Either Mike tranghese never saw that the world was changing, or was never able to convince his members...I'm not sure which, but this piece, I think is a huge indictment of the Big East leadership. Unfortunate that the league didn't break up in 1991 instead of trying to add football too, I think.
Not for us. We are lucky that the league didn't split in the early 1990s, and we are very lucky that the moves made to strengtheng the big east in the latter half of the 1990s involved extending football invites to upgrade to UConn and to Villanova.
Was it good for everybody else? Ummm...just look where we are now as a conferenc.e
Was it good for us? What the big east did/ has done? Hell yes. We've been loyal all along too, ironically, not because of understanding what the big east has trully provided for UConn, but because of our basketball interests.
And that's what needs to be understood, is that we made our own bed, a long, long time ago, by dumping our 50+ year athletic history and traditions and bolting for the big east, because of basketball.
Just like all these schools are dumping their own traditions now, all over the country, aroudn football, we did it ourselves around basketball 32 years ago. Karma has come back ten fold, and we've lost nearly every single 1-A football rivalry. But ti's ok. We will be just fine, because fans want to see UConn, for UConn.......doesn't matter who we play....fans will come because we are UConn. (don't get me wrong, big time football opponents bring all kinds of attention, but a fan base is not built on casual fans that come for the big time opponents.)
The big east, and all it's faults, and basketball, and Jim Calhoun's basketball program, is the entirely to thank for the fact that we are among the big boys now, as a major state university, and with great potential to really continue to grow, rather than in some quagmire of mess, much like has happened to Temple, and/or the profile/level of competition our former allied state universities are currently at.
among the many others along the eastern seaboard, that are currently struggling with the dying experiment that was 1-AA cost containment football.
The big east is to thank for it. I'm thankful. I"m also more than ever ready to look forward rather than back.