Present at the Creation of GOR: or why Swofford is a ninja

[Btstimpy]

This might surprise you, but the ACC was looking at Syracuse but we had just formed the Big East and didn't pursue as we should have.

You are correct. The ACC at the time had 4 schools wanting to pursue Syracuse and the other 4 wanting to pursue Florida State. Gene Corrigan approached both Syracuse and FSU. Jake Crauthamel wanted to join the ACC in football only and leave the rest of Syracuse athletics in the Big East. The ACC wasn't entertaining any partial memberships at the time. So that didn't go anywhere.

FSU wanted to join, and FSU picked the ACC over the SEC who also offered FSU. That made Auburn so mad they dropped FSU from their schedule. Then Gene Corrigan had a hard time getting the ACC Presidents to accept FSU. The first vote on FSU was no because of the academics. So here was FSU having turned down the SEC, and Corrigan couldn't get the votes. He really had to work the ACC Presidents hard to get enough to change their mind and to agree to it. I'm glad he did. They had enough votes on the second vote to extend the invite to FSU.

I don't think that the ACC has ever been involved with Penn State.

 

[Alsacs]

You are correct. The ACC at the time had 4 schools wanting to pursue Syracuse and the other 4 wanting to pursue Florida State. Gene Corrigan approached both Syracuse and FSU. Jake Crauthamel wanted to join the ACC in football only and leave the rest of Syracuse athletics in the Big East. The ACC wasn't entertaining any partial memberships at the time. So that didn't go anywhere.

FSU wanted to join, and FSU picked the ACC over the SEC who also offered FSU. That made Auburn so mad they dropped FSU from their schedule. Then Gene Corrigan had a hard time getting the ACC Presidents to accept FSU. The first vote on FSU was no because of the academics. So here was FSU having turned down the SEC, and Corrigan couldn't get the votes. He really had to work the ACC Presidents hard to get enough to change their mind and to agree to it. I'm glad he did. They had enough votes on the second vote to extend the invite to FSU.

I don't think that the ACC has ever been involved with Penn State.

Honestly, while this is hindsight I bet the anti-expansion ACC wing North Carolina, Virginia, Duke probably wished that the Big East football schools and ACC created a hybrid football 18 team league and left the Olympic Sports alone. While I as a Syracuse fan wouldn't want to continue giving the small Catholic Big East welfare,but it would have protected the status quo and like schools Duke, North Carolina, Virginia's would have protected the robin-round schedule and probably paid the Big East peanuts for the football alliance and created a good championship game.
1998 Big East
Miami
Boston College
Syracuse
Virginia Tech
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Temple
UConn

1998 ACC
Virginia
Duke
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Florida State
Maryland
Clemson
Georgia Tech

Each division plays their own games and then winner's played in a Conference championship game, and the ACC protects its round-robin and the Big East football schools continue carrying the Catholic school's dead weight.

 

[Scooch]

The other way things could have played out, after PSU announced their plans to join the Big Ten, was an all-sports league made up of remaining eastern and southern independents & Metro Conference schools.

So that would have been the 8 schools of the original BEFC along with FSU, Louisville, Cincy and a few others. I have to dig up the old story about it, but IIRC it was pitched by Jefferson-Pilot who saw a big east coast league in major media markets with premium brand programs.

Which is all to say, the demise of the Big East in its hybrid form was decades in the making.

 

[omniorange]

You bring up an astute point. In addition to the '98 meeting, he and Jake Crouthmael (sp?) met with Swofford, former NCSU AD Les Robinson, and, former FSU AD Dave Hart in Atlanta to offer Miami, BC, and, Syracuse to the ACC. He has never denied this meeting, to my knowledge.

Which made him the biggest hypocrite in college athletics when he accused the ACC of 'operating in the dark.' He was selling out the rest of the FB-playing schools to protect basketball.

Not quite what happened. Representatives from the Big East, with the knowledge of the other football teams, met with representatives of the ACC in 97 and then again in 98 about a possible merger in football, the then ACC 9 and what was going to be the BE 7 (since Temple had already been given notice their federated membership was in danger) to possibly create the first 16 super-conference for football only. Each league would remain separate and distinct for all other sports.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/20...40264_1_tranghese-acc-s-commissioner-swofford

As a result of that meeting, the ACC went away knowing they didn't want to go that large even if it were for football only and began thinking about how many they did want to expand with 10 or 12 and what schools besides Miami they would want from the Big East.

In 2003 Les Robinson either honestly misremembered the meeting or was so irate at Tranghese's "moral outrage" at Swofford in and the ACC in 2003 that he purposely tried to twist it and make it appear that Tranghese only offered Miami, SU, and BC but there is no way the Goose was going to do that to Pitt.

Now had the ACC shown interest in the proposal, it wouldn't surprise me if 2 of WVU, VT, and RU would also be sacrificed, but again, no way would Mikey have left Pitt out in the cold for football, even though the program was in downward spiral at that time.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Btstimpy]

Honestly, while this is hindsight I bet the anti-expansion ACC wing North Carolina, Virginia, Duke probably wished that the Big East football schools and ACC created a hybrid football 18 team league and left the Olympic Sports alone. While I as a Syracuse fan wouldn't want to continue giving the small Catholic Big East welfare,but it would have protected the status quo and like schools Duke, North Carolina, Virginia's would have protected the robin-round schedule and probably paid the Big East peanuts for the football alliance and created a good championship game.
1998 Big East
Miami
Boston College
Syracuse
Virginia Tech
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Temple
UConn

1998 ACC
Virginia
Duke
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Florida State
Maryland
Clemson
Georgia Tech

Each division plays their own games and then winner's played in a Conference championship game, and the ACC protects its round-robin and the Big East football schools continue carrying the Catholic school's dead weight.

Looking at this list, the ACC is ending up with most of them. UConn and Temple are left behind at the moment which is unfortunate. I've read on the Temple board where they are frustrated because they were so excited to get into the Big East basketball league, and they left the Atlantic 10 to do it. Then a few months later, all the schools left them. Now here their basketball team is out of the A10 and in the AAC playing SMU. UConn, Cincinnati, Memphis, etc. are all good basketball teams. I hope it works out for Temple.

But yes the round robin basketball league that the ACC was during the 90s is gone. Same with the Big East.

 

[Scooch]

I have no sympathy at all for Temple. They let their football program rot away to nothing while cashing checks. It was an abject embarrassment that they were in a BCS league and treated football like it was D-3. And along with Rutgers' incompetence they utterly and miserably failed to even remotely attract fans in the 2 biggest media markets in the conference.

Functionally that Big East/ACC merger happened, except it was a slow-rolling raid over 12 years. 5 of the original BEFC schools are in, and a 6th joins because of the stupidity of the Big 12.

Basically the ACC "missed out" on Rutgers. Whatever.

 

[HtownOrange]

I have no sympathy at all for Temple. They let their football program rot away to nothing while cashing checks. It was an abject embarrassment that they were in a BCS league and treated football like it was D-3. And along with Rutgers' incompetence they utterly and miserably failed to even remotely attract fans in the 2 biggest media markets in the conference.

Functionally that Big East/ACC merger happened, except it was a slow-rolling raid over 12 years. 5 of the original BEFC schools are in, and a 6th joins because of the stupidity of the Big 12.

Basically the ACC "missed out" on Rutgers. Whatever.

Sometimes a "miss" is a good thing. Agree with your assessment.

 

[Resonator]

Not quite what happened. Representatives from the Big East, with the knowledge of the other football teams, met with representatives of the ACC in 97 and then again in 98 about a possible merger in football, the then ACC 9 and what was going to be the BE 7 (since Temple had already been given notice their federated membership was in danger) to possibly create the first 16 super-conference for football only. Each league would remain separate and distinct for all other sports.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/20...40264_1_tranghese-acc-s-commissioner-swofford

As a result of that meeting, the ACC went away knowing they didn't want to go that large even if it were for football only and began thinking about how many they did want to expand with 10 or 12 and what schools besides Miami they would want from the Big East.

In 2003 Les Robinson either honestly misremembered the meeting or was so irate at Tranghese's "moral outrage" at Swofford in and the ACC in 2003 that he purposely tried to twist it and make it appear that Tranghese only offered Miami, SU, and BC but there is no way the Goose was going to do that to Pitt.

Now had the ACC shown interest in the proposal, it wouldn't surprise me if 2 of WVU, VT, and RU would also be sacrificed, but again, no way would Mikey have left Pitt out in the cold for football, even though the program was in downward spiral at that time.

Cheers,
Neil

This is where I got my info from.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/2003-05-22-tranghese-expansion_x.htm

No mention of Pitt being involved in the discussion.

PS...not being argumentative. Just sharing my link is all.

 

[Alsacs]

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/04/2871296/inside-the-deal-how-john-swofford.html

Here is the article Arb is referencing in his original post. Its very interesting.

 

[omniorange]

This is where I got my info from.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/2003-05-22-tranghese-expansion_x.htm

No mention of Pitt being involved in the discussion.

PS...not being argumentative. Just sharing my link is all.

And that link only looked at it from an ACC perspective and left out other things that Les Robinson had to say. From the article I linked the overall thinking on both sides came out, but even focusing on the ACC side there was this:

The ACC, which had admitted Florida State in 1991, couldn't get the seven votes required for more expansion when a straw vote was taken.

UNC, Duke, and at least one other school was not going to expand beyond 9 for all sports at that time.

He (meaning Robinson) also said several ideas were discussed from a complete merger of schools that played football to the move of only a few schools with Miami, Syracuse and Boston College the most prominently discussed.

As the latter part shows, others besides Miami, SU, and BC were discussed, they just weren't as prominently discussed. And since this is from an ACC perspective, one can see why the ACC came back 5 years later after those three - but others were discusssed as well. But by who?

Translation, the ACC's focus was possible merger for football that at best went to 12 looking mostly at Miami, SU, and BC. However, Tranghese was looking for an entire merger first (and if not that) a proposal whereby at least 5 schools merged with the ACC for football (Miami, SU, BC, Pitt and one of WVU, VT or RU). Anyone who believes Tranghese would have signed off on any merger of BE/ACC football that did not include Pitt or that Tranghese would be willing to sign off on SU leaving for the ACC in basketball needs to rethink that stance.

Anyway, as Scooch pointed out in his post, the merger of 5 with 9 actually came about but not for football only, but rather for all sports.

How might things have been different if a merger of the 9/7 back then came about in 1998?

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Resonator]

And that link only looked at it from an ACC perspective and left out other things that Les Robinson had to say. From the article I linked the overall thinking on both sides came out, but even focusing on the ACC side there was this:

The ACC, which had admitted Florida State in 1991, couldn't get the seven votes required for more expansion when a straw vote was taken.

UNC, Duke, and at least one other school was not going to expand beyond 9 for all sports at that time.

He (meaning Robinson) also said several ideas were discussed from a complete merger of schools that played football to the move of only a few schools with Miami, Syracuse and Boston College the most prominently discussed.

As the latter part shows, others besides Miami, SU, and BC were discussed, they just weren't as prominently discussed. And since this is from an ACC perspective, one can see why the ACC came back 5 years later after those three - but others were discusssed as well. But by who?

Translation, the ACC's focus was possible merger for football that at best went to 12 looking mostly at Miami, SU, and BC. However, Tranghese was looking for an entire merger first (and if not that) a proposal whereby at least 5 schools merged with the ACC for football (Miami, SU, BC, Pitt and one of WVU, VT or RU). Anyone who believes Tranghese would have signed off on any merger of BE/ACC football that did not include Pitt or that Tranghese would be willing to sign off on SU leaving for the ACC in basketball needs to rethink that stance.

Anyway, as Scooch pointed out in his post, the merger of 5 with 9 actually came about but not for football only, but rather for all sports.

How might things have been different if a merger of the 9/7 back then came about in 1998?

Cheers,
Neil

Thank you, sir. Much appreciated for the insight. Good stuff.

 

[OttosBestFriend]

The "woulda, coulda, shoulda" component of all these linked articles is enough to make this 'Cuse fan sick.

We were thisclose to being "safe" in the ACC more than 20 years ago and even closer to being irrelevant for the foreseeable future. (See UConn & Cincy among others)

Almost too much for me to digest.

And pretty sure I'd be in a state of depression so deep that'd they would write about me in psych journals had 'Cuse been left out.

 

[Btstimpy]

The "woulda, coulda, shoulda" component of all these linked articles is enough to make this 'Cuse fan sick.

We were thisclose to being "safe" in the ACC more than 20 years ago and even closer to being irrelevant for the foreseeable future. (See UConn & Cincy among others)

Almost too much for me to digest.

And pretty sure I'd be in a state of depression so deep that'd they would write about me in psych journals had 'Cuse been left out.

You're now in the ACC and hopefully "safe", and Jim Boeheim has had the opportunity to have a great and high profile career in the Big East. It was a good thing for a long time. He's winding it down now leading the entrance into the ACC. Now with football clearly the driver in college athletics, it's time for everyone to change. I think that the new ACC is coming together quite nicely for the future.

 

[longtimefan]

Big East was doomed to fail as long as their were basketball onlies and football playing schools.

This is the salient point. And JB has mentioned several times that it was amazing, looking back, that Gavitt and especially Tranghese, were able to keep the Big East together for as long as they did.