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Long article/history on conference expansion over the years.
link
here's the two paragraphs on the current BE situation:
The Big East now stands to become "the biggest loser," no offense to fans of the popular television show of the same name. Last week conference commissioner John Marinatto, whose leadership of the league since Mike Tranghese stepped down as commish a couple of years back can only be described as woefully inept, called for a meeting of Big East school officials in New York city. He actually went around the room asking for a pledge of allegiance from each school. UConn, Rutgers and West Virginia already have one foot out the Big East's door. Asking these schools for a pledge of allegiance was just as absurd as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain asking Adolf Hitler for a pledge that the Nazis were done annexing territory from other countries when he took the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia prior to World War II.
Marinatto sat idly by watching other conferences attempt to pick off his members one by one, with the only response being offering TCU a home in the east. Marinatto, like his predecessor Tranghese, is a basketball school guy who still thinks Providence College and the other Catholic Big East schools are relevant in the modern era of major, big-time sports. They're not. He waited around for Villanova, a Big East member, to decide whether they want to upgrade their program to Division I in football. Villanova is a very small school in the Phildelphia suburbs with a rich tradition in basketball, but a I-AA football member which doesn't have the resources or facilities to make the leap to Division I-A. So Marinatto decided to wait, wait and wait some more for the Wildcats to make the plunge. He's still waiting. Pitt and Syracuse got tired of waiting while the conference was being plucked over by vultures from other conferences, so they decided to act by abandoning the league and joining the more stable ACC.
link
here's the two paragraphs on the current BE situation:
The Big East now stands to become "the biggest loser," no offense to fans of the popular television show of the same name. Last week conference commissioner John Marinatto, whose leadership of the league since Mike Tranghese stepped down as commish a couple of years back can only be described as woefully inept, called for a meeting of Big East school officials in New York city. He actually went around the room asking for a pledge of allegiance from each school. UConn, Rutgers and West Virginia already have one foot out the Big East's door. Asking these schools for a pledge of allegiance was just as absurd as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain asking Adolf Hitler for a pledge that the Nazis were done annexing territory from other countries when he took the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia prior to World War II.
Marinatto sat idly by watching other conferences attempt to pick off his members one by one, with the only response being offering TCU a home in the east. Marinatto, like his predecessor Tranghese, is a basketball school guy who still thinks Providence College and the other Catholic Big East schools are relevant in the modern era of major, big-time sports. They're not. He waited around for Villanova, a Big East member, to decide whether they want to upgrade their program to Division I in football. Villanova is a very small school in the Phildelphia suburbs with a rich tradition in basketball, but a I-AA football member which doesn't have the resources or facilities to make the leap to Division I-A. So Marinatto decided to wait, wait and wait some more for the Wildcats to make the plunge. He's still waiting. Pitt and Syracuse got tired of waiting while the conference was being plucked over by vultures from other conferences, so they decided to act by abandoning the league and joining the more stable ACC.
