Why will the ACC fall apart? The UConn principle.

[Jericho]

There seems to be enough discontent among the other Big 12 schools that they will insist on a Big 12 network even if Texas is excepted. Let ESPN write off that Long Horn Network loss instead of the other 9 teams absorbing the loss seems to be the new mantra. The payoff deal to Texas to prevent a Big 12 Network from forming and Texas refusing to risk a loss in a champonship game isn't popular. They need two large programs to get Oklahoma on board as Oklahoma has their own Network deal. The incentive is there for the other 8 to form a network and add schools and a championship and the Oklahoma deal isn't a show stopper.

Who's going to buy a network that features Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, TCU, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech? That will never work. No matter who the other two schools are. Unless one of them rights with Fexas.

 

[upstater]

There seems to be enough discontent among the other Big 12 schools that they will insist on a Big 12 network even if Texas is excepted. Let ESPN write off that Long Horn Network loss instead of the other 9 teams absorbing the loss seems to be the new mantra. The payoff deal to Texas to prevent a Big 12 Network from forming and Texas refusing to risk a loss in a champonship game isn't popular. They need two large programs to get Oklahoma on board as Oklahoma has their own Network deal. The incentive is there for the other 8 to form a network and add schools and a championship and the Oklahoma deal isn't a show stopper.

I'm going to guess that the reason ESPN shelled out $20 million per was Texas.

 

[upstater]

Who's going to buy a network that features Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, TCU, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech? That will never work. No matter who the other two schools are. Unless one of them rights with Fexas.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

But apparently, the atlantic coast is so yesterday, what networks really want is plains state dust bowl viewers.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Yeah, ESPN really messed up the Big East negotiation when they turned down the billion dollar offer.

Oh, wait. That was the Big East.

Yeah, all those schools that left for $20mm a year or really regret not taking the ESPN offer for half that much. And the C7 seem really upset about making roughly 150% more in a stable conference.

 

[noeynox]

Yeah, ESPN really messed up the Big East negotiation when they turned down the billion dollar offer.

Oh, wait. That was the Big East.

Is ESPN paying more to the schools that left the Big East than they offered the entire Big East? Don't know the answer to that, but the obvious conclusion to me is that UConn, Cincinnatti, and USF were bringing the value of the Big East way downnnnn since every other school has made out better outside the Big East.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Is ESPN paying more to the schools that left the Big East than they offered the entire Big East? Don't know the answer to that, but the obvious conclusion to me is that UConn, Cincinnatti, and USF were bringing the value of the Big East way downnnnn since every other school has made out better outside the Big East.

ESPN is paying the ACC as much for Notre Dame basketball, pitt, cuse and Louisville as it offered for the entire Big East.

 

[Carl Spackler]

She flat out lied to other Big East institutions about Miami's intentions and got them to spend money upgrading their programs, to Miami's benefits, by virtue of that lie.

Now, regardless of how you view her political career (and I think she did a good enough job while in Washington), why you wanted anyone to roll over and play dead in that scenario is beyond my comprehension. And Blumenthal's love for the camera (which is certainly true) is beyond irrelevant to whether the University of Connecticut, like Pitt and WVU and Vir Tech (before being invited) and Rutgers, needed to act to protect itself.

She lied about Miami's intentions? Miami was in open negotiations to join the ACC for months!!!! How did she directly get Big East members - oh never mind them - how did she get UConn to spend money on upgrading our football program? Did you seriously just write that the Big East upgrading their football programs - or UConn upgrading was to Miami's benefit? I must be dreaming.

No BL - there was lying, there was deceit in a lot of waht happened in the early 2000s, mostly from football playing schools not named Miami or Virginia Tech,and targeting Miami in that lawsuit was a mistake, and an even bigger mistake was the tactics that were taken.

Did I want to roll over and play dead? Absolutely not. There are different ways to go about business and Miami's exit from the Big East, could have and should have been handled much differently, a lawsuit was the last thing that should have done. But lawyers.....politicians....they all think alike, and there were none at the time, that understood football.

The fundamental underlying problem, for both UConn and the Big East, in the way things were done in the past, is that basketball was always believed to be more of a driver in the intercollegiate world than football.

FWIW: I remember the game against Miami in 2002 like it was yesterday. I remember that we played our home games still at Memorial, when we traveled down there. We've come a long, long way in a decade when it comes to competition.

Engaging in the BS that was that lawsuit, is a major, major reason why we stand alone right now as the last remaining founding member of the Big East.

 

[businesslawyer]

She lied about Miami's intentions? Miami was in open negotiations to join the ACC for months!!!! How did she directly get Big East members - oh never mind them - how did she get UConn to spend money on upgrading our football program? Did you seriously just write that the Big East upgrading their football programs - or UConn upgrading was to Miami's benefit? I must be dreaming.

No BL - there was lying, there was deceit in a lot of waht happened in the early 2000s, mostly from football playing schools not named Miami or Virginia Tech,and targeting Miami in that lawsuit was a mistake, and an even bigger mistake was the tactics that were taken.

Did I want to roll over and play dead? Absolutely not. There are different ways to go about business and Miami's exit from the Big East, could have and should have been handled much differently, a lawsuit was the last thing that should have done. But lawyers.....politicians....they all think alike, and there were none at the time, that understood football.

The fundamental underlying problem, for both UConn and the Big East, in the way things were done in the past, is that basketball was always believed to be more of a driver in the intercollegiate world than football.

FWIW: I remember the game against Miami in 2002 like it was yesterday. I remember that we played our home games still at Memorial, when we traveled down there. We've come a long, long way in a decade when it comes to competition.

Engaging in the BS that was that lawsuit, is a major, major reason why we stand alone right now as the last remaining founding member of the Big East.

It's in the damn minutes. She committed to the Big East, and not wanting to go anywhere else, to get some members to expand their stadiums. And then left.

 

[Carl Spackler]

It's in the damn minutes. She committed to the Big East, and not wanting to go anywhere else, to get some members to expand their stadiums. And then left.

THere's a lot of stuff in the minutes of Big East conference meetings. There are minutes of meetings available online for review that clearly indicate Father Leahy's intentions to leave for the ACC and actively pursuing it as well, yet supposedly it was a surpise that BC left.

I'll go ahead and play with you though for a second.......do you mean to suggest that Donna Shalala's statements about wanting bigger venues for Big East football games, were in some way a deciding factor for the leadership at UConn to invest in building Rentschler field? I suppose you think it was ok for our leadership at the time to ignore the fact that Shalala had been openly engaged in negotiations with both the Big East and the ACC for several months?

I'll give you an analogy. Walter Ray Allen. Was offered more money to stay in New England, than he would get in South Beach. Still chose to go south. The Big East offered Miami a hell of a lot more money than they would be making in the ACC in 2003, and Shalala still packed up and left.

The Big East leadership felt the same scorn, that Celtics fans felt, and the lawyers and politicians were all too happy to file the lawsuit, rather than have an understanding that the football program was incredibly fortunate to be where it was, in 2003, and that it would be fine, and pursue things with the schools leaving the conference (like scheduling arrangements) that would actually have made sense.

But nobody, except a few people like me pulling their hair out, understood football - to everyone in charge, basketball was king. Even now, today, you read people writing aroudn here thinking that we cna bargain a basketball scheudling agreement to get major football programs to schedule home and home with us.

The revenue from a handful of basketball games, is dwarfed, miniscule to the revenue around a single football game.

 

[upstater]

THere's a lot of stuff in the minutes of Big East conference meetings. There are minutes of meetings available online for review that clearly indicate Father Leahy's intentions to leave for the ACC and actively pursuing it as well, yet supposedly it was a surpise that BC left.

I'll go ahead and play with you though for a second.......do you mean to suggest that Donna Shalala's statements about wanting bigger venues for Big East football games, were in some way a deciding factor for the leadership at UConn to invest in building Rentschler field? I suppose you think it was ok for our leadership at the time to ignore the fact that Shalala had been openly engaged in negotiations with both the Big East and the ACC for several months?

I'll give you an analogy. Walter Ray Allen. Was offered more money to stay in New England, than he would get in South Beach. Still chose to go south. The Big East offered Miami a hell of a lot more money than they would be making in the ACC in 2003, and Shalala still packed up and left.

The Big East leadership felt the same scorn, that Celtics fans felt, and the lawyers and politicians were all too happy to file the lawsuit, rather than have an understanding that the football program was incredibly fortunate to be where it was, in 2003, and that it would be fine, and pursue things with the schools leaving the conference (like scheduling arrangements) that would actually have made sense.

But nobody, except a few people like me pulling their hair out, understood football - to everyone in charge, basketball was king. Even now, today, you read people writing aroudn here thinking that we cna bargain a basketball scheudling agreement to get major football programs to schedule home and home with us.

The revenue from a handful of basketball games, is dwarfed, miniscule to the revenue around a single football game.

You're off on the BC story.

It's only been stated here 1,000 times+.

Leahy was a conniver--he made that comment AFTER leading the reorganization. The idea that he left because the football schools added Cincy and Ville is ridiculous since it was the basketball schools' vote with ND siding with the Catholics that became a problem. He said the football schools had reversed course, but that was a convenient excuse. He showed absolutely no compunction at voting Ville in this time around, did he?

 

[uconnfan68]

ESPN wants the ACC to survive because ESPN gets more content for less money through the ACC than it would if the ACC split up. The demise of the Big East has proven this in spades. ESPN could have had 9 football schools and 17 basketball schools for roughly $150MM. It ended up paying for than that for Notre Dame basketball, Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville alone through the ACC, and lost Rutgers, most of TCU and WVU, and the C7 in the process. I have seen lowball bids backfire before, but ESPN's screw up of the Big East negotiation is epic. Oh, and in the process, ESPN slapped the state of Connecticut in the face about a year after the state had provided $100MM in tax breaks and other subsidies.

ESPN could save the ACC for another $50 to $100 million. It will cost the worldwide leader a lot more than that to get comparable content back if the ACC splits up.

UConn's best hope is that it puts a full court press on ESPN to have ESPN put UConn into the ACC when the ACC TV deal is renegotiated in the next few months.

Do we even want to go there now? I mean, it is falling apart after all.
ps. I totally agree with everything but your last sentence, and I'm still thinking about that.

 

[Carl Spackler]

You're off on the BC story.

It's only been stated here 1,000 times+.

Leahy was a conniver--he made that comment AFTER leading the reorganization. The idea that he left because the football schools added Cincy and Ville is ridiculous since it was the basketball schools' vote with ND siding with the Catholics that became a problem. He said the football schools had reversed course, but that was a convenient excuse. He showed absolutely no compunction at voting Ville in this time around, did he?

revisionist theory

http://mysite.verizon.net/fethrs/Minutes July 2003.pdf

Buzz Shaw led the discussion toward the reorganization in July 2003, not Leahy. Leahy was pursuing creating a 16 team basketball league, with a completely separate and distinct constitutions between the football and basketball conferences. Buzz Shaw talked to Graham Spanier in 2003 about Penn State joining the Big East.

Item 3, page 4. I wonder why Leahy didn't want to discuss a formal committment among members moving forward in July 2003. I wonder wonder wonder. Maybe it has somethign to do with the stuff on page 3 where Buzz Shaw actually puts together a formal statement for the "small group of football CEO's - which include Leahy" to approach the small group of basketball CEO's - to discuss the inevitable dissoloution of the Big East conference.

No - UConn people, when you realize that our leadership, completely ducked up in 2003, and sat on the sidelines doing nothing while the football future hung in the balance, among the people that were in that room, and then allowed tricky dick blumenthal to take the point, and go public and attack the integrity of the people that very - very clearly indicated in the same room with Hathaway and Austin, that they were not solid with the Big EAst moving forward.........I'm not a fan of Randy Edsall on the football field, but the man understands, and understood football, and he knew moving forward in the Big East, that UConn was in trouble with the leadership we had, after what went down with the first ACC migration of Big East football programs.

It makes it easier moving forward for where we are now. I hope that this info, somehow makes it Susan and Warde, b/c they need to know what happened, to get our university to where it is now, and start to rebuild the character bank accounts and integrity bank accounts among the intercollegiate landscape for the Univeristy of Connecticut.

 

[upstater]

revisionist theory

http://mysite.verizon.net/fethrs/Minutes July 2003.pdf

Buzz Shaw led the discussion toward the reorganization in July 2003, not Leahy. Leahy was pursuing creating a 16 team basketball league, with a completely separate and distinct constitutions between the football and basketball conferences. Buzz Shaw talked to Graham Spanier in 2003 about Penn State joining the Big East.

Item 3, page 4. I wonder why Leahy didn't want to discuss a formal committment among members moving forward in July 2003. I wonder wonder wonder. Maybe it has somethign to do with the stuff on page 3 where Buzz Shaw actually puts together a formal statement for the "small group of football CEO's - which include Leahy" to approach the small group of basketball CEO's - to discuss the inevitable dissoloution of the Big East conference.

No - UConn people, when you realize that our leadership, completely ducked up in 2003, and sat on the sidelines doing nothing while the football future hung in the balance, among the people that were in that room, and then allowed tricky dick blumenthal to take the point, and go public and attack the integrity of the people that very - very clearly indicated in the same room with Hathaway and Austin, that they were not solid with the Big EAst moving forward.........I'm not a fan of Randy Edsall on the football field, but the man understands, and understood football, and he knew moving forward in the Big East, that UConn was in trouble with the leadership we had, after what went down with the first ACC migration of Big East football programs.

It makes it easier moving forward for where we are now. I hope that this info, somehow makes it Susan and Warde, b/c they need to know what happened, to get our university to where it is now, and start to rebuild the character bank accounts and integrity bank accounts among the intercollegiate landscape for the Univeristy of Connecticut.

Revisionist? Bull. What you presented was revisionist. Believe it or not, we went over this on this site in real time. We had daily updates on all this stuff. When Leahy was in charge of putting things back together. Leahy's excuse that reorganization wasn't going to go as planned was horsepucky. He already knew how the votes came down and how the football playing schools were already locked up--with no BCS contract, no NCAA credits, no BE name. Leahy knew that everyone's hands were tied. Why? Because the vote had happened prior to the official meeting when the minutes were read. And all along he was talking to the ACC.

I have read that document over and over. BC and everyone else's mistake is that they were ONLY considering the potential for ND joining the conference, not the potential damage ND could do by siding with the Catholics. When ND voted with the Catholics, then the presumed 7-5 vote in the minutes you linked to became a 6-6 vote. That ended the possibility of breaking off. This is what UConn fans have been pointing out since forever. There was a fatal flaw in that meeting chaired by Cuse's Shaw (Leahy was put in charge of reorganizing in that meeting) and that was the presumption that ND would vote with the football schools for an 8/9 conference (and they expected ND to stay with them in all but football).

You know, this is precisely why Calhoun came out and said in that period that the football schools were going to split, because he knew the way things broke down during that meeting. What changed afterward is precisely ND's vote, so any story peddled by BC about how they left BECAUSE the administrators including UConn's blew it by opting for a 16 team league is a canard.

 

[Carl Spackler]

FYI - the meeting minutes available online are from the meeting which occured on July 9, 2003. The lawsuit against the ACC, filed in CT by Blumenthal, specfically naming DeFillippo, and the ACC leadership was filed on October 13, 2003. The suit against Miami had already been filed previously. In March 2002, Shalala explicitly committed to the Big EAst conference.

In the following months, she entered open, long term negotiations between the Big East and the ACC about where Miami would continue their future. Everybody knew about these negotiations, nothing was hidden about the fact that Miami was actively pursuing the ACC. Good lord, the Big East membership, led by Tranghese voted to increase Miami's revenue sharing with the conference substantially in the meantime!!! By July 1, 2003 - the move was official.

Connecticut , UConn, people need to wise up and realize how incredibly stupid it was to allow ourselves to be set up as the point on that lawsuit - the college football world is incredibly tight, and UConn was given an opportunity to join the big leagues, that was incredibly outrageous, and our leadership clearly failed to recognize it, and handle it properly, and the college football world watched. I guarantee that Warde Manuel, if he was AD, or any AD with their salt in a big time athletic program, would have been making sure that everybody in that room in 2003, and the AD's at Miami and VTech that had already left, would be willing to continue scheduling arrangements, instead of burning bridges.

Hell, Tranghese himself was in the press saying that the conference didn't want any part of the lawsuit - that it was for lawyers and politicians....!!!! and that current leadership is going to have to work to show the intercollegiate landscape that things like that won't happen again.

The good news, as I said before, is that the majority of the people involved in setting up the pissing matches, are either gone, or getting really old now and will be gone too.


""On Friday, Tranghese merely issued a brief statement, acknowledging the lawsuit, but stating the conference itself was not involved. He let politicians and university presidents do the talking. ""

-Sports Illustrated

 

[upstater]

FYI - the meeting minutes available online are from the meeting which occured on July 9, 2003. The lawsuit against the ACC, filed in CT by Blumenthal, specfically naming DeFillippo, and the ACC leadership was filed on October 13, 2003. The suit against Miami had already been filed previously. In March 2002, Shalala explicitly committed to the Big EAst conference.

In the following months, she entered open, long term negotiations between the Big East and the ACC about where Miami would continue their future. Everybody knew about these negotiations, nothing was hidden about the fact that Miami was actively pursuing the ACC. Good lord, the Big East membership, led by Tranghese voted to increase Miami's revenue sharing with the conference substantially in the meantime!!! By July 1, 2003 - the move was official.

Connecticut , UConn, people need to wise up and realize how incredibly stupid it was to allow ourselves to be set up as the point on that lawsuit - the college football world is incredibly tight, and UConn was given an opportunity to join the big leagues, that was incredibly outrageous, and our leadership clearly failed to recognize it, and handle it properly, and the college football world watched. I guarantee that Warde Manuel, if he was AD, or any AD with their salt in a big time athletic program, would have been making sure that everybody in that room in 2003, and the AD's at Miami and VTech that had already left, would be willing to continue scheduling arrangements, instead of burning bridges.

Hell, Tranghese himself was in the press saying that the conference didn't want any part of the lawsuit - that it was for lawyers and politicians....!!!! and that current leadership is going to have to work to show the intercollegiate landscape that things like that won't happen again.

The good news, as I said before, is that the majority of the people involved in setting up the pissing matches, are either gone, or getting really old now and will be gone too.


""On Friday, Tranghese merely issued a brief statement, acknowledging the lawsuit, but stating the conference itself was not involved. He let politicians and university presidents do the talking. ""

-Sports Illustrated

So what's your point of view about all the lawsuits going on with the ACC now?

Where's the collegiality?

And as for Tranghese, in that document you linked to, he repeatedly references the anti-trust issues. What's that but a reference to potential lawsuits?

 

[Carl Spackler]

Revisionist? Bull. What you presented was revisionist. Believe it or not, we went over this on this site in real time. We had daily updates on all this stuff. When Leahy was in charge of putting things back together. Leahy's excuse that reorganization wasn't going to go as planned was horsepucky. He already knew how the votes came down and how the football playing schools were already locked up--with no BCS contract, no NCAA credits, no BE name. Leahy knew that everyone's hands were tied. Why? Because the vote had happened prior to the official meeting when the minutes were read. And all along he was talking to the ACC.

I have read that document over and over. BC and everyone else's mistake is that they were ONLY considering the potential for ND joining the conference, not the potential damage ND could do by siding with the Catholics. When ND voted with the Catholics, then the presumed 7-5 vote in the minutes you linked to became a 6-6 vote. That ended the possibility of breaking off. This is what UConn fans have been pointing out since forever. There was a fatal flaw in that meeting chaired by Cuse's Shaw (Leahy was put in charge of reorganizing in that meeting) and that was the presumption that ND would vote with the football schools for an 8/9 conference (and they expected ND to stay with them in all but football).

You know, this is precisely why Calhoun came out and said in that period that the football schools were going to split, because he knew the way things broke down during that meeting. What changed afterward is precisely ND's vote, so any story peddled by BC about how they left BECAUSE the administrators including UConn's blew it by opting for a 16 team league is a canard.

I'm not going to go round and round with you again. You suggested that Leahy led the reorganization of the league. You're wrong. Buzz Shaw did. Tranghese sat in a corner sucking his thumb and whining about not wanting to be in charge anymore. Austin and Hathaway sat there and listened to the men in that room talk about actively dissolving the league, and pursuing dissolution, and then 3 months later led the charge against them in a lawsuit which charged the same people with conspiring to destroy the league. Those are the facts.

What UConn people need to realize, is that our existence at this level of football, our entire university existence moving forward as it is as an athletic department, is entirely dependant on the good fortune, of having been extended an invite into the highest level of athletic revenue around football, when it was completely undeserving of it. We're hanging on by a thread right now, and have nobody to schedule right now.

I';ve talked for months, about how the biggest thing concernign me going forward is scheduling. We've got nobody on the future schedules, and we've been unable to get anybody on the schedule for a while now - (the way Notre Dame was handled didn't help)

We've proven we belong and can compete, but we've burned a hell of a lot of bridges along the way, and now our schedules are empty.

 

[juan]

The ACC clearly has no clue of what's going on and what's going to happen to them. They took Louisville because they didn't want the B12 to take them first, at that point they never thought ACC schools would leave to the B12. If they left Louisville on the table for the B12, the ACC would be less likely to lose one of their brand schools.

 

[UConn9604]

No - UConn people, when you realize that our leadership, completely ducked up in 2003, and sat on the sidelines doing nothing while the football future hung in the balance, among the people that were in that room, and then allowed tricky dick blumenthal to take the point, and go public and attack the integrity of the people that very - very clearly indicated in the same room with Hathaway and Austin, that they were not solid with the Big EAst moving forward.........I'm not a fan of Randy Edsall on the football field, but the man understands, and understood football, and he knew moving forward in the Big East, that UConn was in trouble with the leadership we had, after what went down with the first ACC migration of Big East football programs.

Respectfully, doing nothing simply wasn't an option at the time. We had precisely zero leverage. The Rent hadn't yet opened, we were still in trailers, barely at full I-A scholarships, and our two biggest football wins were over a 7-4 Iowa State team in 2002 and a 2-9 Rutgers team in 2001. Meanwhile, on the hoops side, we only had one national championship for men. We weren't just sitting on the sidelines, we were chained there, and had as much to lose as anyone from Miami's, BC's and Virginia Tech's promissory estoppel.

The lawsuit was our only option, I just wish we weren't duped into leading it, based on the mere presence of ESPN within our borders. Why not St. John's or Rutgers? The ACC couldn't exactly argue that it lacked "minimum contacts" in New York or New Jersey. Why not take it on the road, say, to D.C.? The ACC would have a hard time arguing forum non conveniens with its home office in Greensboro (which is closer to D.C. than Providence).

 

[Carl Spackler]

The ACC clearly has no clue of what's going on and what's going to happen to them. They took Louisville because they didn't want the B12 to take them first, at that point they never thought ACC schools would leave to the B12. If they left Louisville on the table for the B12, the ACC would be less likely to lose one of their brand schools.

karma is a bitch. There is no doubt in my mind, that had UConn moved to the ACC as a primary cog, instead of Syracuse and Pitt, that the folding of the Big East would have been neat and tidy, the ACC would clearly be the dominant east coast conference, and the central states, would have a much more stable platform for athletics as well, and Notre Dame, just might have finally gone into a conference, instead of being the lynchpin that is holding up everythign when it comes to establishing a true format to determine a national champion in the post season. But ego's got in the way, and the ACC will struggle in the future, based on what's happened instead. Ego's that are still in power in the ACC. But the people at UConn have all changed. Slowly others are changing. Shalala won't be there forever. DeFillippo is already gone. leahy won't be there forever. Temple is actually back in the mix of things with their leadership. Times change. PEople change. But UConn is on island for now, and we have no choice but to make it the best island resort destination it can be, and start building bridges and tunnels and connections that have been destroyed in the past.

the more time passes, and the more that happens in this period of movement, in the intercollegiate landscape (it's not the first, and it won't be the last).....the more I'm convinced that the reason UConn stands alone on an island right now in the northeast with what our athletic department is, and brings, which is nothing to poo poo....is because of pure ego and arrogance of the people that were in power locally for us in the past, and the peole that are still in power elsewhere in the intercollegiate landscape and the multiple, multiple bridges that were burned as we moved up from 1-AA football into 1-A and the Big East conference crumbled around us.

That's why I started writing on this thread again. It was suggested that Shalala - who's one of those ego's.....still heading up Miami - was looking elsewhere.

Leadership at UConn has changed, and we've got a lot of bridges to rebuild in the intercollegiate athletics world, and as those leaders elsewhere get older, adn will eventually change, those bridges will be easier to build. Miami, was actively pursuing a scheduling arrangement in teh NYC metropolitan area recently for football -
UConn isn't an option for them. Notre Dame? We pissed that away with ridiculous demands (to be fair what they wanted was ridiculous too, but we didn't do a hell of alot to try to find common ground). Boston College? Nope. These are programs that we should regularly have on our non-conference slate at this point, but the arrogance and ego of our former leadership prevented it. Jim Delany, Mike Slive, John Swofford, etc. etc......on down the line. Their successors need to be on good terms with the University of Connecticut and our leadership and how we go about our business with our government. Business deals are and always will be about people. Scheduling football games is major, major big time business.

Maybe peopel out there are reading, that have some kind of influence, and will recognize that at least one UConn football guy, gets it. We need scheduling partners, and we realize our past leadership transgressions were a major pain in the ass, and won't let it happen again.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

No offense, but I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. THe USFL thing happened because Donald Trump went head to head with some other big time business people, with serious connections, and lost big time. Nothing new for the Donald - he's always been a risk taker with bigger balls than brains. The professional football world could be entirely different than it is now, if not for Trump's ego. The USFL was poised to be a major competitor to the NFL, but Trump decided he wanted to go head to head with the NFL, and lost.

And make no mistake, just because the subject matter at hand might be be billions of dollars, entire state universities and private universities, attorney generals, and united states president cabinet advisors, dealings are no different than when you get two or more ego's clashing over what movie to watch on a friday night among teenagers. The power players in the current intercollegiate athletics world, are all driven by ego.

Things would be a lot different for UConn right now, I believe whole heartedly, had Dick Blumenthal's ego (and frankly Jim Calhoun's too) not been at the forefront of how business was handled in 2003.

As for the actual subject matter, yes - UConn had invested a ton of money and stood a chance to lose out on it. The fact is that we didn't. It could have and should have been handled much differently. The problem, as always with the Big East, was that people believed basketball trumped football, and in 2003, UConn football was non-existent and it was foolish for the CT AG and UConn leadership to get into an arena like we did, and pretend it did.

Times are different now, but read this NY Times piece in 2003. UConn football isn't even mentioned as a hope for maintaining viable Big East football confernce, because we were non-existent in the national landscape, although our leadership made it the centerpiece of that lawsuit against a multiple national championship football program.

We have proved the MIami AD completely wrong in the past 10 years, and we need to continue building, but going into that lawsuit in 2003 with all guns blazing,is a major, major reason we stand alone as a founding member of the Big EAst right now.

All we can do, is continue to win, and prove the naysayers wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/01/s...ft-of-power-expected.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

Right on one count: the Big East was foolish in believing that basketball drove the bus, not football. Lew Perkins warned 'em.

Wrong about the USFL. They won the antitrust case. That alone should have cost the NFL millions upon millions in damages. That's the whole premise of "treble damages" in these kinds of lawsuits. The courts got caught up in the celebrity of the case and made a mockery of it with a $1 judgement. Those judges should have been disbarred. The USFL won and with it lost because justice was not served. Commit murder, get convicted for that crime and what? ...... Be given one day in jail? A travesty of justice that had nothing to do with Donald Trump.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Respectfully, doing nothing simply wasn't an option at the time. We had precisely zero leverage. The Rent hadn't yet opened, we were still in trailers, barely at full I-A scholarships, and our two biggest football wins were over a 7-4 Iowa State team in 2002 and a 2-9 Rutgers team in 2001. Meanwhile, on the hoops side, we only had one national championship for men. We weren't just sitting on the sidelines, we were chained there, and had as much to lose as anyone from Miami's, BC's and Virginia Tech's promissory estoppel.

The lawsuit was our only option, I just wish we weren't duped into leading it, based on the mere presence of ESPN within our borders. Why not St. John's or Rutgers? The ACC couldn't exactly argue that it lacked "minimum contacts" in New York or New Jersey. Why not take it on the road, say, to D.C.? The ACC would have a hard time arguing forum non conveniens with its home office in Greensboro (which is closer to D.C. than Providence).

Having zero leverage, is exactly the reason why we should have been pursuing scheduling agreements in the future with every member of the Big EAst conference regardless of conference affiliation, or what was happening, adn should have done nothing with a lawsuit. We should ahve walked away from the concept of a lawsuit like it was kryptonite. Telling the leadership and Boston college that we would never schedule them again. Dumb. Creating a situation where the leadership at Miami, openly said they would never play a football game in CT. DUMB. Idiotic dumb.

The true power brokers, Shaw from Syracuse, et. al., were already working at making sure the conference would be successful for at least a few more years, and that we would be part of it - AHEAD of schedule. We pissed on all of that by taking the lead on the lawsuit, and the rest of them, sat back collected their pennies in teh grand scheme, and watched us take the fall, as they continued to wait in the wings for their opportunity to move to a better scheduling situation.

 

[CTMike]

The ACC clearly has no clue of what's going on and what's going to happen to them. They took Louisville because they didn't want the B12 to take them first, at that point they never thought ACC schools would leave to the B12. If they left Louisville on the table for the B12, the ACC would be less likely to lose one of their brand schools.

I like this angle. I think there was another thread not too long ago referring to leaving Louisville hanging out there as a "tethered goat" strategy. Can't wait to see it all blow up (if only because it gives UConn a better chance at a new home).

 

[UConn9604]

Having zero leverage, is exactly the reason why we should have been pursuing scheduling agreements in the future with every member of the Big EAst conference regardless of conference affiliation, or what was happening, adn should have done nothing with a lawsuit. We should ahve walked away from the concept of a lawsuit like it was kryptonite. Telling the leadership and Boston college that we would never schedule them again. Dumb. Creating a situation where the leadership at Miami, openly said they would never play a football game in CT. DUMB. Idiotic dumb.

I don't disagree with this part but one of the weaknesses of being a State institution is that when you justify $125 million in expenses on the basis of future returns, you have to do something when those future returns are threatened and no one in government has the foresight to recognize that sometimes sitting back and waiting can be a good response.

As for smoothing things over, the best guy we've ever had at (Lew Perkins) that got up and left for Kansas in late June 2003. I think that had we coaxed another year out of him, your plan may have been implemented. In the void of leadership at the time, the State government took the reins and all of the other plaintiffs sat back and watched (notably, each of them is off to a greener pasture).

 

[Carl Spackler]

Leahy was put in charge of reorganizing. The very links you gave us contradict you, and I pointed out how. No choice to break up in 2003 could have been made, and that link you gave us showed that the Presidents hadn't even considered that Notre Dame would vote against them. Given all that, it's a head scratcher how anyone can believe BC's claims about being disappointed is what made them leave. Those are about as believable as its claims in this article: http://articles.courant.com/2011-10...esident-susan-herbst-uconn-move-uconn-sources

Vitriol is why UConn is iced out? On this very board, we saw how vitriolic the comments were coming from Syracuse people at the very top, directed at Leahy at public events, face to face, humiliating comments. Where is Cuse? Where is Pitt?

Let's face is, Gene D. was right. BC votes against UConn because they are afraid of competition. And this is precisely what Bob Ryan wrote before UConn even went D1.

The anger from Syracuse toward Boston College back then, was because Syracuse was the actual target that Miami wanted to bring to the ACC with them, not VTech or Boston College, and as Crouthamel promised he would leave his job if the Big EAst moved forward as it did, and made good on his word, Defillippo made the same promise, and didn't make good on it. Leahy, played every possible hand he could, while Shaw remained solid with the Big EAst, and worked to rebuild it in teh best interests of Syracuse he could come up with, and then handed off the job to Cantor, who inherited a mess where Leahy managed to wiggle into the spot that the ACC had reserved for Syracuse after the Virginia state government got involved. (They managed to handle things better than our governor and AD did). Syracuse leadership, and their tradition in football, had a lot more of a gripe with Boston College, in 2004-2005 than we did.

Upstater, you suggested that Miami was interested in leaving the Big East. You hooked me, becuase that would certainly be a major, major, turn of events and I was interested in pursuing it, as to why you'd write that, because Shalala was a major, major player in what led to the eventual destruction of the big east conference, and she has issues she's leaving the U with, and I doubt she's happy about it, but leaving the ACC - I highly doubt that's a road she's interested in.

I'm not writing any more on this. Peace out.

 

[CL82]