ACC/Big East: Some Monday Night History

Miami finally made its announcement Monday, after spending one final weekend hogging the sports spotlight: they’re coming with us to the ACC. (Of course, the Canes wouldn’t put it that way… although we did make our decision and announcement first.)

I’m still waiting for the national media to attack Miami and Donna Shalala the way they’ve attacked VT and President Steger. Who started this mess, after all?

But perhaps I shouldn’t hold my breath waiting for fair treatment. After all, our school’s president wasn’t a Clinton Cabinet member, and hasn’t spent his career as an itinerant hired gun, going whereever he could make the biggest mark and bring the greatest glory to himself. Instead, he’s spent almost all of his career at his alma mater, working for its greater good. I suppose it’s easier to slander someone who is quietly competent, open and not defensive about his position than it is to go after a Clinton throwback who might fire back. It’s certainly more fun than attacking the glamour girl and the beautiful school on the beach. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.

A few good reading assignments came out of Monday’s events.

• First, visit the transcript of Miami’s press conference. Count the lies, and count the mentions of Boston College and Syracuse versus Virginia Tech. Then note the absolute arrogance of that woman. “I think [Mike Tranghese] lost his cool here. He is one of the talented people in Collegiate Athletics and I feel bad about what he said and the situation he got himself into.” Er, no. YOU put him in this situation. If Miami hadn’t been playing footsie with the ACC, none of this would have happened. And if Tranghese hadn’t blown the covers off your little game, the first thing we would have heard about it would have been the whisper of the guillotine blade descending toward our necks.
• Also on the Tranghese beat is David Teel of the (Newport News, VA) Daily Press, with Mike T’s view of VT’s actions, and a historical perspective on VT’s position in the middle of ACC territory. For those who continue to think Tech is the devil incarnate here, this is required reading. “Were Tranghese steamed at Virginia Tech, the world would know it. Just ask Miami president Donna Shalala and ACC commish John Swofford. … But Virginia Tech’s only “sin” was protecting its interests, and Tranghese’s smart enough to know it.” Tranghese is actually complimentary of VT — something I never thought I’d see, but I never thought we’d see this either.
• Jerry Izenberg of The Star-Ledger in New Jersey clarifies the VT proposal for a mutual non-departure agreement among all Big East schools not named Miami. Money quote:

  There are some who would tar Miami and Virginia Tech, which also defected to the ACC, with the same brush. But they don’t know about a twice-repeated challenge from Jim Weaver, the Tech AD, to his BC and Syracuse counterparts behind closed doors in Florida when those Big East meetings were getting hot enough to melt a glacier.
  
  It came when Crouthamel had fired back at Weaver, “You know if we don’t go, then you will.” Weaver challenged him and DeFilippo with:
  
  “Let’s get that straight now. I’ll sign a paper right here and now that Tech will stay in the league if Syracuse and Boston College sign that they will do the same.”
  
  They didn’t sign.

• Finally, Brad Wilson of The Intelligencer in suburban Philadelphia jumps into the Wayback Machine, discussing the failure of the 1980s’ Eastern all-sports conference proposal, and how that brought us to today’s events. He lays it all at the feet of Pitt, for joining the Big East rather than cooperating with Joe Paterno at Penn State and then-AD Ernie Casale at Temple in the formation of that conference. Pitt fans would in return point to Penn State’s rejected application for Big East membership prior to the proposal’s formation, but the fact remains that they turned the idea down.

Historical ironies abound in this sad situation. Had JoePa’s ’80s proposal gone through, Tech never would have gotten into that conference — West Virginia rivalry aside, we were far more closely aligned with the Southern independents like Florida State and South Carolina. As those schools got hooked up with conferences, we’d likely have been overjoyed at Louisville’s 1995 proposal to add football to what was then the Metro Conference, and is now Conference USA. Instead, we were forced out of the Metro as it became C-USA over our refusal to leave the Big East Football Conference.

The greatest irony of all about Tech receiving lectures on loyalty, though, remains this. In 1994, the all-sports members of the Big East — Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh and 1990 admittee Miami — forced the issue of expansion on the 6 basketball-only members (five of which remain so today; the sixth was UConn). They threatened the BB-only schools, and promised the FB-only schools, that if the FB-only members — Rutgers, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Temple — were not offered all-sports admission that year, the 8 football-playing members would break away and form their own all-sports conference. (VT was a Metro Conference contender in basketball at this point, not the sad story it is today.)

Rutgers and West Virginia got the call, with a PR statement that going past twelve teams made for an unworkable conference. (Notre Dame was admitted for basketball six months later, giving the lie to that statement.) Did Rutgers and WVU sacrifice their opportunity for VT and Temple? Of course not. Did the four all-sports members, led by Syracuse AD Jake Crouthamel, follow through on their threat out of loyalty to Tech and Temple? Nope. Temple’s athletic program has never recovered from the snub. With an eye toward gaining Northeastern exposure and eventually re-applying for Big East all-sports membership, Tech’s basketball program joined the Atlantic 10 (which RU and WVU were exiting, and in which Temple was staying) and headed toward its current oblivion.

As is often the case, TSL Pass columnist Jim Alderson summed it up best: “[Tech] did not start this, but we certainly finished it.”
While Mr. Alderson was referring to this year’s events, his statement could well apply to the whole history of Eastern sports conference affiliation. The anti-VT moralizers would do well to understand that.