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Commish still bitter as Big East remakes
itself
By The Associated Press
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL — Mike
Tranghese still has a job and the Big East Conference actually has more
teams, not less. Still, a year after Miami left, then two more schools
followed suit, the commissioner says "it's almost like we're starting over
again."
Of course, starting over is
better than the alternative, which could have been the total dismantling of
the proud conference that formed in 1979 and was almost solely responsible
for reviving college basketball along the East Coast.
Time passed, things changed
and football became the primary money maker in American college sports. The
Big East became a player on the football scene by adding Miami in 1991.
Then, last year, when the
Atlantic Coast Conference made a move to nab the Hurricanes and a few other
teams so it could get to 12 teams, the Big East went into crisis mode.
Tranghese felt blindsided.
During a dramatic news conference held at the conference's annual meetings
this time last year, he held nothing back and said the Miami move, if
completed, would "be the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics
in my lifetime."
A year later, the move has
been made. The ACC prospered and the Big East survived. One thing that
didn't change: Tranghese's opinion about the way the ACC and Miami went
about their business.
"We've done our job. We
regrouped. We're going forward," he said in an interview with the Associated
Press. "But I have some very strong feelings about what's happened. Those
feelings ain't ever going to go away. I still feel some people acted
dishonorably. That's not going to change. I'll go to my grave with that."
Tranghese conceded that every
university has a right to do what's best for its future, "but my argument
was with the way it was done."
Two weeks ago, ACC
commissioner John Swofford announced his conference's expensive, new TV deal
— $258 million over seven years — the likes of which he envisioned when he
proposed turning the ACC into a "superconference." He sounded no regrets and
lauded the schools for making the move.
"It was something we needed to
do to look forward and secure our place for the future," Swofford said.
That left Tranghese to go
trolling. He said that, unlike the way the ACC treated him, he gave
Conference USA about one month's notice before he went searching there for
his own replacements.
He wound up with Cincinnati,
Louisville, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul, who will begin play in
2005, creating a 16-team basketball conference — two more than before — and
an eight-team football conference.
Tranghese has never worried
about the basketball side. Despite all the turmoil, the Big East has
produced the last two men's national champions, Syracuse and Connecticut.
But on the football side,
Tranghese knows the conference now has serious work to do.
"We maintained our BCS berth.
That was the No. 1 priority on the day these meetings ended last year," he
said. "But the fact is, we have to go forward and prove ourselves."
Among the unfinished business
is a dispute between the conference and ESPN about the value of the
remaining four years of the football TV contract. The value clearly changed
when Miami left. The issue is being settled in arbitration.
A number of lawsuits that
resulted from the defections are still active, including the main one, filed
by Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and West Virginia against Miami and
Boston College, alleging they conspired to weaken the Big East.
"I don't know when any of that
is going to end," Tranghese conceded.
But he does know the task at
hand is much different than it was a year ago. His fight to maintain the
status quo is through. Now, the challenge is starting over.
"We forced our people to deal
with some unbelievably complex issues," he said. "If anything, our
presidents probably became more involved in our conference than at any time.
And they provided unbelievable leadership. They knew that we had to make
this work."
Copyright 2004
The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
02/23/2007 10:40:24 AM
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