This is incredibly wrong. This conference had commong goals and progress through most of its history. It was formed to be a basketball conference and it succeeded. Than it formed a football conference that was meant to be good enough that it's basketball league wouldn't lose members and it succeeded again. It only became a collection of schools with disparate interests in the last decade when hoops money became insignificant compared to football money.
This confernece was not formed and developed irrationally. Unfortunately, market forces evolved in a manner that made rational and successful moves no longer work.
WArning - post of epic length coming......
Correct. THe league was formed as a basketball only league in a time 30+ years ago when intercollegiate athletics leagues were going through a major upheaval, with the splitting of then division 1 class of competition in conferences into 1-A and 1-AA....which revolved around......FOOTBALL. But the market forces have not changed, it's always been football, the big east simply ignored it, and made the assumption that basketball interests would supercede football, and that was irrational.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It started with the 1-A / 1-AA split in the 70s, and the current landscape is the BCS conference schools separating financially from the non-BCS confedrence schools - all within 1-A now.
Prior to the creation of divions 1-A and 1-AA, UConn played division 1 football in the yankee conference. Prior to I think 1972, there were no divisions, just what was called major "university" compeition, or lower "college" competition. The early 1970s saw the creation of division 1, 2, and 3 levels of competition with specific criteria round scholarships, etc.....and football, always was the center piece in all of this decision making.
John Toner, at UCOnn actually played a pretty big role in the 1-A, 1-AA split, and favored UConn to play 1-AA in the Yankee conference as 1-AA because - of FOOTBALL MONEY. It wasn't until 1990, 3 or four years after Toner finished as AD,......that Lew Perkins and Hartley and CAsteen in the president's office..... that the money around football was seriously looked at to upgrade the university, and for that, the big east basketball conference and Jim Calhoun are to thank. Without the success of 1980's big east basketball, and Calhoun's run in the late 80's, football is still 1-AA in the Colonial Athletic now.
It's all about level of competition in athletics and money. It always has been, and money in intercollegiate athletics is about football. The big east in the 80s was able to capitalize on an era where football was not the priority in athletic alliances, as the 1-a/1-aa split (1978) was sorting itself, but it's glory years lasted 10 years, because it was over by 1989, when in 1990 Penn state joined the big 10, and the talks of a big east football conference seriously began.
THe reason that happened, was because athletic conferences by 1980 were in turmoil all over the east coast trying to sort out who was going to play who and at what level with the divisions in football.
SIngle sports conferences were not unheard of but were rare, and the big east was born as a single sport basketball conference, by people that had the vision to foresight to see that there was a huge void that could be filled and taken advantage with in the broadcasting world. People in the state of CT were absolutely instrumental with the creation of that basketball league, and there is no doubt that the single reason the conference was created, was for basketball, and basketball only.
I'm not sure what year it was, but it was in the 80's when the other olympics were incorporated into the league as the college athletics landscape settled after the 1-A, 1-AA split.
By 1991, the now 1-A football schools and conferences were getting bigger and richer, while the 1-AA schools were falling behind, and the first incarnation of the BCS was created. The independants in 1-A football, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Boston College, Miami, Pittsburgh, Penn State .......needed a home. The logical place was the big east. Notre DAme landed NBC broadcasting exclusively and managed to negotiate individually with the newly formed Bowl Alliance, while the other independants weren't able to do anything like that. Penn state was rejected in the mid 80s and went to the big 10 in 1990.
This was also the same period of time - 1980's - early 1990s, which saw the NCAA draft legislation that significantly limited the influence of single sport conferences to participation in post season events. A single sport basketball league in the 1980s no longer had the influence they wanted. It also led to the end of the 51 year history of the Yankee conference, which became a single sport football league after the 1-A, 1-AA split.
Miami, and Shalala were and still are EXTREMELY jealous of Notre Dame's position they managed to get themselves into, while the rest of them needed to join a conference.
We've been over all of this a thousand times.
You're right BL - the conference was not formed irrationally. But development of the conference? Market forces?
I've said right here many times, and will say again, Tranghese' complete disregard, and often easily interpreted to be disgust, with football was and still is completely irrational, and the failure of the big east conference leadership to adapt to THE market force, - not changing market forces. The market force in intercollegiate athletics is football, and always has been. I don't really know what Gavitt's position was on football, for whatever reason, but Tranghese despises it.
Marinatto, I don't know if he actually likes football or not, but he deserves the most credit for the survival of the big east conference in the current century, as long as it lasts, because he recognized how important it was, a long time ago, but the conference as a whole? It's taken until now, for the whole league to get it.
I'm really interested to see where Susie Herbst takes the athletic department.
