(02-22-2012 03:05 PM)3601 Wrote: (02-22-2012 01:05 PM)TripleA Wrote: (02-22-2012 12:37 PM)3601 Wrote: (02-22-2012 11:19 AM)bitcruncher Wrote: The only people that thought Memphis was getting an invite to The BEast in 2010 were the folks from Memphis. Nobody in The BEast thought it remotely possible...
Hell, I didn't think we were getting an invitation this year. Neither did you or anybody else.
Not exactly. I found out about a week before it happened, and posted it on Roar premium, with the proper caveats, on the Saturday before it was announced, when I was pretty sure. And we had, once again, been talking on and off with the BE for several months, although it wasn't going anywhere again. Until this last time, when serious talks started about 3 weeks before it was announced.
Did anybody believe you on Roar premium (whatever that is) or did they think you were just jerking everybody's chain again?
I never jerked anybody's chain, this time or last. If you believe I did, it's only b/c you have no clue about my personality or motives.
And yes, they believed me.
I'll say this one more time, for the benefit of those here, and then that's it for me. In early summer of 2010, when Texas, OU, etc. were flirting with the Pac 10, Kansas and the other potential B12 "leftovers" approached several other schools about rebuilding the B12. KU also discussed joining the BE, so multiple talks were going on in a short time frame.
Anyway, several schools met in Miami during an AD convention for the Orange Bowl and discussed rebuilding the B12. After that, talks progressed to the point that Memphis thought it was a likely possibility, so much so that RC and others in the AOB were not exactly hiding the fact, at least in private. Parrish even mentioned it once. This situation is the one I posted about on mt.org, NOT the Big East, as most assumed.
But then Texas stopped its exodus of the B12, and the plan fell through. RC mentioned it publicly several times, including the day we were announced into the Big East, saying that we had come quite close to admission to the BCS before, if Texas had left the B12.
Not long after that fell through, we started talking privately to the Big East. This time, Fred and Shirley led the charge, and this effort was even quieter. I believe 100% that both Fred and Shirley told several people around them that we were going to the BE. I talked to one of them myself, and once removed, got the same feedback from multiple others. I passed that on to a lot of folks by PM, but posted nothing publicly about it, from late June until sometime in August.
Then in early August, somebody posted on mt.org on a Friday that we were in, and it would be the next Tuesday. Wasn't me, but Wolken blamed me on radio, anyway. As we all know, nothing happened. I never found out the specifics, but my guess is that Tranghese led Fred to believe we would be admitted. He had mentioned there could be some opposition, but thought it could be overcome. Well, apparently, it was much stronger than Tranghgese figured, and was expressed whenever the BE got around to informally discussing this with the BE presidents.
I certainly can't "prove" any of that, but nobody has ever disproved it, either. Wolken tried, b/c nobody in the media was told about it, but I also found out about the NCAA letter 5 months before he did, and told a few who can vouch for it, so it's certainly possible that I heard it and Wolken didn't, and it was accurate. I firmly believe that to be true.
Wolken later asked Dr. Raines about the rumors, and she refused to comment. If they were baseless, don't you think she would have just said nothing happened?
Then we started talking to the BE again last fall. All that is documented on Roar, too. They were on and off, as usual, b/c nothing happened, until we finally started talking again, about 3 weeks before we were announced on Feb. 8.
Now, you don't have to believe this. I honestly don't care, b/c I don't know you. I could give you a list of folks at Memphis who can back up everything I said, but obviously, I'm not.
But if you're going to post publicly that I am jerking people's chains, then I am going to respond.
I hope that's the end of it, b/c it's irrelevant now that we're in, and my friends all know what kind of person I am, and that the last thing I would ever do is "jerk people's chains." Or make up crap to be some kind of stupid hero on a message board. I took a lot of personal abuse, but I'm still here. That's b/c I was telling the truth, and everything I said was true at the time I told it.
