Greed wins out: Big East on the brink of disaster
Monday, September 19, 2011
Change is inevitable. Evolution is undeniable.
These are simple statements, and they’re also a constant in life. I have covered college athletics my entire professional career as a writer and broadcaster, which spans more than 33 years. The past 23 years have been spent covering some of the best basketball I’ve ever had the privilege to witness. But the actions of a few administrators over just a few very short days have now caused a seismic rumble of change throughout the country – and also here in the east – to the point where we all now know one other thing.
Greed is forever.
The news that the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University are moving from the Big East Conference to the Atlantic Coast Conference is a tale of betrayal of trust, friendship and family relations. Make no mistake about it, an athletic conference is a family – sometimes a little strange, sometimes you’ve got a wayward child, or a weird Uncle Gus, or a grandmother who talks to herself – but its still “family.” True families are always born together. This isn’t a knock on marriage, but blood is the tie that truly binds. Syracuse was a founding member of the Big East, Pitt is the younger child born into the family three years later.
Some families do break up because of failed marriages along the way, but the Big East wasn’t really a marriage. It was a creation. The Big East was a vision for the late Dave Gavitt, who knew what we had with these institutions in the east, and he merely wanted the rest of the world to see them – with their coaches, athletes, alumni and fans – and let nature takes its course.
Certainly, that has happened. Over the past 33 years, the Big East Conference has arguably become the premier basketball conference in the country. In reality, football was “married” to the league in 1991 when the sport was added, out of necessity and convenience more than anything else, because some of the family members had this “child” that was beginning to get unruly, and out of control.
Football was growing up on a few of the Big East campuses, and administrators at the time were simply trying to keep their growing child clothed and fed, like any parent would do for their kids. But because football demanded such attention, both within the family and elsewhere, schools like Syracuse and Pitt kept feeding the little monster, while schools without problem children of their own tended to look the other way when the monster misbehaved.
Now that the monster has grown up over the past 20 years, football has become an unwieldy problem child – not to mention a financial anchor for schools like SU and Pitt who suddenly find themselves with a dilemma. All the other “little monsters” around the country are forming alliances with each other, playing and sharing with each other, and feeding off of a newly-realized source of mothers’ milk – known as increased television revenue.
This revenue comes with a caveat, however. Get it now, while you can. Weaker children will be pushed aside, and a “teat” at the table may not be there for you if you wait.
Forget family. Forget relationships, forget friends and forget tradition. If mothers’ milk dries up, how will facilities be built? How will coaches be paid their riches? How will endowments be fattened? And will boosters continue to “boost,” if the monster isn’t playing with the other monsters?
What we’re witnessing today, is a simple act of greed and outright avarice. Feed the monster at all costs, everything else be damned. Et tu, Syracuse? Pittsburgh?
When families have problems, don’t they tend to first look within that family for advice…or help? Not only did these schools not do this, but Pittsburgh chancellor Mark Nordenberg – the chairman of the Big East’s Executive Committee, by the way – apparently didn’t even have the grace to inform the league his school wanted a divorce. No one in the league office knew this was coming. This is the same Chancellor Nordenberg who was instrumental in the league rebuilding when Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College pulled the first exodus in 2004, even filing a lawsuit against the three schools in protest. It’s the same Chancellor Nordenberg who paved the way for TCU to join the Big East, and the same Chancellor Nordenberg who asked for – and received – loyalty pledges from his counterparts at Big East schools this past spring.
If there ever was a modern day Brutus, here he is – in his entire Pitt Blue and Gold splendor.
Syracuse’s departure could be seen as an even deeper blow to the Big East, since the Orange program was a founding member of the league. But all you really need to know here is that the current powers-that-be at the school are both outsiders to the league.
Carpetbaggers, in other words.
President Nancy Cantor has Midwest roots, coming to Syracuse from Illinois, while athletic director Darryl Gross came from the west coast and USC. They have no allegiance to the east, and with this decision, it appears they have little value for tradition…as a storied basketball rivalry with Georgetown could soon be disappearing. Head coach Jim Boeheim has already been quoted as saying this move will be “tough” for him, and it is liable to be even tougher for the thousands of SU alumni who won’t get to descend on New York City in March for the Big East Tournament any longer.
If former Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel were still in charge, would this move have happened? Crouthamel, who was instrumental in helping Dave Gavitt create the Big East in 1979, retired from his post in 2005.
One additional thought to consider here for both of these schools: Did either think about asking Boston College how their move to the ACC has worked out? Not only has BC remained irrelevant in Boston, but their athletic teams haven’t really improved their performances after moving into Tobacco Road neighborhoods. Football, the main impetus behind the BC move in 2004, is off to an 0-3 start this season and just lost at home to Duke. The Eagles are largely viewed as outsiders who were forced upon the ACC in order for the league to get Miami and Virginia Tech.
Misery loves company, and Boston College is about to get some company.
There are other rumors and reasons floating around about how this all came to pass…that these moves are nothing more than pre-emptive strikes by Pitt and Syracuse, before another league school decided to make a move. Rutgers has long been rumored to be seeking a spot in the Big 10, while West Virginia has had an eye toward the SEC – a move now officially in play for the Mountaineers in the wake of the current upheaval.
Is an extra few million dollars a year worth the alienation and devastation of four-plus decades of history in the east, the dissolving of friendships, rivalries and traditions, and the certain ill feelings that will undoubtedly follow? The ultimate irony here is that Pittsburgh and Syracuse claim to be making a move because the Big East is unstable and the move to the ACC assures their athletic stability for a longer term.
If Pitt and Syracuse were to stay right where they are, and work to keep the Big East intact, would that not provide ultimate stability as well? Did the league not emerge from the initial pillaging by the ACC stronger than before?
Sadly, it doesn’t seem so.
Money talks. And Pittsburgh and Syracuse walk.
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