game.

FSU, an expansion addition for football purposes, debuted at the Smith Center on December 15, 1991 against a North Carolina squad coming off a Final Four season. Cassell scored 16 of his team’s first 23 points, and the Metro Conference escapees registered a stunning 86-74 victory over the defending ACC champs. Afterward, crowing happily in the locker room, the loquacious junior college transfer aptly dismissed the somnolent Dean Dome assemblage as a “cheese-and-wine crowd.”

The comment struck home in part because it inverted an oft-repeated cliché.

The Sunday curse endures.

The victim count rose this year to 33. That’s how many ACC baseball squads have advanced to the College World Series, only to come home without a championship, since Wake Forest won the league’s first and only title.

Among original members of the conference, Clemson advanced to the World Series 11 times, followed by North Carolina’s seven visits. Neither has won a championship. Duke and N.C. State went once each since the ACC was founded (1961 and 1968, respectively), and came up empty. Maryland and Virginia have never reached the College World Series.

This season Florida State went to its eighth CWS since joining the league in 1992, and promptly lost twice. Top-seed Miami, making its second appearance as a conference member, lasted three games. The Hurricanes won four titles prior to joining the ACC.

The ACC team that survived longest in 2008, as in 2006 and 2007, was North Carolina. This time,

Few hires touch so many notable bases at once. Even fewer have their major significance so thoroughly ignored by the media.

When the Atlantic 10 Conference selected Bernadette McGlade as its commissioner earlier this month, the choice reverberated on several levels.

She is now the fourth ACC product, and third former Tar Heel, directing a Division I league. Both totals are unsurpassed.

McGlade, 50, played basketball at Chapel Hill from 1977 through 1980, prior to the advent of NCAA control of the women’s game. She still holds UNC records for total rebounds and rebound average in a season, and total rebounds and rebound average in a career. Her career rebound total is second in ACC women’s history (one behind the leader), and her per-game average is fifth-best.

The other University of North Carolina products already serving as conference commissioners are Jim Delany of the Big 10, a former men’s basketball player (1968-70),