Not to belabor one of realignment’s most talked about what ifs, but if it weren’t for David Gavitt at Providence and his vision, does a Big East-type conference come together in the late 70s/early 80s?

Penn St already had the Eastern 8 and Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, and WVU (as well as UMass, Duquesne, and Villanova) since 1976.

If Georgetown and St John’s not been amenable to anchoring a new league, do Syracuse and Boston College look to join them? If that Eastern League emerges, how long does it last before schools like Penn St begin to get lured away?

(04-21-2023 02:40 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Not to belabor one of realignment’s most talked about what ifs, but if it weren’t for David Gavitt at Providence and his vision, does a Big East-type conference come together in the late 70s/early 80s?

Penn St already had the Eastern 8 and Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, and WVU (as well as UMass, Duquesne, and Villanova) since 1976.

If Georgetown and St John’s not been amenable to anchoring a new league, do Syracuse and Boston College look to join them? If that Eastern League emerges, how long does it last before schools like Penn St begin to get lured away?

They might not have ever been lured away. It would probably look a lot like the current ACC but headlined by PSU, FSU and Clemson, with a not-insignificant chance that ND is a full member and OUT are about to join, too.

7-3. One more vote against and PSU wouldn't be in the B1G, and this could very well have come to pass.

Didn't seem like many northeastern schools were interested in forming a FB conference at the time. Unless PSU had a different stand on revenue sharing, my guess is BC and Syracuse would still be reluctant. I also think PSU would still be eyeing the B1G
St Johns was not interested at 1st and had to be wooed. I think at some point a BE type league would eventually happen. If Gavitt wasn't AD at PC who would lead the charge? Would PC,BC and Cuse join Rutgers, PSU and Nova in the non FB sponsoring soon to be A-10? If so, how long before STJ and Gtown follow? Would the Eastern 8/A10 then invite Pitt and split? Let's say the A10 keeps the FB schools and the non fb schools form a new BB focused league

(04-24-2023 07:59 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  Didn't seem like many northeastern schools were interested in forming a FB conference at the time. Unless PSU had a different stand on revenue sharing, my guess is BC and Syracuse would still be reluctant. I also think PSU would still be eyeing the B1G
St Johns was not interested at 1st and had to be wooed. I think at some point a BE type league would eventually happen. If Gavitt wasn't AD at PC who would lead the charge? Would PC,BC and Cuse join Rutgers, PSU and Nova in the non FB sponsoring soon to be A-10? If so, how long before STJ and Gtown follow? Would the Eastern 8/A10 then invite Pitt and split? Let's say the A10 keeps the FB schools and the non fb schools form a new BB focused league

I think an interest in a conference that sponsored football was there—the issue was that the parties involved had vastly differing visions on what that should look like.

Penn St was the 800 lb gorilla in the room and wanted a model where they could keep all their money and set policy.

Others involved wanted a more egalitarian league.

(04-21-2023 02:40 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Not to belabor one of realignment’s most talked about what ifs, but if it weren’t for David Gavitt at Providence and his vision, does a Big East-type conference come together in the late 70s/early 80s?

Penn St already had the Eastern 8 and Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, and WVU (as well as UMass, Duquesne, and Villanova) since 1976.

If Georgetown and St John’s not been amenable to anchoring a new league, do Syracuse and Boston College look to join them? If that Eastern League emerges, how long does it last before schools like Penn St begin to get lured away?

Penn State infamously left the Eastern 8 in 1979, in an inglorious, burn-your-bridges fashion.

They crawled back to the A10 after Paterno's inequitable conference idea was rejected by everyone and subsequently PSU was rejected by the Big East. No one liked Paterno. A conference he set up and ran, skewed to benefit PSU, was never going to happen. Those in athletics knew he was a fraud.

(04-24-2023 06:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-24-2023 07:59 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  Didn't seem like many northeastern schools were interested in forming a FB conference at the time. Unless PSU had a different stand on revenue sharing, my guess is BC and Syracuse would still be reluctant. I also think PSU would still be eyeing the B1G
St Johns was not interested at 1st and had to be wooed. I think at some point a BE type league would eventually happen. If Gavitt wasn't AD at PC who would lead the charge? Would PC,BC and Cuse join Rutgers, PSU and Nova in the non FB sponsoring soon to be A-10? If so, how long before STJ and Gtown follow? Would the Eastern 8/A10 then invite Pitt and split? Let's say the A10 keeps the FB schools and the non fb schools form a new BB focused league

I think an interest in a conference that sponsored football was there—the issue was that the parties involved had vastly differing visions on what that should look like.

Penn St was the 800 lb gorilla in the room and wanted a model where they could keep all their money and set policy.

Others involved wanted a more egalitarian league.

They weren't the 800lb gorilla in 1980 they are today. There were other gorillas.

No. The football split would still have happened, only it would have played out in the Atlantic 10.

The problem with the Penn St plan wasn't Gavotte. It was Paterno. He wanted equal revenue sharing for all sports but football.

The driving force behind basketball conference formation during the late 1970's and early 1980's was the change in NCAA rules that allowed two members of a conference to earn an NCAA tournament invitation beginning I believe in 1976, and to earn an unlimited number of invitations to members of a single conference beginning I believe in 1980. This structure encouraged many long time independent schools like the founding members of the Metro, Eastern Eight, and Big East, to form new conferences. At the same time, cable television was emerging as a new platform on which to televise games, which the Big East, in particular, benefited from.

At the same time, football television rights were still controlled by the NCAA. It was not until 1984 that schools won control of their own television rights. This spurred significant realignment activity beginning with Penn State joining the Big Ten in 1989. Further, during the 1980's independent schools enjoyed tremendous success during this period. Not only Miami win 3 national titles, Penn State win 2, and Notre Dame win 1 during the 1980s, but Florida State, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College and West Virginia all earned major bowl bids. The benefits of joining a conference for football were less clear than joining one for basketball. Again, that all changed when the NCAA lost control over TV rights.

All that said, it was Gavitt's vision and leadership that drove the formation of the Big East. Without him, something else would have happened. Conferences would have formed, but it's not certain that a league as strong as the Big East would have emerged. Despite everyone's dislike of Joe Paterno personally, a conference built from among football schools would have made a lot of sense and therefore would have been more likely to have formed without Gavitt's competition.

Paterno's goal of creating an eastern conference predates the formation of the BE. I'm not sure what the issues were in the early 1970s. Penn State wasn't a blue blood school back then. And many of the NE schools had well regarded head coaches. An Eastern 8 conference could've looked like this:

UMASS - Dick MacPherson
CUSE - Ben Schwartzwalder
RU - Frank Burns
TU - Wayne Hardin
PSU - Joe Paterno
PITT - Johnny Majors
UD - Tubby Raymond
WVU - Bobby Bowden

Add BC and VPI, at a later date, and this could've been a pretty decent conference.

(04-24-2023 08:18 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(04-21-2023 02:40 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Not to belabor one of realignment’s most talked about what ifs, but if it weren’t for David Gavitt at Providence and his vision, does a Big East-type conference come together in the late 70s/early 80s?

Penn St already had the Eastern 8 and Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, and WVU (as well as UMass, Duquesne, and Villanova) since 1976.

If Georgetown and St John’s not been amenable to anchoring a new league, do Syracuse and Boston College look to join them? If that Eastern League emerges, how long does it last before schools like Penn St begin to get lured away?

Penn State infamously left the Eastern 8 in 1979, in an inglorious, burn-your-bridges fashion.

They crawled back to the A10 after Paterno's inequitable conference idea was rejected by everyone and subsequently PSU was rejected by the Big East. No one liked Paterno. A conference he set up and ran, skewed to benefit PSU, was never going to happen. Those in athletics knew he was a fraud.

Three of the parochial schools voted against Penn State joining. SU AD at time said it would come back to bite them.

JoePA didn't help by being a megalomaniac.

(04-25-2023 12:15 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  Paterno's goal of creating an eastern conference predates the formation of the BE. I'm not sure what the issues were in the early 1970s. Penn State wasn't a blue blood school back then. And many of the NE schools had well regarded head coaches. An Eastern 8 conference could've looked like this:

UMASS - Dick MacPherson
CUSE - Ben Schwartzwalder
RU - Frank Burns
TU - Wayne Hardin
PSU - Joe Paterno
PITT - Johnny Majors
UD - Tubby Raymond
WVU - Bobby Bowden

Add BC and VPI, at a later date, and this could've been a pretty decent conference.

"VPI"? what's VPI?

(04-27-2023 12:43 PM)ZooMass84 Wrote:  

(04-25-2023 12:15 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  Paterno's goal of creating an eastern conference predates the formation of the BE. I'm not sure what the issues were in the early 1970s. Penn State wasn't a blue blood school back then. And many of the NE schools had well regarded head coaches. An Eastern 8 conference could've looked like this:

UMASS - Dick MacPherson
CUSE - Ben Schwartzwalder
RU - Frank Burns
TU - Wayne Hardin
PSU - Joe Paterno
PITT - Johnny Majors
UD - Tubby Raymond
WVU - Bobby Bowden

Add BC and VPI, at a later date, and this could've been a pretty decent conference.

"VPI"? what's VPI?

VTech was originally Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI). Changed over in the 70s so presumably just using the name they had at that time for a conference that would have formed back then.

(04-27-2023 12:50 PM)e-parade Wrote:  

(04-27-2023 12:43 PM)ZooMass84 Wrote:  "VPI"? what's VPI?

VTech was originally Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI). Changed over in the 70s so presumably just using the name they had at that time for a conference that would have formed back then.

The official name is "Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"--Virginia Tech is merely a nickname just as Georgia Tech is (officially, the Georgia Institute of Technology") .

There was a failed effort in 1970 to drop VPI and rename it "Virginia State University" but alumni rebelled against it. The general assembly added "State University" as a compromise.

The name was later applied to the former Virginia State College, a Division II HBCU, which is now Virginia State University.

(04-27-2023 02:21 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(04-27-2023 12:50 PM)e-parade Wrote:  

(04-27-2023 12:43 PM)ZooMass84 Wrote:  "VPI"? what's VPI?

VTech was originally Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI). Changed over in the 70s so presumably just using the name they had at that time for a conference that would have formed back then.

The official name is "Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"--Virginia Tech is merely a nickname just as Georgia Tech is (officially, the Georgia Institute of Technology") .

There was a failed effort in 1970 to drop VPI and rename it "Virginia State University" but alumni rebelled against it. The general assembly added "State University" as a compromise.

The name was later applied to the former Virginia State College, a Division II HBCU, which is now Virginia State University.

Oh interesting, thanks!

At least I was able to identify who it was actually referring to there. Rest of the information you provided is good to know.


Edit: I see where I went wrong. I knew it was referring to VTech, but I read the initial part of the description with a wrong but similar word:

Quote:Virginia Tech (VT), formally Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI)

Read it too fast and saw "formally" as "formerly"

One more item on Virginia Tech as a nickname--Texas A&M was once merely the nickname of the "Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas". In 1963, it was formally changed to "Texas A&M University". The alma mater still refers to the old name, though:

"For we are the Aggies, the Aggies are we
We’re from Texas AMC."

I feel like the what kept an eastern all sports conference from materializing was Penn St and Syracuse failing to sit down together to sit down and work things out together.

I feel like Syracuse was the key to getting BC on board.
Penn St had Temple, Pitt, Rutgers, and WVU in their sphere.
If they could come to some mutually agreeable financial term and include a few basketball schools handpicked by Syracuse (Georgetown? St John’s?)

I’m curious, if they would have been able to get a league off the ground, if they could have lured Maryland in.

Maryland was always rumored to be interested in joining if Penn State came in

But JoePa was tough to deal with.

(04-27-2023 02:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I feel like the what kept an eastern all sports conference from materializing was Penn St and Syracuse failing to sit down together to sit down and work things out together.

I feel like Syracuse was the key to getting BC on board.
Penn St had Temple, Pitt, Rutgers, and WVU in their sphere.
If they could come to some mutually agreeable financial term and include a few basketball schools handpicked by Syracuse (Georgetown? St John’s?)

I’m curious, if they would have been able to get a league off the ground, if they could have lured Maryland in.

Georgetown and St Johns were 2 of the schools that were not i favor of adding PSU to the Big East. I don't see either one willing to join a FB centric league as the alternative

(04-27-2023 02:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I feel like the what kept an eastern all sports conference from materializing was Penn St and Syracuse failing to sit down together to sit down and work things out together.

I feel like Syracuse was the key to getting BC on board.
Penn St had Temple, Pitt, Rutgers, and WVU in their sphere.
If they could come to some mutually agreeable financial term and include a few basketball schools handpicked by Syracuse (Georgetown? St John’s?)

I’m curious, if they would have been able to get a league off the ground, if they could have lured Maryland in.

LOL, Pitt was not anywhere near PSU's sphere. There was serious animosity between the two schools on a variety of different levels.

The lynchpin to forming Paterno's all sports conference was Pitt; which was a top 5 national program when this was going down. If Pitt had decided to go with Paterno, Syracuse and BC would have been leaving the Big East shortly after they joined. Instead, the Big East invited Pitt, specifically to keep the Big East intact. The choice was an easy one for Pitt at the time; no one wanted to go to something run by Paterno and structured to specifically benefit Paterno's program, but if there was a conference created with both Pitt and Penn State in it, none of the other football-playing schools in the east would have had a choice but to join. Paterno never forgave Pitt.

(04-27-2023 07:56 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(04-27-2023 02:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I feel like the what kept an eastern all sports conference from materializing was Penn St and Syracuse failing to sit down together to sit down and work things out together.

I feel like Syracuse was the key to getting BC on board.
Penn St had Temple, Pitt, Rutgers, and WVU in their sphere.
If they could come to some mutually agreeable financial term and include a few basketball schools handpicked by Syracuse (Georgetown? St John’s?)

I’m curious, if they would have been able to get a league off the ground, if they could have lured Maryland in.

Georgetown and St Johns were 2 of the schools that were not i favor of adding PSU to the Big East. I don't see either one willing to join a FB centric league as the alternative

Right. But where were St John’s and Georgetown going to find two basketball programs with the same quality as Boston College and Syracuse?

BC brought in one of the 4 big markets of the Big East and Syracuse brought in Western NY and competitively, was one of the standard bearers.

When it comes down to it, as much as Georgetown and St John’s didn’t want to be in a football conference with Penn St, it was going to be hard for them to run a basketball conference without the Orange.