Big East investing in future
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
BY TOM LUICCI
Star-Ledger Staff
Bob Mulcahy said the realization hit him almost immediately during the annual Big East meetings in late May in Ponte Vedra, Fla.

The sniping was gone. So was the awkwardness. No one was trading insults. And there weren't any lawsuits being threatened.

"The best league meetings I've attended," said the Rutgers athletic director, who is the chairman of the Big East's Executive Committee. "People solved different issues without their own interests being paramount. It's the way a league should operate. After what we've been through lately, you almost forget it can be like that."

The revamped Big East football conference is finally set -- at least for the next five years, which is how long the current membership has signed up for. Miami and Virginia Tech are distant memories after fleeing for the ACC two years ago. Boston College followed after last season. And Temple was shown the door.

What's left is an eight-team configuration consisting of holdovers Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Syracuse, Rutgers and Connecticut and newcomers Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida. And all eight are committed -- in deed and with their checkbooks -- to the success of the new Big East.

"The thing that has been impressive is that all of our people are eager to make this work," Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said. "We've been through a lot the past two years. Last year we got caught in limbo, so that made it particularly difficult. We didn't have the new people coming on board yet, we had a school (Boston College) that didn't want to be with us and we had another school that we knew was going (Temple).

"But that's behind us now."

It isn't just lip service that the eight schools are now paying to the Big East and their belief in its future. They're almost all putting their money where their mouthpieces are.

Cincinnati is in the midst of a $100 million facilities upgrade called Varsity Village. It includes a new baseball stadium, track, athletic center and offices for support personnel and all of the school's coaches. Improvements have also been made to the seating at Nippert Stadium.

Connecticut is building a coaches complex and a separate training center on campus -- two years after moving into new Rentschler Field, which cost $91.2 million. Rutgers has poured $24 million into its facilities the past three years -- with $15 million directly affecting football.

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