Opportunities for the AAC WCBB Teams

[Kibitzer]

Permit me to be a noisy and possibly loony voice as I identify some great opportunities for the new teams, er, programs, in the AAC.

First, they all get to play UConn, home and away. When hosting, they will sell more tickets (probably at increased prices) than ever before. Throngs of regional HS coaches and parents of MS girls will flock to the arenas in Tulsa, Dallas, Houston, etc., and bring their kids (players and offspring) to see Stewie, KML, Stef et al in the flesh! This will be The Game for them and it will not matter to them if the home town team gets demolished. For years to come they will recall every moment of the incomparable experience of seeing UConn honest-to-God UConn!

Maybe get an autograph, or a photo-op. A once in a youthful lifetime thrill.

Then these teams visit legendary Gampel Pavilion, see the new practice facility, identify the Wall of Honor, stand in awe of the trophies, count the banners, see the crowd. Then get pasted.

This experience gives every one of these teams a taste of excellence such as they never dreamt of and cultivates a desire to emulate what they have seen.

Great for the future of the AAC. Great for WCBB.

 

[jplotinus]

Hi Kibitzer,

Certainly sounds like you are recovered or well on your way to it. Great!

I've said elsewhere UCONN has an opportunity to lead the AAC, most especially in wbb, and almost as much in men's. In football, the opportunity is more about gaining traction in the top ranks, with the objective being a regular member somewhere in the top 25 (lower half being more than acceptable).

I go further than many in predicting that some former BE conference mates might jump to the AAC if AAC plays its cards right.

 

[Kibitzer]

When I published the OP, I did not have a complete list of members of the new conference, so I did a little research and realized that I had omitted venues like Temple (in Philadelphia and coached by Ms Cardoza), Memphis, and old rivals like Cincinnati and Louisville, neither of who will have difficulty selling tix to say farewell to UConn.

It was not easy to identify all these conference members because AACSports.com is reserved for the NAIA Appalachian Athletic Conference. Apparently, when our new AAC adopted the name of American Athletic Conference, nobody thought to peek to see how a google of "AAC" would result. This little oversight should embarrass the folks in charge because it certainly will generate confusion while not exactly inspiring confidence in the new A(merican)AC.

 

[DobbsRover2]

When I published the OP, I did not have a complete list of members of the new conference, so I did a little research and realized that I had omitted venues like Temple (in Philadelphia and coached by Ms Cardoza), Memphis, and old rivals like Cincinnati and Louisville, neither of who will have difficulty selling tix to say farewell to UConn.

It was not easy to identify all these conference members because AACSports.com is reserved for the NAIA Appalachian Athletic Conference. Apparently, when our new AAC adopted the name of American Athletic Conference, nobody thought to peek to see how a google of "AAC" would result. This little oversight should embarrass the folks in charge because it certainly will generate confusion while not exactly inspiring confidence in the new A(merican)AC.

Well, as noted in some other recent threads elsewhere, you shouldn't be searching on AAC at all but rather on "American," which will of course googlize immediately to the American Athletic Conference homepage. This is America's conference, home of all red-blooded Americans, and American as apple pie and Don McLean.

And yes, there's a bunch of attractive things in store for the American community as the members pay homage to the Huskies and start doing their darndest to score the biggest upset of their program's history. Hopefully they'll all find ways to be pesky nuisances and at least 10-minute challenges to UConn. And it would be a hoot if say UConn, Louisville, and USF were in the FF in 2014 and the signs could read "Who invited [intruder school] to the American tournament?" One last blast before the new era.

 

[Kibitzer]

Well, as noted in some other recent threads elsewhere, you shouldn't be searching on AAC at all but rather on "American," which will of course googlize immediately to the American Athletic Conference homepage.

I followed your advice and googled "American." I did not get Pie or Athletic Conference, but I did get Express, Airlines, Idol and Cheese.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I followed your advice and googled "American." I did not get Pie or Athletic Conference, but I did get Express, Airlines, Idol and Cheese.

Kibs, clearly you must have mistyped. No American Athletic Conference? You sure you're not using some search engine from Lower Klutzsovia?

 

[rocky rococo]

It's perfectly reasonable that "American Idol" and "cheese" would show up on the same Google search.

 

[meyers7]

Actually looking around. Is there a website for the conference??? I found a fansite, http://americanathleticconference.net/
but nothing official.

Could they possibly not have a website yet???? YIKES!!!

 

[DobbsRover2]

Actually looking around. Is there a website for the conference??? I found a fansite, http://americanathleticconference.net/
but nothing official.

Could they possibly not have a website yet???? YIKES!!!

Apparently not starting an official website until the last bits of the BEast's spring season is over with, though that does sound kind of late out of the blocks. But in the meantime you can always make the trip to Providence to visit the AAC's real headquarters (what a weird site for conference HQ).

Noticed on the AAC wiki site that the members all share an aversion to lacrosse (the only men's sport of the listed group that UConn does not field a team for) and that though all of the members have women's cross country teams, SMU and UCF do not have men's teams. I know what that's about, and no, the Mustangs did not get the death sentence in men's XC for using mutant extraterrestrial harriers. And in a coup for the women's side, they total far more teams than the men in the AAC. I wonder if the pigskin bus drivers have anything to do with that.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Title IX. Always at Football schools. Because of the size and costs of the football programs.

 

[tonehill68]

There will be a lot of attendance records broken in the AAC this coming year when UCONN goes on the road to Memphis, Houston, Dallas and Philly. It will be like the sellout in Charleston, SC and Eugene, Oregon this past year.

 

[Kibitzer]

Hey, 'Yarders, opportunity awaits on "AACBoards," the brand spanking new message board center for fans of what they call the AAC with nary a nod to that Appalachian crowd.

It gets better.

Some admin guy named Ben has posted an appeal for someone to moderate the UConn forum. Don't everyone raise your hands at once.

A poster named USFTony (not to be confused with our TonyC) posted "Will the AAC play in a Casino?" and linked a recent column by Mike DeMauro about the likelihood that the AAC WCBB tournament will indeed be played in the arena at Mohegan Sun.

By the heading of this post, next to the title, it says: "Read 20 times." I did a momentary double take since both the present and past tenses of "read" are spelled the same (unlike similar verbs like plead, lead. and feed). I then realized that 19 folks had preceded me in reading this dramatic news so I didn't bother reading it 19 more times.

Anyhow, to be present at the creation, so to speak, go to AACBoards.com and, once there, consider the opportunity to become as admired, adored and appreciated (or abhorred) as Nan, JS and Biff are by signing on as a moderator. (For the record, I passed, leaving the door open for DoggyDaddy or HGN or Meyers.)

 

[diggerfoot]

When I published the OP, I did not have a complete list of members of the new conference, so I did a little research and realized that I had omitted venues like Temple (in Philadelphia and coached by Ms Cardoza), Memphis, and old rivals like Cincinnati and Louisville, neither of who will have difficulty selling tix to say farewell to UConn.

It was not easy to identify all these conference members because AACSports.com is reserved for the NAIA Appalachian Athletic Conference. Apparently, when our new AAC adopted the name of American Athletic Conference, nobody thought to peek to see how a google of "AAC" would result. This little oversight should embarrass the folks in charge because it certainly will generate confusion while not exactly inspiring confidence in the new A(merican)AC.

The longer the AAC (our AAC) survives and draws attention the higher up it will go in the search engines. One presumes that at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, the first ten search results will apply to our AAC rather than the other one.

 

[DobbsRover2]

On second thought, maybe being confused with the Appalachian conference isn't so bad. There's a lot of anti-American sentiment swirling around in certain corners of the world, but the Appalachian trail has generally rave reviews except for maybe certain connotations as a place for Southern pols to say they are hiking when they want to squeeze in time elsewhere with their snogglies. But otherwise, Appalachian means extremely close families, kick-butt beverages, and baked raccoon in red eye gravy, which has a whole lot more character than American cheese. Could do worse.

 

[winlots]

On second thought, maybe being confused with the Appalachian conference isn't so bad. There's a lot of anti-American sentiment swirling around in certain corners of the world, but the Appalachian trail has generally rave reviews except for maybe certain connotations as a place for Southern pols to say they are hiking when they want to squeeze in time elsewhere with their snogglies. But otherwise, Appalachian means extremely close families, kick-butt beverages, and baked raccoon in red eye gravy, which has a whole lot more character than American cheese. Could do worse.

DOB - you got an "Amen" on what Appalachian means.

 

[reno tony]

I am actually excited about the new Conference. I live in Florida and will get a chance to watch the women play twice a year instead of once every other year. If they will add FSU or Florida to their non-conference schedule I'll be in heaven.

 

[reno tony]

Title IX. Always at Football schools. Because of the size and costs of the football programs.

I'm not up to date on Title IX.... I know it has to do with equal funding between men and women's sports. I have also heard that if the school does not offer a women's sport and a women wants to compete, she can try out for the men's team. Does that also go for a man if they don't offer a men's sport but do for the women. Can he compete in for the women's team? Any clarification and examples would help.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I'm not up to date on Title IX.... I know it has to do with equal funding between men and women's sports. I have also heard that if the school does not offer a women's sport and a women wants to compete, she can try out for the men's team. Does that also go for a man if they don't offer a men's sport but do for the women. Can he compete in for the women's team? Any clarification and examples would help.

I was answering the comment that someone made about the new league sponsoring more women's than men's sports. Almost all colleges and conferences do sponsor more women's sports, because, whether you are head counting or dollar counting, football eats up an inordinate amount of money and encompasses teams with 80+ players (and a dozen fairly well paid coaches).

One of the casualties of Title X is men's volleyball, which on the D1 level is offered at just a handful of schools as opposed to women's volleyball at almost all. Last time I checked, Women's soccer was offered slightly more than men's; Rutgers dropped men's swimming and diving; Wrestling is often cited as a sport that is sacrificed to Title IX. Unless its changed, the NCAA offers Women's Bowling as a sport, nothing for the men.

I'm pretty sure that most sports are gender specific, but some are co-ed.

 

[Phil]

I'm not up to date on Title IX.... I know it has to do with equal funding between men and women's sports.

That's a little misleading. When Title IX was first enacted, it was an open question whether it had anything to do with sports. That wasn't its primary focus. It was passed in 1972, but it wasn't until 1974, when John Tower tried to clarify, and exclude revenue producing sports from coverage, that it became clearer. The Tower Amendment was defeated, and in 1975 the HEW promulgated the regulations that clarified exactly how it applied to sports.

 

[reno tony]

I know this has drifted way off the topic of this thread but my curiosity has the best of me today. I have heard of women trying out for the men's football team, one kicker even sued and got $1 million. I believe it was Duke but not 100% on the school. She claimed sexism but I'm not sure if the school settled or it actually went to court. See if someone can answer this question. If a woman is playing on a men's football team, can that school claim 50% of the budget towards the woman's and 50% towards the men's programs? If so, might not be a bad idea to have a woman on the team.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I know this has drifted way off the topic of this thread but my curiosity has the best of me today. I have heard of women trying out for the men's football team, one kicker even sued and got $1 million. I believe it was Duke but not 100% on the school. She claimed sexism but I'm not sure if the school settled or it actually went to court. See if someone can answer this question. If a woman is playing on a men's football team, can that school claim 50% of the budget towards the woman's and 50% towards the men's programs? If so, might not be a bad idea to have a woman on the team.

Not sure but I would have to say that since the gender equity distribution for college sports gets a lot of attention, if Auburn suddenly decided to include their cheerleaders on the football team roster to meet Title IX requirements that there would be some eyebrows raised. Women as FG kickers on football teams is certainly a possibility, but stashing players on a team that have no hope of ever playing would be a problem. And no, a guy cannot play on a women's V-ball team.

Now there is a huge level of hypocrisy involved in all this, because I know from covering the running scene that many colleges especially down South stock their women's cross country teams with a huge amount of "runners" who never run, while they have chopped their men's cross country teams entirely or limited them to 7 runners. This is all done for covering the football numbers of course, and it's another reason why I have a lot of contempt for the pigskin bus drivers and the college administrations who plead that they are really concerned about ethics and the welfare of their student body. You can squeeze a lot of sleazy oil out of the NCAA mouthpieces and their attempts to juggle football and the cable contracts.