storrsroars
Exiled in Pittsburgh
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2012
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No, not the Paul Zeise who was recruited by KO, but his dad, who's a reporter and sports radio host here in Pittsburgh. He spent a half hour last night talking about UConn.
To put this in perspective, in the 11 years I've lived here, I have never heard a half hour dedicated to any story focused on a single team from outside Pittsburgh that didn't involve a murder or suspension. It's more air time than Dwight Howard or LeBron merited in the past couple months combined.
I was stunned this was happening in Pittsburgh, which is more provincial and parochial than even Boston.
Anyway, in the midst of topics ranging from the Bucs being 21 games over, to the Pens re-acquiring Rob Scuderi, to Pitt's formal entry into the ACC, Zeise decides he wants to talk about UConn, and whether it's fair or even sensible that a school with 11 NCs and a BCS appearance in past 14 years is shut out of major conferences.
He's got a lot of contacts in the old BE and told some stories about how UConn women are a religion, noting that there are 9 regular beat writers covering Geno's squad while the Steelers have only eight. He told a story of meeting a Courant reporter at an NBA playoff game and being told that the guy didn't want to be there. He'd been demoted from covering the women's team and had to settle for NBA playoffs.
Zeise really wanted listeners (there are NO women's hoops fans in Pgh) to understand the gravity of the situation. He talked about how UConn has spent a fortune on developing a D1 football program and how no team has been more successful than UConn's men since the mid-90s.
He asked whether UConn deserved any of this. Whether it was fair.
His co-host/intern - some kid I know nothing about - responded that yes, UConn did deserve this fate. It's a school in the middle of nowhere, but close enough to other metros so that it could never support big time football. Too many other distractions that most schools in the SEC and many in the ACC/B12 - places were football is THE thing and THE religion - don't have to worry about. The assistant opined that they never should have pursued D1 and they'd probably be in a better place - at least the NBE, anyway. And that they cemented the perception that they would never take building a football program seriously when they "hired a retread like Paul Pasqualoni."
The two went back and forth for a bit, there were no call-ins, although I thought it about it (it was midnight or so), but they ended up with the same conclusions: 1) the women's team would be great as long as Geno was there. They would still have the toughest schedule, they'd still attract the best players. But when Geno goes, so goes the program; 2) KO would have trouble recruiting as there's nothing much to promise kids - no NY area schools to play, no MSG tournament. Zeise pointed out that the AAC tourney being in Memphis is a huge drop down in perception. Thus UConn men's hoops would fade to obscurity; and 3) the football program will never be anything but mid-major. Might they hope to win the AAC and possibly qualify for a BCS bowl someday? Sure, but those times would be few and very far between. And not with Pasqualoni.
Interestingly, Zeise talked about the Syracuse taxi ad campaign, noting Syracuse is not NYC's team, but at least it's in the same state, which can't be said for Rutgers or UConn, adding that the NYC market is too fragmented for any team to make a claim. Zeise also noted that Cincy and USF were also affected, but neither has anywhere near the same gripes at being left out as UConn has.
He said he was going to continue this into the next half hour segment, but when they came back on air, he changed subjects. Maybe it was the producer telling him that no calls = no interest, so he dropped it. But it was a surprising half hour of discussion, especially for a Pittsburgh radio station.
To put this in perspective, in the 11 years I've lived here, I have never heard a half hour dedicated to any story focused on a single team from outside Pittsburgh that didn't involve a murder or suspension. It's more air time than Dwight Howard or LeBron merited in the past couple months combined.
I was stunned this was happening in Pittsburgh, which is more provincial and parochial than even Boston.
Anyway, in the midst of topics ranging from the Bucs being 21 games over, to the Pens re-acquiring Rob Scuderi, to Pitt's formal entry into the ACC, Zeise decides he wants to talk about UConn, and whether it's fair or even sensible that a school with 11 NCs and a BCS appearance in past 14 years is shut out of major conferences.
He's got a lot of contacts in the old BE and told some stories about how UConn women are a religion, noting that there are 9 regular beat writers covering Geno's squad while the Steelers have only eight. He told a story of meeting a Courant reporter at an NBA playoff game and being told that the guy didn't want to be there. He'd been demoted from covering the women's team and had to settle for NBA playoffs.
Zeise really wanted listeners (there are NO women's hoops fans in Pgh) to understand the gravity of the situation. He talked about how UConn has spent a fortune on developing a D1 football program and how no team has been more successful than UConn's men since the mid-90s.
He asked whether UConn deserved any of this. Whether it was fair.
His co-host/intern - some kid I know nothing about - responded that yes, UConn did deserve this fate. It's a school in the middle of nowhere, but close enough to other metros so that it could never support big time football. Too many other distractions that most schools in the SEC and many in the ACC/B12 - places were football is THE thing and THE religion - don't have to worry about. The assistant opined that they never should have pursued D1 and they'd probably be in a better place - at least the NBE, anyway. And that they cemented the perception that they would never take building a football program seriously when they "hired a retread like Paul Pasqualoni."
The two went back and forth for a bit, there were no call-ins, although I thought it about it (it was midnight or so), but they ended up with the same conclusions: 1) the women's team would be great as long as Geno was there. They would still have the toughest schedule, they'd still attract the best players. But when Geno goes, so goes the program; 2) KO would have trouble recruiting as there's nothing much to promise kids - no NY area schools to play, no MSG tournament. Zeise pointed out that the AAC tourney being in Memphis is a huge drop down in perception. Thus UConn men's hoops would fade to obscurity; and 3) the football program will never be anything but mid-major. Might they hope to win the AAC and possibly qualify for a BCS bowl someday? Sure, but those times would be few and very far between. And not with Pasqualoni.
Interestingly, Zeise talked about the Syracuse taxi ad campaign, noting Syracuse is not NYC's team, but at least it's in the same state, which can't be said for Rutgers or UConn, adding that the NYC market is too fragmented for any team to make a claim. Zeise also noted that Cincy and USF were also affected, but neither has anywhere near the same gripes at being left out as UConn has.
He said he was going to continue this into the next half hour segment, but when they came back on air, he changed subjects. Maybe it was the producer telling him that no calls = no interest, so he dropped it. But it was a surprising half hour of discussion, especially for a Pittsburgh radio station.
