Coyne vs Wildhack...and Gross too

[OburgOrange]

Didn’t Paterno want in the Big East as well but the basketball onlies wanted no part of it? Oh what could have been

 

[Alsacs]

Didn’t Paterno want in the Big East as well but the basketball onlies wanted no part of it? Oh what could have been

Penn State was denied membership.
Paterno destroyed the chance for an Eastern all sports conference when we wouldn’t treat his potential partners with fairness. He wanted basketball revenue shared but not football revenue and he wanted Penn State to get more home games and not an equal number.
Paterno killed an Eastern league if Penn State joined the Big East in 1981 though it wouldn’t have stopped them from going to the Big Ten in 1991 as that was for football.

 

[Moontan]

I think the school wasn’t gonna openly campaign for a spot in the ACC since they knew leaving was gonna destroy the BE. It was less “help me get me outta here!” In 2004. Also the invitations and site visits usually were formalities. It was a done deal.

until VA politics got in the way.

As well as a couple of tobacco road schools abstaining from the process...

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Didn’t Paterno want in the Big East as well but the basketball onlies wanted no part of it? Oh what could have been

Crouthamel tried to get PSU an invite to the Big East. Needed 6 votes, only got 5. Gtown, St Johns, and Nova voted against.

Wouldn't have mattered anyways, because JoePa was only interested in starting an Eastern All-Sports Conference based on football. Even if PSU joined, it would have been temporary until he got a better deal from the B1G which included football.

JoePa's dream conference would have involved PSU, Pitt, WV, Syracuse, BC, Temple, Rutgers, and possibly Maryland. He had some really screwy ideas about revenue sharing (when SU sold 20,000 tickets to a basketball game, we'd have to share ticket/concession revenue with the whole conference, while PSU could sell 100,000 football tickets and keep every dime). His lopsided revenue scheme made SU and BC hesitant to leave the BE.

Once Pitt accepted a Big East invite in 1983 it killed JoePa's dream. He held a grudge against Pitt until the day he died.

Little known fact: When the BE was originally formed in 1979, Temple and Rutgers were asked to join and they both declined because they didn't want to alienate PSU. Nova and Seton Hall ended up being the replacements.

 

[orangeinohio]

He left because he wanted the Minnesota job.

When he was hired at Minnesota, I think I remember him getting choked up about returning to his adopted home (he and his wife are actually from Iowa). He was going to end up at Minnesota regardless. It’s just that the Minnesota opening happened at an inconvenient time for SU.

 

[Crusty]

I am old fashioned when it comes to commitments. You have to live with them otherwise you can never be counted on for anything. Character matters and living up to your commitments is part of your character. Coyne flunks the foxhole test.

 

[OrangePA]

When he was hired at Minnesota, I think I remember him getting choked up about returning to his adopted home (he and his wife are actually from Iowa). He was going to end up at Minnesota regardless. It’s just that the Minnesota opening happened at an inconvenient time for SU.

Yes. It seems that he spent much of his time in Syracuse Turing to figure out how to get to Minnesota.

 

[SU94]

Crouthamel tried to get PSU an invite to the Big East. Needed 6 votes, only got 5. Gtown, St Johns, and Nova voted against.

Wouldn't have mattered anyways, because JoePa was only interested in starting an Eastern All-Sports Conference based on football. Even if PSU joined, it would have been temporary until he got a better deal from the B1G which included football.

JoePa's dream conference would have involved PSU, Pitt, WV, Syracuse, BC, Temple, Rutgers, and possibly Maryland. He had some really screwy ideas about revenue sharing (when SU sold 20,000 tickets to a basketball game, we'd have to share ticket/concession revenue with the whole conference, while PSU could sell 100,000 football tickets and keep every dime). His lopsided revenue scheme made SU and BC hesitant to leave the BE.

Once Pitt accepted a Big East invite in 1983 it killed JoePa's dream. He held a grudge against Pitt until the day he died.

Little known fact: When the BE was originally formed in 1979, Temple and Rutgers were asked to join and they both declined because they didn't want to alienate PSU. Nova and Seton Hall ended up being the replacements.

Holy Cross was the first offer in the Boston-market. They declined and Boston College raised their hand.

Tony Weaver examines decision by Holy Cross not to join the Big East Conference 40 years ago

The chair of the Sport Management Department authored a research article published in the Journal of Amateur Sport, a publication for scholars to share scholarship relevant to the amateur sports realm.

www.elon.edu

 

[KaiserUEO]

I think that's how he sold it to Boeheim and the segment of the fanbase that wouldn't want to leave Big East hoops.

Jake was a football guy, who wanted Penn State in the league back in the day. He knew what was going on.

Those talking about his ego never met him. He was the most unassuming down to earth guy you'd ever meet. I think where he probably became wrong for the job was when the AD needed to shift most of their focus to fundraising. I don't think that was his thing. And so we way overshot on his replacement.

As for BC, my recollection is that the ACC wanted, in order, 1. Miami, 2. the city of Boston, 3. Syracuse. They had a perfect scenario. Except Duke and UNC didn't want any of it. No one wanted Blacksburg, but it was forced upon them when Duke and UNC wouldn't budge. Either could have shut that down.

They stopped at 11 that night and regrouped, and eventually went after their #2 target.

yep.

i think it they needed 7 votes to expand.

dook and unc were hard no's and originally everyone else was a YES.

then the Virginia governor go involved and told UVA, you say NO to everything unless vpi is in.

either they had already voted miami in, or they agreed to let miami in and revote.

Virginia said NO to BC and Syracuse, but said they would vote for vpi.

they voted again and took vpi.

then they couldnt make up their minds on BC and Cuse so they tabled any further expansion and then went after BC later.

which we have books on in the archives...

 

[Alsacs]

yep.

i think it they needed 7 votes to expand.

dook and unc were hard no's and originally everyone else was a YES.

then the Virginia governor go involved and told UVA, you say NO to everything unless vpi is in.

either they had already voted miami in, or they agreed to let miami in and revote.

Virginia said NO to BC and Syracuse, but said they would vote for vpi.

they voted again and took vpi.

then they couldnt make up their minds on BC and Cuse so they tabled any further expansion and then went after BC later.

which we have books on in the archives...

Duke and UNC were no votes for anyone beyond Miami.
They wanted only 10 teams to protect ACC round robin basketball.

So that is how UVA got all leverage. They got Virginia Tech as 11 because the conference wanted Miami and Miami had the June 30th deadline to get out of the Big East with the exit fee low. Miami was leaving then or they weren’t leaving.
I remember JB going on OTL nightly with Bob Ley that night and he was happy we Didn’t go to the ACC.
He accepted the second time because he wasn’t a moron and saw what was happening and basically it was a Big East-ACC merger by that poain’t.

If Duke and UNC just accepted expansion was going to happen then the original 3 SU/BC/Miami happen.

They didn’t and we got screwed because our administration wasn’t two faced like BC’s.

 

[sutomcat]

Holy Cross was the first offer in the Boston-market. They declined and Boston College raised their hand.

Tony Weaver examines decision by Holy Cross not to join the Big East Conference 40 years ago

The chair of the Sport Management Department authored a research article published in the Journal of Amateur Sport, a publication for scholars to share scholarship relevant to the amateur sports realm.

www.elon.edu

Pretty bizarre rationale by the Holy Cross admins. They valued academics so they passed on the Big East?

Why no mention that all the schools that joined the Big East got a lot more popular, much more selective and made major gains in academic prestige?

While Holy Cross withered on the vine.

 

[Roger N]

Gross used SU to get a better job. I jest.

My take is that incompetent Nancy hired Gross, supposedly because of his hiring of Pete Carroll. They don't mention Gross's strike out on his previous football coach hire. Coach P was not performing well. After the Bowl game, Nancy is embarrassed and tells Gross to fire Coach P. Meanwhile it's after the hiring season so there are few coaches available.

Gross ask Pete to recommend a coach. Pete tells him about his old college buddy Grob. Grob has little college experience and assembles a crappy hasty assemblage of assistant coaches. It's like he went down to the unemployed coaches hiring hall and grabbed the first bunch of guys he saw. Can you spell "DEFENSE"? Good you're hired. "Next in line"

My take is it's Nancy's fault for hiring the good doctor in the first place and then Gross not telling Nancy that it would be better to wait until the next year to fire coach P.

That's my take. The result is fifteen years of misery for a SU football fan.

 

[OrangePA]

I think that's how he sold it to Boeheim and the segment of the fanbase that wouldn't want to leave Big East hoops.

Jake was a football guy, who wanted Penn State in the league back in the day. He knew what was going on.

Those talking about his ego never met him. He was the most unassuming down to earth guy you'd ever meet. I think where he probably became wrong for the job was when the AD needed to shift most of their focus to fundraising. I don't think that was his thing. And so we way overshot on his replacement.

As for BC, my recollection is that the ACC wanted, in order, 1. Miami, 2. the city of Boston, 3. Syracuse. They had a perfect scenario. Except Duke and UNC didn't want any of it. No one wanted Blacksburg, but it was forced upon them when Duke and UNC wouldn't budge. Either could have shut that down.

They stopped at 11 that night and regrouped, and eventually went after their #2 target.

The Governor of Va forced the ACC to take Va Tech.

 

[OrangePA]

Gross used SU to get a better job. I jest.

My take is that incompetent Nancy hired Gross, supposedly because of his hiring of Pete Carroll. They don't mention Gross's strike out on his previous football coach hire. Coach P was not performing well. After the Bowl game, Nancy is embarrassed and tells Gross to fire Coach P. Meanwhile it's after the hiring season so there are few coaches available.

Gross ask Pete to recommend a coach. Pete tells him about his old college buddy Grob. Grob has little college experience and assembles a crappy hasty assemblage of assistant coaches. It's like he went down to the unemployed coaches hiring hall and grabbed the first bunch of guys he saw. Can you spell "DEFENSE"? Good you're hired. "Next in line"

My take is it's Nancy's fault for hiring the good doctor in the first place and then Gross not telling Nancy that it would be better to wait until the next year to fire coach P.

That's my take. The result is fifteen years of misery for a SU football fan.

Cantor decided to fire P at halftime of the Champs Bowl.

Her hand was forced by some influential members of the BOT - during the halftime show.

Gross had nothing to do with it.

 

[Chip]

The Governor of Va forced the ACC to take Va Tech.

He forced UVA to vote no to expansion unless VT was included. If either Duke or UNC changed their position on expansion, then Warner’s involvement would have been nothing more than political theatre (hey I tried so vote for me for Senator).

 

[sufandu]

Thank you for bringing some reality to the discussion. It's interesting how every horrible decision in the last 20 years points back to one person.

Sounds like there were a bunch of horrible decisions made by that person's predecessors.

 

[Scooch]

He forced UVA to vote no to expansion unless VT was included. If either Duke or UNC changed their position on expansion, then Warner’s involvement would have been nothing more than political theatre (hey I tried so vote for me for Senator).

Yup. The failure of the 2003 expansion was in Swofford not getting his Alma mater on board. UNC’s no vote completely mucked everything up. Took a decade to get it right.

 

[Scooch]

Pretty bizarre rationale by the Holy Cross admins. They valued academics so they passed on the Big East?

Why no mention that all the schools that joined the Big East got a lot more popular, much more selective and made major gains in academic prestige?

While Holy Cross withered on the vine.

Certainly bizarre looking at it through a 2020 lens, but at the time they were far from the only school to deemphasize big time athletics in the name of academic standing. It was just a decade prior when nearly all of the private D1 football playing schools in the northeast did just that.

Holy Cross made a bad decision but it wasn’t completely baffling at the time. And the school itself is still great.

 

[Chip]

Yup. The failure of the 2003 expansion was in Swofford not getting his Alma mater on board. UNC’s no vote completely mucked everything up. Took a decade to get it right.

I think they would have eventually grabbed VT to strengthen the football league but the night of the first vote it was the perfect storm to get them in right then and there.

Warner probably felt pretty powerful that night. Even had OrangePa (and probably others) thinking he forced the entire ACC. But the real power was held by those 2 schools who want it the most, they could have changed everything in one breath.

 

[Bayside44]

I think they would have eventually grabbed VT to strengthen the football league but the night of the first vote it was the perfect storm to get them in right then and there.

Warner probably felt pretty powerful that night. Even had OrangePa (and probably others) thinking he forced the entire ACC. But the real power was held by those 2 schools who want it the most, they could have changed everything in one breath.

Didn't we have a thread or two on this back in 2003?

 

[Moontan]

Didn't we have a thread or two on this back in 2003?

Fortunately on another site, so that we can't reference them directly.
(I say that, but would likely re-read them... )

 

[Chip]

Didn't we have a thread or two on this back in 2003?

We weren’t as good at merging threads back then so probably about 75.

I love old campfire stories though.

 

[Alsacs]

I think they would have eventually grabbed VT to strengthen the football league but the night of the first vote it was the perfect storm to get them in right then and there.

Warner probably felt pretty powerful that night. Even had OrangePa (and probably others) thinking he forced the entire ACC. But the real power was held by those 2 schools who want it the most, they could have changed everything in one breath.

If VPI doesn’t get scooped by the ACC in 2003 there is a strong chance they end up in the SEC when they took Missouri with Texas A&M.
The SEC would love to get into VA or NC. VPI couldn’t leave the ACC after what UVA did for them.
The SEC passed on WVU for Missouri.

 

[Jake]

He left because he wanted the Minnesota job.

He did. But my statement and your statement aren’t mutually exclusive.