Big East moving forward after changes

[Apis Bull]

Big East moving forward after changes

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Mike Tranghese still has a job and the Big East Conference actually has more teams, not less. Still, a year after Miami left, then two more schools followed suit, the commissioner says "it's almost like we're starting over again."

Of course, starting over is better than the alternative, which could have been the total dismantling of the proud conference that formed in 1979 and was almost solely responsible for reviving college basketball along the East Coast.

Time passed, things changed and football became the primary money maker in American college sports. The Big East became a player on the football scene by adding Miami in 1991.

Then, last year, when the Atlantic Coast Conference made a move to nab the Hurricanes and a few other teams so it could get to 12 teams, the Big East went into crisis mode.

Tranghese felt blindsided. During a dramatic news conference held at the conference's annual meetings this time last year, he held nothing back and said the Miami move, if completed, would "be the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime."

A year later, the move has been made. The ACC prospered and the Big East survived. One thing that didn't change: Tranghese's opinion about the way the ACC and Miami went about their business.

"We've done our job. We regrouped. We're going forward," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But I have some very strong feelings about what's happened. Those feelings ain't ever going to go away. I still feel some people acted dishonorably. That's not going to change. I'll go to my grave with that."

Tranghese conceded that every university has a right to do what's best for its future, "but my argument was with the way it was done."

Two weeks ago, ACC commissioner John Swofford announced his conference's expensive, new TV deal - $258 million over seven years - the likes of which he envisioned when he proposed turning the ACC into a "superconference."

He sounded no regrets and lauded the schools for making the move. "It was something we needed to do to look forward and secure our place for the future," Swofford said.

That left Tranghese to go trolling. He said that, unlike the way the ACC treated him, he gave Conference USA about one month's notice before he went searching there for his own replacements.

He wound up with Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul, who will begin play in 2005, creating a 16-team basketball conference - two more than before - and an eight-team football conference. Tranghese has never worried about the basketball side.

Despite all the turmoil, the Big East has produced the last two men's national champions, Syracuse and Connecticut. But on the football side, Tranghese knows the conference now has serious work to do.

"We maintained our BCS berth. That was the No. 1 priority on the day these meetings ended last year," he said. "But the fact is, we have to go forward and prove ourselves."

Among the unfinished business is a dispute between the conference and ESPN about the value of the remaining four years of the football TV contract.

The value clearly changed when Miami left. The issue is being settled in arbitration. A number of lawsuits that resulted from the defections are still active, including the main one, filed by Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and West Virginia against Miami and Boston College, alleging they conspired to weaken the Big East.

"I don't know when any of that is going to end," Tranghese conceded.

But he does know the task at hand is much different than it was a year ago. His fight to maintain the status quo is through. Now, the challenge is starting over.

"We forced our people to deal with some unbelievably complex issues," he said. "If anything, our presidents probably became more involved in our conference than at any time. And they provided unbelievable leadership. They knew that we had to make this work."

[bulls96go]

good article

the BE will do well

[smazza]

BE has too move forward

settle the cases

and build its football programs