(01-24-2014 11:09 AM)ken d Wrote:  Penn State's application to join the Big East was rejected by a vote of 5-3. I haven't been able to find which three schools voted against them. Do any of the former BE fans know the answer to this?

UCONN was pro Penn State. One of their goals was to upgrade the football program down the line.

(01-24-2014 09:13 AM)ken d Wrote:  Think about the possibilities - how different the landscape of college football might be today.

If these talks had started just a little earlier, they might have included Penn State and Virginia Tech (along with West Virginia) in a 16 team league. That would likely have permanently kept the B1G out of the east. In that event, they might instead have gone after the Big Eight (minus the Oklahoma schools), which had not yet merged with the powers of the Southwest Conference.

The Big XII would never have existed, and the SEC and Pac 10 would have been left to fight over the scraps. I enjoy thinking of Texas as a scrap. Daydreaming can be fun.

No talks in the late 80s would have occurred without Pitt. Pitt going to the BE in '82 is what kept the BE intact, and Syracuse and BC waited on Pitt's decision. Penn State and Pitt were 1a and 1b eastern powers through the 80s and yielded the bulk, and counterbalancing, influence, in the northeast. SU, at least football-wise, was the next most influential until the 90s when Pitt fell off a cliff. WVU and BC were pretty much non-factors, influence wise. VT was not on anyone's radar any more than ECU is now. VT didn't emerge until later in the 90s and wasn't considered any different than Rutgers, which was about at Temple's level today.

(01-24-2014 09:23 AM)orangefan Wrote:  Couple of observations.

Tranghese was proactive in trying to resolve the Big East's football issue. He understood how important Penn State was to the football playing members of the Big East and tried to broker a way to get PSU into the Big East. After that failed and Penn State joined the B1G, he explored every possibility to create a replacement football situation for SU, Pitt and BC that was solid. I don't recall previously seeing the article in the OP, but I do recall that Tranghese tried to broker SU, Pitt and BC into the ACC as football-only members. Ultimately, he brought in Miami, he got a TV deal with CBS for football and he even brokered the formation of the Bowl Coalition to create an automatic bowl bid for the Big East.

The potential of losing football playing members was a problem for the Big East from day one. Penn State was trying to form an all sports conference and needed Syracuse and BC to leave the Big East. The solution was for the Big East to add Pitt. Penn State was also considered, but failed by one vote. It's my belief that even had the Big East added Penn State at that time, the attraction of the B1G would have led Penn State there eventually. Indeed, in retrospect, the gravitational attraction between Syracuse and the ACC predestined that relationship as well.

Dave Gavitt was Commish when the BE tried to get PSU, and Tranghese was his right-hand.

Penn State was Joe Paterno. He had, if it isn't glaringly obvious to the world now, total power there. He wanted to run his own conference, as commissioner...which is a big reason no one was comfortable with his "vision". He would have dropped the Big East as soon as it was convenient for his next power play. Eventually, the hybrid issues and lack of solidarity of the BE would continue to manifest themselves, whether PSU was a member or not, but I'd have to think having Paterno involved in the conference would have made it even worse (like having Texas). PSU would have absolutely bolted for the Big Ten, or elsewhere, sooner than later similar to how the slunk off from the Eastern Eight in the 70s (without prior discussion, slipping resignation notices under people's door at the basketball championships). The man was a loathsome egomaniac.

I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

(01-24-2014 01:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

More than a bit. Understatement of the year.

It's a big reason why he didn't get his conference off the ground. Heck, when his team went undefeated in 1994, not one Big Ten coach voted for him over non-league member Nebraska in the Coaches Poll. In the coaching fraternity, he wasn't liked at all, because he was a major sanctimonious ahole...whose program was as dirty (or dirtier) than anyone else's.

BTW, that 5-3 vote was, obviously, around 1981 or 82. Pitt wasn't involved. It is my understanding that when PSU came up for discussion later that decade, Pitt was pro-PSU despite its misgiving about Paterno.

Excerpt from the book Big hoops : a season in the Big East Conference
by Bill Reynolds
1989, Nal Books, New American Library, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.
ISBN 0-453-00687-6

Pages 225-226

Tranghese also was there when the Big East was faced with its greatest challenge, the specter of a new league in the East, one that would have dramatically changed what is the Big East of today.

In the spring of 1982, Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach, wanted to enter the league. He was also the AD and he wanted a home for his basketball program. After he had met with [Big East commissioner Dave] Gavitt in Hartford, Gavitt sounded everyone out on the sly, and the basketball people- St. John’s, Villanova, and Georgetown- said no. So Paterno wanted to form an Eastern football league, one that would include Pittsburgh and two schools in the league, Syracuse and Boston College. Gavitt knew that Paterno needed Pitt to have a football conference, so if he could get Pitt into the Big East, the idea for a football conference would be diffused.

“We met in Boston,” says Tranghese, “and there was an element within the conference that wanted Pitt and an element that didn’t. Some saw them as a football monster. We saw them as a new city, a school with a certain basketball tradition, and that playing at Pittsburgh was better than playing in State College. It was a higher comfort level. Coming back from that meeting I never saw Dave so mad. We both knew that if Pitt didn’t get in, they would side with Penn State, and there would be two leagues. When Dave got back, he called those three schools opposing him and said he wanted to see both the AD and the basketball coach in his office the next day. What he said was that if Pitt didn’t get in, there would be two leagues. The talent would get divvied, so that while both leagues would be good, neither would be able to compete with the ACC. John Thompson was at that meeting. He understood just what Dave was saying.”

Enter Pittsburgh through the back door.

Former Syracuse AD Jake Crouthamel's recollection"

"After only two years of existence as a conference formed specifically for men's basketball, football became an issue. Joe Paterno, head football coach and then Director of Athletics at Penn State, had been trying to put together an all-sports conference of the eastern Division IA independent schools. They included Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia and Temple. While our football fortunes would be well served through such an alignment, it would have been a step backward for men's basketball. To enter into such an alignment Syracuse and Boston College would have had to leave the BIG EAST. With the reluctance of B.C. and Syracuse to do so, Penn State then asked for membership in the BIG EAST. This was a turning point in the Conferences history. If Penn State was accepted, our football would be protected. If Penn State was rejected, B.C. and Syracuse might have no other option but to leave the BIG EAST, and join together with the other Eastern independents. To expand membership in The BIG EAST Conference six affirmative votes were necessary. The vote was 5-3. Instead of taking Penn State, we invited Pittsburgh as the ninth member. At that time Pittsburgh and Penn State were bitter rivals, and Pittsburgh was less than enamored with aligning itself with Penn State. Pitt's membership in the BIG EAST, along with B.C. and Syracuse, checkmated Penn State's eastern all-sports conference, and gave the Conference one more Division IA school. This football issue nearly caused the premature demise of the BIG EAST. Clearly, three schools in the BIG EAST had no concept of the importance of football, but the others realized that this decision not to invite Penn State would come back to haunt us. In fact, football would dictate every future consideration of membership expansion of our "basketball" conference. "

"During the eight-year period from 1981-82 through 1988-99, men's basketball flourished in the BIG EAST. We were the most televised conference in the country, won two NCAA championships, and twice lost in the NCAA final game. But the clouds were forming around the issue of football again with B.C., Pitt and Syracuse sensing some conference movement around the country. The BIG EAST re-opened quiet discussions with Penn State about membership. Suddenly, the Big Ten jumped in and snapped up Penn State. Other conferences began nosing around for potential new members, particularly the ACC and the SEC. At that time the Athletics Directors at Pitt and B.C. joined me on a trip to the ACC Conference office to talk about federated membership in football only.

"Our plea fell on deaf ears. The three of us could not remain as independents in football and survive in an environment with everyone joining football-playing conferences. The problem was compounded by the fact that the other eastern football independents (Rutgers, Temple, West Virginia and Virginia Tech) were not in the BIG EAST, and none of them had a flagship football program like a Penn State. Only two other independent football schools carried such a status, Florida State and Miami, and both the ACC and SEC were talking with each one.

"Our BIG EAST basketball compatriots recognized the urgency of the situation, and agreed to extend full membership to Miami with the clear understanding that Miami would work with us to solve the football milieu. Thus, after a lot of courting and mating dances, Miami became our 10th member. With Miami in our fold, Rutgers, West Virginia, Virginia Tech and Temple had no other choice but to join B.C., Pitt, Miami and Syracuse in a football only federation called The BIG EAST Football Conference."

http://www.suathletics.com/sports/2001/8/8/history.aspx

There's more, but this covers a bunch.

(01-24-2014 01:59 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  Excerpt from the book Big hoops : a season in the Big East Conference
by Bill Reynolds
1989

... What he said was that if Pitt didn’t get in, there would be two leagues. The talent would get divvied, so that while both leagues would be good, neither would be able to compete with the ACC. John Thompson was at that meeting. He understood just what Dave was saying.”

I've mentioned this before, but again, I believe this is what is happening now in the northeast: American, Big East, Big Ten, Atlantic Ten, and ....ACC. It's the nation's top basketball talent producing region and the division of power isn't going to allow anyone to compete with the ACC once it gets going.

You already are starting to see some bad foreshadowing for the new Big East....they look like they're barely going to sneak four teams in the tourney, and Creighton and Xavier, two teams with absolutely no eastern identity, are in the top 3 of the league. A mediocre UConn won't carry the American in the east, if that can even be done by a rock star UConn. MD, RU and PSU...complete non-factors with only Maryland having a fading basketball pedigree.

(01-24-2014 01:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

Paterno wanted all the schools to share ticket and concession revenue for all sports ... except football.

In other words, everytime SU sold 20,000+ tickets to a basketball game, we would have to share the $$$ with everyone else in the conference, but when PSU sold 100,000+ tickets to a football game, JoePa wanted to keep every last dime for himself.

Not hard to see why SU and BC were reluctant to leave the BE.

(01-24-2014 07:47 AM)omniorange Wrote:  

(01-24-2014 02:24 AM)MKPitt Wrote:  That's really funny how it ended up the same. The interesting thing is how much progress Virginia Tech made from not even being considered as one of the five teams that would merge to being a power in the ACC. It shows that some things can change. I do wish WVU had come along though like the original idea.

Yeah. Maybe the ACC could have jettisoned Wake to make room for WVU.



Cheers,
Neil

There's still time.

There's a smack board here if you'd like to continue talking with that line of stupidity.

(01-24-2014 01:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

From the basketball schools perspective, I truly think it came down to location. The original Big East was about metropolitan areas, so it's no wonder St. John's, Georgetown, and Nova were against them joining.

The all-sports league Paterno wanted didn't come about because JoePa refused to give on PSU getting more of the football revenue, but equal share of the basketball revenue.

Cheers,
Neil

(01-24-2014 07:55 PM)omniorange Wrote:  

(01-24-2014 01:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

From the basketball schools perspective, I truly think it came down to location. The original Big East was about metropolitan areas, so it's no wonder St. John's, Georgetown, and Nova were against them joining.

The all-sports league Paterno wanted didn't come about because JoePa refused to give on PSU getting more of the football revenue, but equal share of the basketball revenue.

Cheers,
Neil

This was certainly the case on the second go round between the Big East and Penn State in he late 80's. In 1981, I don't believe these demands played a role in the Big East vote.

(01-24-2014 09:55 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  It would have been interesting to see who would have won the BIG EAST - ACC fight had the BIG EAST added PSU along with Pitt. The rivalry web that existed between BC, SU, PSU, Pitt, WVU (eventually), and VPI (eventually) might have changed the region, especially once Miami got thrown into the mix. In fact, BC-ND, Pitt-ND, and Catholics vs. convicts, along with the potential of PSU-ND and SU-ND could have very well gotten a scheduling alliance with ND. That combined with the Catholic BB schools (plus possibly Marq), RU and Temple as football scrubs, and Uconn as a basketball only could very well have changed the balance of college athletics and pulled at least UMD into the fold. Who knows who else would have jumped?

I don't know if any other ACC schools would have jumped to the Big East, but South Carolina had been pushing Clemson to join the discussions for Metro Conference once they started talking about creating a football league, and I have to believe had Maryland jumped (our biggest conference rival at the time) from the ACC to the BE we would have looked at it far more favorably than we did.

(01-24-2014 07:55 PM)omniorange Wrote:  

(01-24-2014 01:35 PM)ken d Wrote:  I've often wondered if some of the reluctance of the Big East to embrace Penn State had more to do with Joe Paterno than the school itself. While I grew up in NYC and its northern NJ suburbs, I moved away not long after Paterno replaced Rip Engle as head coach.

My early impressions of Paterno were that he could be a bit sanctimonious at times, and even a bit petty. Time obviously enhanced his reputation (before it trashed it), but I'm not sure how the eastern football schools viewed him. For those who were around in the late 70's, when JoPa was trying to form an eastern football conference, was his leadership and/or support a plus or a minus? What kept it from happening?

From the basketball schools perspective, I truly think it came down to location. The original Big East was about metropolitan areas, so it's no wonder St. John's, Georgetown, and Nova were against them joining.


Cheers,
Neil

Well, its not like Storrs is urban. The biggest issue was simply the over ridding mistrust of large football schools driving the conference bus by the smaller basketball-only Catholics. It almost kept Pitt out. It was the overriding philosophical split that never went away, and ultimately, let to the conference's doom.

Add to that, PSU, institutionally, was just so different, so hard to get to, and had no basketball tradition or cache whatsoever.

(01-24-2014 08:03 PM)orangefan Wrote:  

(01-24-2014 07:55 PM)omniorange Wrote:  From the basketball schools perspective, I truly think it came down to location. The original Big East was about metropolitan areas, so it's no wonder St. John's, Georgetown, and Nova were against them joining.

The all-sports league Paterno wanted didn't come about because JoePa refused to give on PSU getting more of the football revenue, but equal share of the basketball revenue.

Cheers,
Neil

This was certainly the case on the second go round between the Big East and Penn State in he late 80's. In 1981, I don't believe these demands played a role in the Big East vote.

You're confusing two separate issues.

In the early 80's Paterno wanted to start up a new conference to compete against the BE, and he expected SU and BC to join him. Because of his unreasonable revenue sharing demands, SU and BC were hesitant.

As a counter offer, Jake Crouthamel and the Boston College AD attempted to get PSU a membership in the BE for basketball and Olympic sports only (football would have remained independent). PSU needed 6 votes and only received 5.

JoePa's revenue demands only applied to the new all-sports conference. Obviously they had no bearing on the BE vote since football was not involved.

IMO Gavitt screwed up in 1979 by not inviting PSU in the first place.

The BE originally wanted both Temple and Rutgers, but both schools declined in order to remain aligned with JoePa. Villanova and Seton Hall ended up being the replacement teams.

Gavitt never approached PSU in 1979. Maybe he feared the BE becoming a football league. Maybe he just didn't want to butt heads with JoePa on every issue. Who knows.

Imagine if the original BE in 1979 was BC, Providence, UConn, Syracuse, St Johns, Rutgers, Temple, Georgetown, Penn State.

5 out of 9 schools played football. Imagine the possibilities.

In 1991 we add Pitt, WV, Va Tech and Miami as full members to get to 9/13.

Can we find 3 more FB schools to get to 12/16?

Imagine someone putting the eastern independents in a conference around 1980, gove or take a couple years:

Florida State
Miami
Penn State
Pitt
Syracuse
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Temple
Rutgers
Boston College
Eastern Carolina
Open

Temple was in its' heyday for hoops, so Syracuse BC and Temple would have been a good start to a hoops conference with PSU, Pitt and Miami very strong and FSU and Syracuse coming on at that time, this would have been a very solid conference. Also, the TV angle would be nice had this imaginary conference lasted to today.

(01-24-2014 09:29 PM)OrangeXtreme Wrote:  IMO Gavitt screwed up in 1979 by not inviting PSU in the first place.

The BE originally wanted both Temple and Rutgers, but both schools declined in order to remain aligned with JoePa. Villanova and Seton Hall ended up being the replacement teams.

Gavitt never approached PSU in 1979. Maybe he feared the BE becoming a football league. Maybe he just didn't want to butt heads with JoePa on every issue. Who knows.

Imagine if the original BE in 1979 was BC, Providence, UConn, Syracuse, St Johns, Rutgers, Temple, Georgetown, Penn State.

5 out of 9 schools played football. Imagine the possibilities.

In 1991 we add Pitt, WV, Va Tech and Miami as full members to get to 9/13.

Can we find 3 more FB schools to get to 12/16?

For sure, Gavitt wanted Holy Cross. BC was the replacement when Holy Cross turned him down (talk about a mistake). That's also in Reynolds' book. I've never heard that about Temple being the first choice over 'Nova. Could be, but I sort of suspicious to that based on Temple's football proclivities. PSU had already left the Eastern 8 at that point so it wouldn't have mattered. Not sure about Rutgers either.

GU, SJU, PC... it would have been hard to get them on board with a conference with Penn State when he was first trying to get those key members on board for a new conference in the first place. I'm sure they were aware what Joe Paterno was doing as far as trying to create his own conference, let alone how they had extracted themselves form the Eastern Eight a few years prior.