RE: Lights. Camera. ACCtion!
Here is the truth regarding the 2003 expansion - first an article from Orlando:
Source: Tranghese Knew Of Big East-acc Expansion Talks Since Late '90s
May 24, 2003|By Craig Barnes Staff Writer
Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who publicly scolded Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford last month for talking to Big East schools about expansion, first explored the possibility with the ACC as early as 1997.
Sources said Tranghese had conversations with Gene Corrigan, then commissioner of the ACC, about several possibilities. Most prominent was the merging of the two conferences for football.
A year later, after Swofford had replaced Corrigan as the ACC's commissioner, Tranghese initiated a meeting at the Atlanta airport to explore the possibility again. At that time, he was concerned about the Big Ten raiding the Big East.
Swofford, Florida State Athletic Director Dave Hart and then-North Carolina State Athletic Director Les Robinson represented the ACC. Tranghese, Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee and Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel represented the Big East.
"The idea of expansion or some type of merger was there before 1998," Dee said. "It was nothing new when it came up this time. In 1998, the conversation was about an attempt to get the leagues together for football."
Tranghese, Swofford and Corrigan weren't available for comment.
The NCAA said Friday it is staying out of the fight. NCAA President Myles Brand said he has not talked with Tranghese or Swofford and intends to let the schools and the conferences make their own decisions.
Corrigan and Bill Carr, a former Florida athletic director, did a study for the Big East in the late 1990s after Corrigan left the ACC. Carr concluded the football and basketball schools
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should go in different directions, but Corrigan thought otherwise. Carr's finding could explain Tranghese's interest in a football merger.
In a New York Daily News story last month, Tranghese said, "I have no use for the ACC right now. They're a bunch of hypocrites. They operate in the dark. They'll never acknowledge this, but I'm aware the ACC for the last couple of years, without ever picking up the phone or calling me, has basically gone out and tried to convince our teams to enter their league."
It was 7 years from the first discussions with Miami until the vote to add Miami and VT. The deal worked out by Corrigan and others was for Miami, Syracuse, and BC. UNC and Duke would have preferred no expansion or so they said in public, however they could have prevented anyone other than Miami from getting an invitation by not telling VT representatives that they would not vote for any expansion - thereby allowing them to put the monkey on UVa.
UNC and Duke delayed the vote on expansion long enough to bring VT into the game. UNC publicly floated a single addition of Miami, knowing there were not 7 votes for the addition of just one school. Mark Warner prevented UVa from voting for just Miami because UNC and Duke allowed that to happen. That's why to motion was made to add Miami and VT and that motion passed 7-2.
Now if Carolina or Duke had wanted Syracuse, all they had to do was make the motion to add Syracuse. They did nothing and instead voted to support the motion by NC State to investigate adding ND as the 12th.
Notice how this is all played - Duke and UNC put themselves in position to get their 2nd and 3rd choice in the matter by doing nothing but publicly opposing expansion and signaling VT that now was the time to lean on UVa. They could not prevent expansion, but they could prevent Syracuse from joining. Not taking an action is a choice that is in fact an action.
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imported from Pack Pride (crack ride).
