By
Denny O'Brien
©2010 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
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Terry Holland |
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(ECU SID Photo) |
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East Carolina’s Board of
Trustees picked a good time to extend the contract of athletics director
Terry Holland.
With speculation growing
that major shifting among the BCS automatic qualifier conferences soon
will occur, the importance of Holland’s presence on campus can’t be
overstated. More than anyone since iconic former chancellor Leo Jenkins,
he understands the big picture for ECU athletics.
In a state where
basketball was king, Jenkins saw football as the athletics platform on
which East Carolina could carve its niche. He was right. With the
success of in-state ACC schools in hoops, it made more sense to invest
in the sport on which they were providing less emphasis.
Jenkins’ vision continues
to pay huge dividends today despite the external obstacles the Pirates
repeatedly face.
That’s largely because
Holland’s focus hasn’t been too far removed from Jenkins’. He has kept
ECU’s attention on advancing football, placing a special priority on
improving the Pirates’ conference and regional standing.
Even to the casual
observer, it should be fairly obvious that Holland has been anticipating
more conference realignment since he took over as the ECU AD.
Essentially every move he has made — specifically in football — has been
with the notion of positioning the Pirates’ for advancement into a BCS
automatic qualifier conference.
It started with the
firing of John Thompson and the
subsequent
hiring of Skip Holtz as the
program’s head coach in 2004. Had Holland not acted so boldly months
into his tenure, the Pirates probably wouldn’t be among the best
programs from non-AQ conferences.
A significant upgrade to
the non-conference schedule has been equally important to making the
Pirates attractive to potential conference suitors such as the Big East.
It has guaranteed high-profile televised games for ECU, unprecedented
demand for season tickets, and the opportunity to grab headlines with
multiple victories over BCS automatic qualifier opponents.
"What we've got to find is
a schedule that's exciting for our fans and for recruits," Holland said
in 2004. "And we're going to find it. We're going to do everything we
can to create that. Not only is East Carolina University behind us but
this whole community is, as well as the whole region.
"And I think they want to
see great athletics, and they want to see us play a wonderful schedule
and we're going to find a way to do that."
ECU’s upgrade in
scheduling no doubt makes it more attractive to an AQ conference
whenever the next round of realignment commences. So does the Pirates’
unrivaled football success in Conference USA, the numerous national
television appearances they have made over the past four years, and the
improvements in facilities that extend from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium and
into the non-revenue sports.
Those factors should be
easy for Holland to sell.
What will be more
difficult to dispel are the lingering myths that East Carolina doesn’t
provide an attractive television market, or that it can’t be successful
in hoops. You can bet that both will be presented as potential obstacles
to ECU’s admittance into a better league.
But if Holland can sell
the benefits of a long-term football series to North Carolina, North
Carolina State, South Carolina, and Virginia Tech, you would think he
can demonstrate that the ECU market extends far beyond the Eastern North
Carolina corridor, and that the Pirates can be successful in hoops as
well.
And it is paramount for
him to do so when you consider how realignment is likely to unfold.
When the Big Ten (or
Pac-10) eventually decides to launch the next round of expansion, it
could be as cataclysmic as the scenario several years ago that saw the
ACC, Big East, C-USA, MAC, and Mountain West Conference all experiencing
major restructuring. Regardless of how many teams the Big Ten decides to
add, it will likely dip into another AQ conference to up its membership.
Those conferences that are
raided will have to target other leagues to fill the void, and it’s
unlikely that anyone will be seeking schools for football-only
membership. That seemed like a possibility a couple of years ago, but
that’s before anyone envisioned the Big Ten jumping back into the
expansion game.
Now football-only
membership might not be in play.
When the dust settles on
the next round of conference realignment, East Carolina desperately
needs to become a fully qualified member of the system that many of its
fans insist is tyrannical. The most likely scenario would be for spots
to open in the Big East, or for the league to be proactive by increasing
its membership to 12 so that it can add a championship game.
This might be the last
opportunity for East Carolina to leave the have nots and join the haves.
If Holland can secure that for East Carolina, it will go down as the
defining accomplishment of a decorated coaching and administrative
career.
He definitely has ECU in
much better shape for consideration by AQ leagues than it was the last
time around.
