Filling the shoes of Terry Holland is a tall task for East Carolina's next Director of Athletics. And you don't have to look far on the ECU campus to find the physical evidence of Holland's legacy.

The facilities that now line the Pirates' sprawling athletics campus represent the visual transformation that occurred with Holland at the helm. It started with the end zone enclosure of Dowdy-Ficklen stadium and extended to sparkling new facilities for almost every sport that's part of the Pirates' athletics portfolio.

But even more than the tangible examples of Holland's impact at ECU, there is the visionary and out-of-the-box thinking that he brought to campus. He did so at a time when the Pirates were in desperate need of a boost.

Especially in football.

Holland was both proactive and swift in his firing of John Thompson (after only two years at the helm) and his hiring of Skip Holtz. Both moves rank among the most critical in ECU's athletics history, as they completely reversed the Pirates' course in their most important sport.

That move, combined with upgraded non-conference scheduling — which at the time was a necessity to inject enthusiasm back into the fan base — paved the way for stadium expansion and national headlines.

Holland always kept his eye on East Carolina's long term goals without overlooking incremental improvements to aid the school in the short term. While aggressively pursuing admittance into a BCS Automatic Qualifier conference, he was one of the few administrators within Conference USA who demonstrated the type of forward thinking that ultimately could have salvaged the league competitively.

His vision of expanding the conference to 16 or more and focusing regular season scheduling on divisional play would have saved the league's programs millions while also presenting a more attractive package to television networks. In retrospect, one could even argue that it would have been, at worse, equivalent to the setup that will be the basis for the new Big East.

Perhaps the biggest advantage Holland brought to East Carolina was the respect that was commanded by his last name alone. It delivered a much needed “Wow” factor for the Pirates, and it made them a part of scheduling conversations of which they otherwise would not have been a part.

Was Holland perfect? No, as evidenced by his of Ricky Stokes. That gamble was a major setback to the hoops program's progression, and it certainly didn't aid the Pirates' quest for earlier Big East admittance.

You can also argue that the challenging non-conference scheduling philosophy eventually ran its course, and that ECU could have benefited in more recent years from a downgraded approach.

Even so, Holland did more for ECU's overall profile than any AD in the school's history. Finding a suitable replacement will be tough.

Conference question solved?

The recent announcement that the Big East's seven basketball-minded Catholic schools will break apart from the FBS football schools isn't a bad thing for East Carolina.

And it could manifest into something really good for ECU.

The likely scenario in this aftermath is that the majority of the Big East football schools stick together to form an all-sports conference. While it's not clear which of the football-only schools would get its other sports added, ECU's geographic location will actually be viewed as a positive this time around.

If that's the case, consider the problem of finding a home for the Pirates' hoops and Olympic sports programs solved.

Does it meet the goal of finding a regional home for East Carolina's sports programs? No, but anytime a conference is filled with schools that share the same mission, the more likely that league, and ultimately its members, will prosper.

Hoops progress

If you had told East Carolina fans that the Pirates would leave Chapel Hill Saturday with a six-point loss, most would have taken it. That was before the game.

Afterward, the sentiment was that ECU left one on the table, thanks largely to abysmal first half shooting and a critical late game call that favored the Heels.

The Pirates missed numerous open looks in the first half, and never really displayed much of a defensive pulse against the talented Heels. Both provided the catalyst for an early 18-point deficit that ECU almost completely erased.

Perhaps the gap would have been overcome had official Karl Hess made the correct call when Tar Heels guard Dexter Strickland lowered his shoulder and leveled Maurice Kemp. Instead of the Pirates possessing the ball down four, it led to two shots and ultimately a six-point Heels' advantage.

It would have been interesting to see how this game would have ended had the Pirates made just two of their open looks... or if their best defender, Erin Straughn, been available... or if they had not been on the losing end of a rogue call.

Still, ECU nearly overcame all that on the road against a roster filled with McDonald's All-Americans.

That's progress.