This was on the CFN board:
CFN has confirmed that the Big Ten will announce a name change on Monday night, April 4th to coincide with the men's NCAA basketball national title game.
Ever since 1993 when Penn State joined the league, the Big Ten has had eleven teams while keeping the Big Ten name and identity. Twelve years later, the historic conference, founded in 1896, has decided it's time to roll out a new name.
Welcome to The Big Conference.
"We have a collection of some of the greatest academic institutions in the world," said the President of one Big Ten school who spoke to CFN under conditions of anonymity. "It's about time we showed everyone we know how to count. How are we supposed to be taken seriously with eleven member institutions in a league called the Big Ten?"
In a secret meeting of conference presidents, the vote was 6-5 in favor of changing the name. Ironically, it took two recounts after the first two rounds were deadlocked at 6-6.
"We had a hard time counting the votes," said the President.
After it was established that the league would change its name, the next task was deciding what the new moniker would be whittling the candidates down to two. The Big Conference beat The Conference by a vote of 8-3.
"The Conference seemed a bit too pretentious," said one President. "The Big Conference still allows us to keep the word Big, and that's what's really important."
The decision was made early on to not to consider any names with numbers in them in case of future inclusion of other institutions.
"We'd look pretty silly to be the Big Eleven and then bring aboard a 12th school a few years down the road," remarked another President.
Early news of the name change brought about a mixed reaction from the fans and Big Ten administrators in St. Louis, site of this year's Final Four.
"There were only seven universities when the league was founded," said one conference official. "Why is it so strange to have eleven now? The Big Ten name is tradition."
Illinois fan Arnold Obvious of Morengo, Illinois was also less than thrilled. "My boy just spent $50 on a Big Ten sweatshirt at the basketball tournament. What's he supposed to do now?"
"This is fantastic. It's about time the league showed it could add," said Ohio State fan Ron Spim. "Now the conference has to do something about the number of times the Michigan fight song can be played during a two-hour span. Oh yeah, and it's time to get rid of that creepy suburban white kid down in Illinois who dresses up like a Native American and dances around at halftime."
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney had no comment, but the league offices sent out a faxed statement. "In case anyone missed it, Illinois and Michigan State are in the Final Four, and Wisconsin made it to the regional finals. Only one ACC team made the Final Four. Take that Billy Packer. By the way, Cooper Tires, Gatorade, 7UP and US Bank."
CFN was able to obtain the list of other names considered.
- Enormous Conference Sandwich
- Really frickin' Big Conference
- Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives
- Big Ten plus Penn State
- Big XII minus Notre Dame
- Natural Conference Enhancement
- muy grande conferencia
- Conference of Blue States minus Iowa and Ohio
- P. Diddy
- Ten schools that keep Northwestern around to raise the GPA
- Conference of April Fools Day
|
