More excerpts from Kevin McNamara's "Basketball Warfare"

In the fall of 1993, another key development was playing out. The College Football Association’s (CFA) TV contract with ABC and ESPN was about to expire. With Miami as one of the nation’s hot teams, the Big East was set to join the SEC and other conferences in leaving the CFA behind in a scramble to cut their own TV deal.

The SEC had signed with CBS but that network was looking for more games to fill up its Saturday afternoons. It turned its focus to the Big East. At the NCAA Convention in San Antonio in January 1994, Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel said he was approached by Neil Pilson, the CBS Sports President.

“The meeting was a shocker,” Crouthamel wrote on Syracuse’s Web site a few years ago. “CBS had been out of the college football business for some time with ABC/ESPN claiming all the exclusive rights. This was CBS’ opportunity to get back in. It had reached an agreement with the SEC for football and basketball, and needed Big East inventory to round out its programming. CBS laid a lot of money on the table for exclusive national network rights of The BIG EAST Conference for football and basketball. We pointed out to CBS that we could not represent the non-football playing schools in the Big East for their basketball rights. The response from CBS was that it would then assume the basketball rights for the eight Big East football schools. A total mess!”

In effect, CBS was asking B.C., Pitt, Miami and Syracuse to sell their basketball rights apart from the rest of the league. Pilson’s idea was dismissed in the conference office but the amount of money for football’s TV rights certainly was not. The resolve of the football schools to add at least two new, full-time members (for a new total of 12 schools) grew strong but the resistance of the basketball schools was fierce, maybe deeper than it had ever been before.

At least one [bb] athletic director at the time insisted that the league would be better off splitting [rather] than adding Rutgers and West Virginia, the favorites for the new spots. “Why would we ever want to go play West Virginia,” said the AD. “We already helped Miami and what have they done for us? And the facade of a rival league forming was a joke.”

In order to scare the basketball schools, word was floated that Rutgers (and possibly West Virginia) were in discussions to join the Big Ten. The idea, almost laughable now, had some credence at the time and stoked fears that BC, Miami, Pitt and Syracuse could leave the Big East and form a league with Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple, Virginia Tech and perhaps Louisville and Cincinnati. That 10-team conglomerate would cripple the basketball schools’ future.

“It became a pretty divisive thing,” Tranghese said. “The basketball people tell the football people, ‘Look, we gave you our name. We gave you our people to help you run everything. We gave you the Big East Television Network. And none of this has been in the best interests of basketball. When will it stop?”

It ultimately did stop because of college sports’ two-headed monster: money and TV. By February, the football schools were assured of positive expansion votes from Connecticut and Villanova but only with the proviso that those two could join the football league if they ever elevated their programs from 1-AA to 1-A. But expansion was contingent on 7 of 10 votes and cracking another vote out of the Catholic school block of Georgetown-Providence-St. John’s-Seton Hall proved futile.

That’s when the football schools decided to call their partner’s bluff. On Feb. 15, 1994, the Big East announced it had signed a five year contract with CBS worth $60 million. But the deal was the property of the four 1-A football schools. The six other schools - UConn, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova - now faced the choice of joining the contract through an expanded Big East or pursuing another alignment. At the time, the football schools were pushing a four-school expansion that would bloat the league to 14 schools and include Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

“Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Villanova and Connecticut are aware of the basketball portion of the deal,” Tranghese said in announcing the CBS deal. “Whether they decide to be a part of it is a decision they have to make about membership.”

If the league voted against expansion, the football side would form a new conference and the $60 million TV deal would be theirs. (A breakup actually would have triggered a clause to renegotiate the deal downward). Tranghese did say he was reluctant to sign a new network TV deal before settling his conference’s membership questions but he felt time was short on wrapping up a TV deal of this magnitude.

“CBS began talking relative to football and as part of that, they put a basketball offer on the table,” Tranghese said. “We were faced with a very attractive window of opportunity for a football deal and we had to decide to face it or let it go. We decided to seize the window of opportunity.”

With the clock ticking on a decision, the league gathered in New York in March for the Big East Tournament. Connecticut was riding high at the time with Donyell Marshall, Ray Allen and Doron Sheffer. Georgetown and Providence ultimately matched up in the finals with Rick Barnes’ Friars and rebounding machine Michael Smith winning the schools’ first (and only) tourney title.

But a day before the tournament began, the presidents and athletic directors met at Lubin House, Syracuse’s New York City campus. Things were not going well.

“Chancellor (Kenneth) Shaw of Syracuse hosted the meeting and it was a very, very contentious meeting,” Tranghese said. “Then Chancellor Shaw basically threw all the AD’s out of the room. He just said ‘get out. You are incapable of solving this.’ Then he put his hand on my arm and said ‘you stay right here.”

Tranghese sat among the priests and academics and talked straight about the future of college sports. It was a future revolving around football and at this point the Big East’s football schools were holding all the cards: they owned the TV deal, they had a powerhouse team in Miami, they would remain strong in basketball. On top of that, St. John’s and Villanova had slumped badly on the court but the priests who led the Catholic schools didn’t seem to grasp the strength football schools across the country had attained.

“The presidents asked me a lot of hard questions in that meeting and some of them weren’t happy with some of my answers. But I told them what we had to do to survive,” Tranghese said. “I told them ‘you might as well just split because if you think we’re going to stay together by rejecting Rutgers and West Virginia, you’re wrong."

“There were presidents on the basketball side who had been painted a very optimistic picture of what their life would be alone and I told them they were dead wrong. A couple of them were upset with me but I just said ‘with all due respect, I know more than the person telling you these things. You can survive but not at the level of doing what you’re doing.”

Outside the room, the athletic directors fretted. “The AD’s were dismissed and they closed the door. We had put a lot of work in on this but we didn’t find out about the vote until it was already taken,” said Syracuse’s
Crouthamel.

The 10 presidents quickly agreed to not kill the conference but Georgetown, Providence and Seton Hall were staunchly against any expansion. Ultimately, Syracuse’s Shaw and BC’s Father Monan convinced the president at St. John’s, The Rev. Donald J. Harrington, to vote their way. Rutgers and West Virginia were in.

“It wasn’t a crisis but it was close to it,” said Crouthamel. “It could’ve become a crisis but a couple of presidents from the Catholic schools understood that, depending on their vote, the whole conference could split. It could have been a painful decision.”

With the Eastern media in town for the basketball tournament, the Big East held a late-afternoon news conference where the presidents and athletic directors of the 10 schools attempted to put on a happy face. It didn’t work. What came across quite clearly in a ballroom at the midtown Grand Hyatt Hotel was that the Big East Conference had survived, but not without leaving some deep scars.

“We thought 12 teams would help what is best for the Big East and UConn,” said Dr. Harry J. Hartley, then the president at Connecticut. “Our goal was to keep the Big East together more than anything.”

Speaking with school president The Rev. Philip A. Smith on his side, Providence AD John Marinatto said, “Providence was philosophically opposed to expansion because the league was formed with basketball in mind and the membership kept growing for football reasons and was getting away from the original principles of the league. The idea of 14 schools was too obtrusive, but 12 is the more palatable of the choices.”

Tranghese summed up the showdown this way: “The football schools went to war to make 14 work and they lost. Then they went for 13 and lost and were faced with a problem: Do we stay with the people we’ve been in business with or not? They realized they would be walking away from a lot.”

Syracuse’s Crouthamel lobbied hard for a 14-team league and expressed deep concern about how Temple and Virginia Tech would respond to being kept out. “I didn’t feel happy about the situation we had placed them in,” Crouthamel said. “We had to make tough decisions. I was instructed to call Dave Braine at Virginia Tech after that vote. That was not a very pleasant chore.”

Amid the talks, the basketball schools kept mentioning the only football power they’d unanimously welcome with open arms: Notre Dame. Sure enough, the league moved to add Notre Dame for all sports almost as soon as the ink was dry on the invites for Rutgers and West Virginia. The Irish, as usual, backed off when any talk of adding their football program to the mix was even broached. But the Irish were very interested in finding a home for all sports except football.

Though McNamara touches on the two topics that led to the compromise vote somewhat (UConn and Nova being allowed to join if they went from 1-AA to 1-A and Notre Dame's eventual entry into the league), we get a further understanding from Jake Crouthamel's "History of the Big East" of what was involved and perhaps a reason why the bb schools who were adamant about not even expanding to 12, eventually expanded to 13 (who the hell stops at 13???):

After meeting with CBS the directors of B.C., Pitt, Miami and I met. I suggested that the only shot we had at keeping everything together and at the same time benefiting from the CBS largesse was to get a majority vote by "packing the court." To do that we needed to get two football schools accepted as new members of The BIG EAST Conference. In order to accomplish that we needed seven votes from the ten members, the four IA schools and three more. We believed UConn and Villanova would support us because both were talking about elevating their football programs to Division IA. That left one vote to coerce. If we could get it, we would be at 12 members, with a 6-6 representation of Division IA, and a 6-2 vote in the football conference. We could then force the vote on the football side, needing only one more vote on the basketball side to approve the CBS package offer.

This plan was presented to the 10 BIG EAST Directors and met with immediate and firm resistance by the non-IA schools. Once again football was driving the membership issue. After several futile and very long meetings among the directors, no resolution could be reached. The voting of the directors was split with the IA and IAA schools on one side and the basketball schools on the other. We turned the matter over to the presidents of our 10 schools to make the final decision. After two meetings a decision was reached in March, 1994, ironically at the Lubin House in New York City, the day before BIG EAST men's basketball tournament was to begin.

St. Johns had represented a very strong anti-expansion position throughout our discussions. However, once the president became involved, and with the input of then head men's basketball coach Lou Carnesecca, the long-term implications were understood, and we had our seventh vote. Rutgers and West Virginia were added as our 11th and 12th members. There were, however, some very bitter and lingering feelings both about the process and the result.

There was one condition attached to the agreement and one understanding. The condition was that should the University of Connecticut and/or Villanova move their football programs to Division IA within a given period of time, either or both would be invited to participate in The BIG EAST Football Conference as a full members. This is happening at UConn. The understanding was that the six Division IA member schools would not block acceptance of a 13th member which might have a Division IA football program but not be included in The BIG EAST Football Conference; i.e., Notre Dame. In June, 1994 Notre Dame officially became the 13th member in all sports except football.


As you can tell, this dance has been on-going for quite some time. Why am I suddenly reminded of the movie, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They"?


Neil

Thanks again Neil for the post!

That is really interesting. Thanks.

with 60 million dollar contract
could BE FB schools [plus Louv] attract
FSU, GT & Clemson, at the time there were rumors
that 3 did not like the direction of ACC

it also shows why 8-8 split is paramount
BB schools are not going to lose controll again

Ughh..

Miami
Louisville
Va Tech
West virginia
UC
Pitt
Temple
Rutgers
Syracuse
Boston College

and the possibility of adding Uconn and Nova if they went D1. How great would that have been??

Jackson

What I find interesting is that Cincinnati seemed to always been on the Big East's radar. We knew Louisville was, but now we know that Cincinnati was always highly regarded among the Big East. As a Cincinnati fan, that makes you feel good. Also, that conference would have been awesome, and wouldn't have had any problems protecting itself from being raided! Also, that article is VERY interesting, because a lot of the same principles that almost caused a split in 1994 and 2003 are still lingering today. The annoying thing is that many of the same people who complained about the Big East expanding for football reasons are still around. People like Tranghese only want to focus on basketball and only do just enough with football to help basketball. On a side note, it would be great if Villanova could move up to Division I-A football.

good find neil
so the question becomes, have attitudes changed since that time. i think its safe to say that the landscape has changed dramatically since 94. do providence, st johns and seton hall really still feel they can compete iif the league split. certaintly those schools have not had as much success since that time and football has become even more powerful in college athletics

Reading that and knowing what happened prior to that with PSU, it is clear that those on the bb side have little vision and the best thing for the future of football would be to split. The bb side has largely caused all of the issues that now face the football side. They have destroyed more than once the possibilities of a football conference on par with anyone more than once. I have to laugh now that WVU is every bit their equal in bb but they didn't want to lower themselves to play "down there". What incredible shortsightedness these people displayed. Over and over-when will it end?

(07-03-2009 11:44 PM)omnicarrier Wrote:  More excerpts from Kevin McNamara's "Basketball Warfare"

In the fall of 1993, another key development was playing out. The College Football Association’s (CFA) TV contract with ABC and ESPN was about to expire. With Miami as one of the nation’s hot teams, the Big East was set to join the SEC and other conferences in leaving the CFA behind in a scramble to cut their own TV deal.

The SEC had signed with CBS but that network was looking for more games to fill up its Saturday afternoons. It turned its focus to the Big East. At the NCAA Convention in San Antonio in January 1994, Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel said he was approached by Neil Pilson, the CBS Sports President.

“The meeting was a shocker,” Crouthamel wrote on Syracuse’s Web site a few years ago. “CBS had been out of the college football business for some time with ABC/ESPN claiming all the exclusive rights. This was CBS’ opportunity to get back in. It had reached an agreement with the SEC for football and basketball, and needed Big East inventory to round out its programming. CBS laid a lot of money on the table for exclusive national network rights of The BIG EAST Conference for football and basketball. We pointed out to CBS that we could not represent the non-football playing schools in the Big East for their basketball rights. The response from CBS was that it would then assume the basketball rights for the eight Big East football schools. A total mess!”

In effect, CBS was asking B.C., Pitt, Miami and Syracuse to sell their basketball rights apart from the rest of the league. Pilson’s idea was dismissed in the conference office but the amount of money for football’s TV rights certainly was not. The resolve of the football schools to add at least two new, full-time members (for a new total of 12 schools) grew strong but the resistance of the basketball schools was fierce, maybe deeper than it had ever been before.

At least one [bb] athletic director at the time insisted that the league would be better off splitting [rather] than adding Rutgers and West Virginia, the favorites for the new spots. “Why would we ever want to go play West Virginia,” said the AD. “We already helped Miami and what have they done for us? And the facade of a rival league forming was a joke.”

In order to scare the basketball schools, word was floated that Rutgers (and possibly West Virginia) were in discussions to join the Big Ten. The idea, almost laughable now, had some credence at the time and stoked fears that BC, Miami, Pitt and Syracuse could leave the Big East and form a league with Rutgers, West Virginia, Temple, Virginia Tech and perhaps Louisville and Cincinnati. That 10-team conglomerate would cripple the basketball schools’ future.

“It became a pretty divisive thing,” Tranghese said. “The basketball people tell the football people, ‘Look, we gave you our name. We gave you our people to help you run everything. We gave you the Big East Television Network. And none of this has been in the best interests of basketball. When will it stop?”

It ultimately did stop because of college sports’ two-headed monster: money and TV. By February, the football schools were assured of positive expansion votes from Connecticut and Villanova but only with the proviso that those two could join the football league if they ever elevated their programs from 1-AA to 1-A. But expansion was contingent on 7 of 10 votes and cracking another vote out of the Catholic school block of Georgetown-Providence-St. John’s-Seton Hall proved futile.

That’s when the football schools decided to call their partner’s bluff. On Feb. 15, 1994, the Big East announced it had signed a five year contract with CBS worth $60 million. But the deal was the property of the four 1-A football schools. The six other schools - UConn, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova - now faced the choice of joining the contract through an expanded Big East or pursuing another alignment. At the time, the football schools were pushing a four-school expansion that would bloat the league to 14 schools and include Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

“Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Villanova and Connecticut are aware of the basketball portion of the deal,” Tranghese said in announcing the CBS deal. “Whether they decide to be a part of it is a decision they have to make about membership.”

If the league voted against expansion, the football side would form a new conference and the $60 million TV deal would be theirs. (A breakup actually would have triggered a clause to renegotiate the deal downward). Tranghese did say he was reluctant to sign a new network TV deal before settling his conference’s membership questions but he felt time was short on wrapping up a TV deal of this magnitude.

“CBS began talking relative to football and as part of that, they put a basketball offer on the table,” Tranghese said. “We were faced with a very attractive window of opportunity for a football deal and we had to decide to face it or let it go. We decided to seize the window of opportunity.”

With the clock ticking on a decision, the league gathered in New York in March for the Big East Tournament. Connecticut was riding high at the time with Donyell Marshall, Ray Allen and Doron Sheffer. Georgetown and Providence ultimately matched up in the finals with Rick Barnes’ Friars and rebounding machine Michael Smith winning the schools’ first (and only) tourney title.

But a day before the tournament began, the presidents and athletic directors met at Lubin House, Syracuse’s New York City campus. Things were not going well.

“Chancellor (Kenneth) Shaw of Syracuse hosted the meeting and it was a very, very contentious meeting,” Tranghese said. “Then Chancellor Shaw basically threw all the AD’s out of the room. He just said ‘get out. You are incapable of solving this.’ Then he put his hand on my arm and said ‘you stay right here.”

Tranghese sat among the priests and academics and talked straight about the future of college sports. It was a future revolving around football and at this point the Big East’s football schools were holding all the cards: they owned the TV deal, they had a powerhouse team in Miami, they would remain strong in basketball. On top of that, St. John’s and Villanova had slumped badly on the court but the priests who led the Catholic schools didn’t seem to grasp the strength football schools across the country had attained.

“The presidents asked me a lot of hard questions in that meeting and some of them weren’t happy with some of my answers. But I told them what we had to do to survive,” Tranghese said. “I told them ‘you might as well just split because if you think we’re going to stay together by rejecting Rutgers and West Virginia, you’re wrong."

“There were presidents on the basketball side who had been painted a very optimistic picture of what their life would be alone and I told them they were dead wrong. A couple of them were upset with me but I just said ‘with all due respect, I know more than the person telling you these things. You can survive but not at the level of doing what you’re doing.”

Outside the room, the athletic directors fretted. “The AD’s were dismissed and they closed the door. We had put a lot of work in on this but we didn’t find out about the vote until it was already taken,” said Syracuse’s
Crouthamel.

The 10 presidents quickly agreed to not kill the conference but Georgetown, Providence and Seton Hall were staunchly against any expansion. Ultimately, Syracuse’s Shaw and BC’s Father Monan convinced the president at St. John’s, The Rev. Donald J. Harrington, to vote their way. Rutgers and West Virginia were in.

“It wasn’t a crisis but it was close to it,” said Crouthamel. “It could’ve become a crisis but a couple of presidents from the Catholic schools understood that, depending on their vote, the whole conference could split. It could have been a painful decision.”

With the Eastern media in town for the basketball tournament, the Big East held a late-afternoon news conference where the presidents and athletic directors of the 10 schools attempted to put on a happy face. It didn’t work. What came across quite clearly in a ballroom at the midtown Grand Hyatt Hotel was that the Big East Conference had survived, but not without leaving some deep scars.

“We thought 12 teams would help what is best for the Big East and UConn,” said Dr. Harry J. Hartley, then the president at Connecticut. “Our goal was to keep the Big East together more than anything.”

Speaking with school president The Rev. Philip A. Smith on his side, Providence AD John Marinatto said, “Providence was philosophically opposed to expansion because the league was formed with basketball in mind and the membership kept growing for football reasons and was getting away from the original principles of the league. The idea of 14 schools was too obtrusive, but 12 is the more palatable of the choices.”

Tranghese summed up the showdown this way: “The football schools went to war to make 14 work and they lost. Then they went for 13 and lost and were faced with a problem: Do we stay with the people we’ve been in business with or not? They realized they would be walking away from a lot.”

Syracuse’s Crouthamel lobbied hard for a 14-team league and expressed deep concern about how Temple and Virginia Tech would respond to being kept out. “I didn’t feel happy about the situation we had placed them in,” Crouthamel said. “We had to make tough decisions. I was instructed to call Dave Braine at Virginia Tech after that vote. That was not a very pleasant chore.”

Amid the talks, the basketball schools kept mentioning the only football power they’d unanimously welcome with open arms: Notre Dame. Sure enough, the league moved to add Notre Dame for all sports almost as soon as the ink was dry on the invites for Rutgers and West Virginia. The Irish, as usual, backed off when any talk of adding their football program to the mix was even broached. But the Irish were very interested in finding a home for all sports except football.

Though McNamara touches on the two topics that led to the compromise vote somewhat (UConn and Nova being allowed to join if they went from 1-AA to 1-A and Notre Dame's eventual entry into the league), we get a further understanding from Jake Crouthamel's "History of the Big East" of what was involved and perhaps a reason why the bb schools who were adamant about not even expanding to 12, eventually expanded to 13 (who the hell stops at 13???):

After meeting with CBS the directors of B.C., Pitt, Miami and I met. I suggested that the only shot we had at keeping everything together and at the same time benefiting from the CBS largesse was to get a majority vote by "packing the court." To do that we needed to get two football schools accepted as new members of The BIG EAST Conference. In order to accomplish that we needed seven votes from the ten members, the four IA schools and three more. We believed UConn and Villanova would support us because both were talking about elevating their football programs to Division IA. That left one vote to coerce. If we could get it, we would be at 12 members, with a 6-6 representation of Division IA, and a 6-2 vote in the football conference. We could then force the vote on the football side, needing only one more vote on the basketball side to approve the CBS package offer.

This plan was presented to the 10 BIG EAST Directors and met with immediate and firm resistance by the non-IA schools. Once again football was driving the membership issue. After several futile and very long meetings among the directors, no resolution could be reached. The voting of the directors was split with the IA and IAA schools on one side and the basketball schools on the other. We turned the matter over to the presidents of our 10 schools to make the final decision. After two meetings a decision was reached in March, 1994, ironically at the Lubin House in New York City, the day before BIG EAST men's basketball tournament was to begin.

St. Johns had represented a very strong anti-expansion position throughout our discussions. However, once the president became involved, and with the input of then head men's basketball coach Lou Carnesecca, the long-term implications were understood, and we had our seventh vote. Rutgers and West Virginia were added as our 11th and 12th members. There were, however, some very bitter and lingering feelings both about the process and the result.

There was one condition attached to the agreement and one understanding. The condition was that should the University of Connecticut and/or Villanova move their football programs to Division IA within a given period of time, either or both would be invited to participate in The BIG EAST Football Conference as a full members. This is happening at UConn. The understanding was that the six Division IA member schools would not block acceptance of a 13th member which might have a Division IA football program but not be included in The BIG EAST Football Conference; i.e., Notre Dame. In June, 1994 Notre Dame officially became the 13th member in all sports except football.


As you can tell, this dance has been on-going for quite some time. Why am I suddenly reminded of the movie, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They"?


Neil

Very interesting read.

Split or be strangled.

(07-04-2009 07:38 AM)Cubanbull Wrote:  good find neil
so the question becomes, have attitudes changed since that time. i think its safe to say that the landscape has changed dramatically since 94. do providence, st johns and seton hall really still feel they can compete if the league split. certainly those schools have not had as much success since that time and football has become even more powerful in college athletics

I guess I see the more important question as being, have the football schools attitude - particular Syracuse's - changed? Not sure where Pittsburgh stood then or now, but with both Miami and Boston College gone I'd have to think Shaw and Crouthamel were kicking themselves in the rear in 2004 for ever trying to get this thing to work.

Now both of them are gone at SU, but has their legacy somehow influenced the likes of UConn, West Virginia, and Louisville? I guess only time will tell.

Cheers,
Neil

(07-04-2009 07:31 AM)CatsClaw Wrote:  What I find interesting is that Cincinnati seemed to always been on the Big East's radar. We knew Louisville was, but now we know that Cincinnati was always highly regarded among the Big East. As a Cincinnati fan, that makes you feel good. Also, that conference would have been awesome, and wouldn't have had any problems protecting itself from being raided! Also, that article is VERY interesting, because a lot of the same principles that almost caused a split in 1994 and 2003 are still lingering today. The annoying thing is that many of the same people who complained about the Big East expanding for football reasons are still around. People like Tranghese only want to focus on basketball and only do just enough with football to help basketball. On a side note, it would be great if Villanova could move up to Division I-A football.

As I have mentioned in the past, the Eastern Indies had an affinity for ND, Miami, VT, Louisville, and Cincinnati. JoePa's dreams of Maryland were never going to happen. But as for the rest of the Eastern Indies, each of them had reasons for championing one or more of those 5 institutions.

What I think you might be more surprised to learn is that BC was one of those who looked favorably on Cincinnati. We know they made some noise back in September of 2003 about the Bearcats' academics, but part of that was laying a foundation for their reasons to accept ACC #12, if an offer came, while part of it was a legitimate concern, at least in terms of athletics academics. Had they remained in the Big East they thought having UC in the league would be good for their mining of talent in the Cincinnati area, particular at St. Xavier's and Elder, I believe.

I thought Marinatto's take was even more telling. Tranghese, to his credit, at least knew where the landscape was heading and it was his blunt answers to the bb presidents' questions that got them to realize that things were not going to be so 'rosy' for them if a split occurred.

But to be fair to Marinatto, as AD it was his priority to look out for Providence's best interests, and only Providence's, at that time. So his statements need to be viewed in that light. But I think he too was very aware of the landscape by 2003, since he was the one who modified Gavitt's plan of two separate conferences operating under a looser Big East (think old ECAC) umbrella to the 16-team one conference cluster#%@ we have at the present time.

Count me as one of those against Nova moving up to 1-A football. I believe they made the correct decision not to pursue it. Still wouldn't mind both G'Town and Nova in some kind of partial hybrid, but as of this moment it looks like the football schools are okay with the present situation - which is what amazes me considering the events of 1982, 1994, and 2003.

Cheers,
Neil

The basketball schools have systematically worked against the best interests of football since the beginning. None of this is news to me...

I even remember which AD asked, “Why would we ever want to go play West Virginia?” How many others remember that? Probably only long time Mountaineer fans. We know why he didn't want to play the Mountaineers. He didn't want to lose to us, which is always a distinct possibility...

let me guess, John Marinatto the Prov AD

(07-04-2009 09:36 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  The basketball schools have systematically worked against the best interests of football since the beginning. None of this is news to me...

I even remember which AD asked, “Why would we ever want to go play West Virginia?” How many others remember that? Probably only long time Mountaineer fans. We know why he didn't want to play the Mountaineers. He didn't want to lose to us, which is always a distinct possibility...

Only because the best interest of football is not always best interest of basketball. The vision they have for the league is not the same of what the direction that football taken them.

Just as you look at tradition of a football program with respect at the time of the statement made by the AD when WVU basketball accomplishment was a distance memory. Losing a basketball game to WVU would be very bad to any BE team. It’s just pride that is no different from more establish to non-establish program.

Well I think that right now the football schools might be ok of the configuration because the league is starting to stand on its own feet. I would think that as the football strengthens you will see more of a push for some type of changes. Remember right now we lack a national team like UM was at that time. Give this league a few more years and we will develop that.
Now nothing has been reported about the split deal that was suppose to end now. So have they scrapped it or just going to extend it. WE havent heard either way so its kind of hard to predict future without that info. If it will not be renewed then we are staying as it is, if it was extended then there will be changes in future.
So thats something I wish a reporter would ask Marinatto.

(07-04-2009 09:36 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  The basketball schools have systematically worked against the best interests of football since the beginning. None of this is news to me...

I even remember which AD asked, “Why would we ever want to go play West Virginia?” How many others remember that? Probably only long time Mountaineer fans. We know why he didn't want to play the Mountaineers. He didn't want to lose to us, which is always a distinct possibility...

You are correct sir....as Ed McMahone would have said.
Go Mountaineers......both of them.

(07-04-2009 10:17 AM)Cubanbull Wrote:  Well I think that right now the football schools might be ok of the configuration because the league is starting to stand on its own feet. I would think that as the football strengthens you will see more of a push for some type of changes. Remember right now we lack a national team like UM was at that time. Give this league a few more years and we will develop that.

Teams like Miami take decades to develop. So I don't see any of the current members becoming the equivalent of Miami anytime soon. I, do however, think several of the teams in this league can become like SU of 90s and VT of the 00s decade.

If anything, the league may have an overabundance of them, which will result in them being as good as any of those SU and VT teams, but with less wins (if that makes any sense).

Quote:Now nothing has been reported about the split deal that was suppose to end now. So have they scrapped it or just going to extend it. WE havent heard either way so its kind of hard to predict future without that info.

True, we don't know. Still, based upon past dealings with the non BE football members, it's hard to imagine them agreeing to an extension. I hope they have, but somehow I doubt it.

Quote:If it will not be renewed then we are staying as it is, if it was extended then there will be changes in future.

So thats something I wish a reporter would ask Marinatto.

Agreed. I am hoping someone approaches the topic at the Football meetings this summer. Not sure we'd get a straight answer even if it is asked, but someone needs to at least ask it.

Cheers,
Neil

It's interesting to see that UConn and Nova had a quid pro quo with the football teams in order to get those votes. BC fans have been saying for years that UConn was able to move up to BE football because of the generosity of the 1A teams. bull****.