Will shuffle hurt much?
BCS key to Tech's damage control
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 21, 2003

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla.-During an impassioned discussion of the Big East Conference, Commissioner Mike Tranghese mentioned the "irreparable harm" that would come to schools left behind if Miami, Boston College and Syracuse leave for the ACC.

Virginia Tech is one of the schools that would be left behind, so Tranghese's comment begs some questions:

What harm would befall Virginia Tech? And, is it irreparable?

"Yes," Virginia Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver said, "it could be irreparable."

The Big East Conference meetings broke up yesterday, a day earlier than scheduled, and the participants scattered. Now everyone will play a waiting game while the three schools targeted by the ACC analyze information and make a decision. Miami is the key. If Miami President Donna Shalala decides the ACC is best for the Hurricanes - and many think she already has - BC and Syracuse are almost certain to follow.

Weaver said the potential damage is hard to quantify because so many questions remain. Will the league remain intact for one year or two before the schools leave? The best guess is two, which gives the Big East more time to regroup and possibly limit the damage.

The big key to damage control is retaining a spot in the Bowl Championship Series, a coalition of six leagues that sends its football champions (and two at-large teams) to four lucrative bowls.

Many assume that Miami's departure means the Big East will automatically lose its spot in the BCS. Not so, Tranghese said. Nothing in the current BCS contract, which runs through 2005, addresses the topic of teams leaving one of the leagues. The commissioners of the six leagues would be forced to decide how it would be handled.

The five remaining Big East football schools, assuming three depart, include three that finished 2002 ranked in the top 25. Add another one and the league would almost certainly have enough clout to hold its BCS slot.

Football generated about $5.5 million in revenue at Tech this school year, Weaver said, a total fueled by the league's BCS take. Without that, the damage could be severe.

"There's no question" BCS participation is important, Tech football coach Frank Beamer said. "I don't think it's necessarily so that we'd lose that without Miami. I think there's some pretty strong teams still remaining."

Without the BCS money, the damage could spread well beyond football. Recruiting budgets could be cut. So, too, could sports and staffing.

Beamer and new men's basketball coach Seth Greenberg are confident the Hokies will be OK. Their preference, of course, is to see the Big East remain as it is.

"I firmly believe there are too many right reasons why the Big East should stay together," Beamer said via telephone from his office. He cut out of the meetings Monday after the football portion ended.

"The other thing is, I think Virginia Tech is too strong not to land on its feet. We're not the same Virginia Tech we were 10 years ago."

Greenberg left South Florida of Conference USA for Tech on April 3. The turmoil in the Big East, he said, hasn't swayed him from the thought that "this was a great move for me. I can't get bent out of shape over realignment because it is something that I can't control."

He says he'll build a basketball team to compete in whatever league Tech is in and he's confident Beamer's program that has been to a bowl game 10 straight years won't suffer.

"With what Coach Beamer has been able to establish, wherever they are, they're going to be excellent," Greenberg said. "Maybe I'm naive. I just know that great teams and great programs survive. Kids will still want to play for Virginia Tech. The team has a great presence and whatever league they're in, they're going to be getting games on TV."

 

ACC raid could cause Beamer to leave Tech
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST May 21, 2003
Contact Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or e-mail blipper@timesdispatch.com

That keyboard-clacking sound you just heard was Frank Beamer updating his resume. When you're stuck in the middle of an avalanche and the best the head of rescue operations can do is lay a guilt trip on Donna Shalala, you pretty much have to assume it's every football coach for himself.

This isn't meant to knock Beamer if he's contemplating exit strategies from Blacksburg or to badmouth Big East boss Mike Tranghese if he somehow resembles Wile E. Coyote staring up at a descending boulder.

These are perilous times for Virginia Tech football in particular and the Big East in general. You can't blame the men in charge for feeling a mite insecure and anxious.

Consider Beamer, who's spent 16 seasons at Tech - his alma mater, remember - and has fashioned the program into a perennial top-25 resident and occasional national contender. You suspect he wants to stick around and see the Hokies neutered? Bumped to a jerry-built conference that doesn't rate BCS or playoff consideration? Diminished to second-tier status?

Let me answer those questions for you: Nein, nyet and get serious. No way does Beamer wish to spend his remaining coaching years - he'll be 57 in October - recruiting with one shoulder pad tied behind his back and getting an occasional tumble from ESPN2.

He's been a good scout at Tech. But he's also so loyal, he came thisclose to bolting for North Carolina two years ago. And that was when the exhaust fumes from Michael Vick's last sprint had barely evaporated. There's no telling how clearly Beamer would hear the highway calling if he concluded Vick's kid brother wouldn't have followed in those cleat marks had the Hokies already been evicted from their BCS address.

So say the wheels keep coming off Chan Gailey's bus at Georgia Tech. Think Frankie B. might get a ringy-dingy from Jackets AD and old buddy Dave Braine? And be on the next flight to Atlanta?

Miami President Shalala could be holding Beamer's itinerary in her hand. It's her call whether the'Canes stay in the Big East or sashay over to the ACC. The invitation's on the table. Say yes and lug Syracuse and Boston College with her, and Big East football as Beamer has known it is dead. Bye-bye Kevin Joneses, hello buddy-can-you-spare-a-late-bloomer.

Short of annexing Notre Dame or Penn State, there doesn't seem to be much Tranghese can do at this juncture. That became plain on Monday, when Tranghese vented over the ACC's raid - it's the first time members of one major conference have been pursued by another - and urged Shalala to remember the Big East enrolled the'Canes 13 years ago "when nobody else would take them." As homilies go, it made for grim theater.

"It's wrong," Tranghese said of the ACC assault - and he's right. Greed, power and dollars are at the heart of the ACC's expansion blueprint. Never mind that a UConn - whose state just sprung for a $90 million stadium in preparation for 2005 Big East competition - will be bludgeoned in the process.

"If I were IBM, I'd understand it," Tranghese said. "I'm not IBM. I represent 14 educational institutions."

He also fronts an alliance under siege. Adjourning its Florida powwow ahead of schedule, the Big East teeters on the edge of a cliff. Syracuse AD Jake Crouthamel's observation that the session produced "somber, sober discussions" didn't sound like a rallying cry.

That riffling sound you just heard was Frank Beamer cruising through his Rolodex.

 

U.VA. NOTES
May 21, 2003

EXPANSION: If Miami, Syracuse and Boston College accept their invitations, the ACC will split into two six-team divisions for football, possibly as early as 2004.

Asked last week where his team might be placed, Virginia coach Al Groh said: "I don't have any real sense as to how it would come out. I don't have any real preference. I'm sure that's a carryover from our mentality: We just play whoever they give us, wherever they give us, whenever they give us.

"You play who they give you, and if you're good enough, you're standing at the end. If you're not, you fall along the way. That's what competition is all about."

CLOCK IS TICKING: Groh said he'd allow Stefan Orange to rejoin the football team but added that the defensive back from Culpeper needs to make up his mind soon.

"You can only be AWOL for so long," Groh said.

Orange, who recently completed his freshman year at U.Va., left the football team early in spring practice.

LATE PUSH: U.Va. came out of the winter 31st in the Sears Directors' Cup standings. The school's lacrosse teams are ensuring that the Cavaliers will finish higher in the final standings.

By finishing second in the NCAA tournament, the U.Va. women's lacrosse team earned 90 points (out of a possible 100) for the school. The U.Va. men play Maryland in the NCAA semifinals Saturday in Baltimore and will come away from the final four with at least 80 Sears Cup points.

COMMENCEMENT: Four members of the 2002-03 men's basketball team graduated Sunday: Travis Watson, Jason Rogers, Majestic Mapp and Todd Billet. Watson and Rogers have used up their eligibility. Mapp and Billet will compete as graduate students in 2003-04.

Roger Mason Jr., who entered U.Va. as a classmate of Watson, Rogers and Mapp, was on track to graduate when he left for the NBA after the 2001-02 school year. Mason, a guard with the Chicago Bulls, plans to complete work on his degree.

HOOPS: Tony Bethel's decision to transfer from Georgetown to N.C. State may help Virginia on the recruiting trail.

With Bethel on board - he'll have two seasons of eligibility starting in 2004-05 - the Wolfpack won't continue trying to land an elite point guard from the class of 2004. That means U.Va. will have one fewer school to beat in its pursuit of point guards Marquie Cooke, Sean Singletary and A.J. Price, all three of whom N.C. State also was recruiting.

HONORED: Virginia, the sixth seed in the ACC baseball tournament, which started last night in Salem, placed one player on the all-conference team: Joe Koshansky.

The 6-4, 225-pound junior from Chantilly High, who plays first base and pitches, was an at-large selection to the first team. The Cavaliers had no second-team selections.

Koshansky is batting .317 with 34 RBI. On the mound, the left-hander is 7-1 with a 1.52 ERA and 48 strikeouts. Opponents are batting .187 against him.

U.Va. went 11-12 in ACC play during the regular season, its best performance in the conference since 1988, when it was 10-11. The Cavaliers (28-23) are trying to win 30 games in a season for the first time since 1997, when they finished 32-22.

Sixth-seeded Virginia meets No.3 seed N.C. State tonight at 8:30 in the ACC tournament opener for both teams. - Jeff White

 

Big East will wait on Miami
Conference ends meetings without any decisions
By Norm Wood
Daily Press
Published May 21, 2003

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- After four days of Big East meetings, the future of the conference rests squarely in the hands of Miami president Donna Shalala and the university's board members.

In other words, Miami still will determine whether the ACC will expand to 12 teams by adding Boston College, Syracuse and the Hurricanes. And decisions need to be made.

The athletic directors from the Big East's eight Division I-A football-playing universities met with commissioner Mike Tranghese for six hours Tuesday to conclude the annual spring meetings. While specifics weren't revealed about the Big East's proposals to combat the ACC, it's clear TV contracts, revenue sharing and dropping the conference's six universities that don't play I-A football were discussed.

The ACC has begun formal discussions with administrators from Miami, BC and Syracuse. Shalala and ACC commissioner John Swofford didn't return phone calls Tuesday.

Miami AD Paul Dee said he will speak with Shalala this week to talk about the meetings. Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo said he would meet with university president William P. Leahy on Thursday. Virginia Tech AD Jim Weaver said there's no plan in place to stop the three schools from leaving.

"We're just talking about keeping our league together," Weaver said. "There's nothing we can take home at this point."

While Weaver was hazy, Dee said he had a framework of what his discussions with Shalala would include, but wouldn't go into detail. Dee said he didn't know if Shalala was going to talk with the Big East's other university presidents before deciding if Miami is leaving.

Dee said a consultant was present in the Tuesday meeting. Speculation exists that the consultant may have been included to discuss possible Big East future television contract matters.

"The meetings have gone extremely well," said Dee, who traveled to Los Angeles following Tuesday's meeting.

"It was good for people looking for solutions to problems. It was very good."

 

Demanding Mollot supplies UM with offense, leadership
Attack/midfielder is 2nd in scoring, 1st in desire to capture national title
By Gary Lambrecht
Sun Staff
Originally published May 21, 2003

COLLEGE PARK - Coach Dave Cottle calls him the strongest personality on the University of Maryland men's lacrosse team.

Junior attackman Dan LaMonica says no teammate is as demanding or commands as much respect.

Fifth-year senior attackman/midfielder Mike Mollot, the subject of both observations, is the first to admit he is lacking in diplomacy skills. And you won't catch him apologizing for it.

Mollot is not just a two-position player who can pass, dodge and score. He is more than the second-leading scorer for the Terps, who are in their first NCAA tournament final four since 1998.

Mollot is the gruff traffic cop on the field. He's the guy most likely to jump in a teammate's face during practice for not concentrating or going hard enough. He's the one making the vocal adjustments to the offense in the middle of a game. He's the extension of Cottle, and it's hard to tell who is more driven to win his first national championship.

"I don't hide things. I speak my mind. Whether I'm right or wrong, I usually say it. I know that's one of my faults," Mollot said. "Not everyone on the team is that assertive and willing to say something. Everyone knows I'm here to win games. I'm not out to win friendships. I'm trying to win a national championship."

Cottle sensed this from the first time he met Mollot. Remember how a group of Maryland players protested the hiring of Cottle in the fall of 2001, after he had replaced the ailing Dick Edell? The complainers did not include Mollot.

"Michael just wanted to win. He must have said that five or six times to me, that he wanted to do whatever it took to win," Cottle said. "He's our strongest personality and our dominant personality on offense. He understands the game. He's very intelligent. The game is important to him."

Mollot placed such a high premium on winning that he didn't flinch last year when Cottle approached the natural attackman about switching to midfield. By becoming a swingman, Mollot helped the development of players such as freshman attackman Joe Walters and senior midfielder Ryan Moran, two of the team's top scorers.

Mollot also forced himself to become a utility player of sorts, which has not always made him comfortable. For starters, he admits defense is not one of his strengths. Neither is the type of mid- to long-range shooting required of middies.

"I'd much rather play attack. I like being on the field the whole time. I like to control things from behind the cage. I dodge a little better on attack, and it's no secret that I'm not the best shooter in the country," said Mollot, whose 38 points (19 goals, 19 assists) include a season-high four goals and one assist in Saturday's 13-7 quarterfinal victory over Massachusetts.

"Midfields aren't as quick to slide to me, and I don't blame them. I know moving to midfield opens things up for other players. I'll do whatever I can to help us win."

Said Cottle: "[Mollot] has to understand two different spots in our zone offense and our man. He has to understand the defense we're playing each week. He has to know the rides, the clears. He does a little bit of everything. You can tell he's a coach's son."

Mollot, who grew up on Long Island and played at Sachem High School in Holbrook, N.Y., learned the game from his father, Steven, the longtime coach at nearby Massapequa High.

The son got a little closer to coaching after Mike suffered the first and only major injury of his life. Shortly before his freshman season began, Mollot broke his leg and tore ankle ligaments while playing at a box lacrosse facility near his home. He sat out 1999 as a redshirt, skipped the spring semester and coached with his father while nursing the injury.

Coincidentally, getting hurt kept Mollot in College Park for an extra year and allowed him to reach his first final four in his last go-round. It allowed him to lead an offense that appears to be rounding into form at the right time to lend support to a superb defense that has carried the Terps for much of the season.

And it allowed Mollot to bring his energy to the practice and playing field for one more spring. LaMonica recalled the season opener against Duke, when Mollot took a shot to the head, hit the turf, wobbled off the field and rejoined the action before long.

"There was no keeping him away. How can you quit when you see that?" LaMonica said. "Mike is a hard-nosed guy. He doesn't dance around issues. He's not scared to stir up the pot. There's no quit in him."

Mollot makes no bones about what will satisfy him this weekend. Maryland simply must win its first NCAA crown since 1975.

"We're putting a lot of time and effort into this. I want to walk away knowing we reached some goal," he said. "Lacrosse isn't basketball, where you have 40 good teams. Let's be honest. There are only eight or 10 good [lacrosse] teams a year.

"I expected to be in the final four every year. That hasn't happened. If we don't win it, I'll think my time here was somewhat of a failure. I've never liked losing. I'm not going to accept not winning a national championship."
 

Guilt trip Big East's best effort

5-21-03

By ROB DANIELS, Staff Writer
News & Record

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The home of the Big East Conference spring meetings, the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, is about as magnificent a setting as any traveling executive could imagine. Right on the beach. A phalanx of attentive staff members eager to fulfill every conceivable need.

A more appropriate site for the 2003 sessions, however, might have been a theme park. With financial numbers against him and competitive numbers seemingly irrelevant, the league's commissioner employed the next-to-last resort of a desperate man. He took Miami on a 30-minute chill ride, Mike Tranghese's Roller Coaster of Shame. You must be greedy and paranoid to hop on, and he implied that University of Miami officials were ready for the ride.

But at the end of the day -- a favorite Tranghese phrase now carrying ominous overtones -- he didn't have much help in his bid to keep Miami from bolting to the ACC and taking fellow Big East members Boston College and Syracuse with it. Well-attired college kids would be happy to get him a bottle opener or a charger for his cell phone, but could they make ACC Commissioner John Swofford disappear? Not likely.

When the meetings began Saturday, athletics directors and football coaches sounded optimistic notes and spoke of "productive meetings" without being specific. When Tranghese held a news conference Monday afternoon, some announcement that a remedy had progressed beyond theory and into real potential was expected. It didn't happen. All Tranghese could do was appeal to the ACC's and to Miami's sense of compassion, dignity and guilt.

He asked them to forget finances, which suggest that BC, Miami and Syracuse would be slightly better off in the ACC. He asked them to remember the Big East's on-field success, which the dollars can't match. He practically begged them to look at the entire college sports scene, which would be dramatically altered if the Big East were to lose three key members and ultimately perish. He hinted that basketball games between far-flung ACC schools with no rivalry or shared history would face a serious ratings challenge from a test pattern or a History Channel documentary on the Franco-Prussian War.

"Now I've read this notion of the ACC having domination of the Eastern seaboard," he said. "That's a marketing concoction. If you think people in New York City are going to watch Clemson play Boston College in Madison Square Garden, you're mistaken. It will not happen. I believe that with every ounce of emotion that I can muster.

In short, he couldn't say anything to make his constituency breathe easier. And there are plenty of worried people in the Big East right now.

Even Syracuse isn't too happy. The Orangemen are reluctant travel partners in this venture -- hesitant to leave a league they helped form, wondering about the merits of a league with no natural rivals. But if Miami goes, Syracuse must follow because the ACC would then be a better place for the Orangemen than the Big East.

Here's what Jake Crouthamel, Syracuse's athletics director, had to say Monday when asked how he felt about all this: "I am one of the founding fathers of this conference, and our institution -- in particular Chancellor (Kenneth) Shaw -- was very instrumental in keeping this conference together in the early 1990s. We at Syracuse University have put a lot of time and effort into the Big East Conference. And that's where we are."

Doesn't exactly sound like a guy eager to jump ship, does he?

How about Virginia Tech? The school's excellence as a football independent made it a natural when the Big East began talking about playing football, and the marriage has worked well for both. Tech once was a lot like East Carolina, a nice little program that could bite you now and then but couldn't make you notice for more than 15 minutes of fame no matter how loudly it beat its chest. Now the Hokies have earned a place in the nation's top 10. They led Florida State in the fourth quarter of the national championship game in January 2000. Their game with Miami is an annual ratings winner for TV.

Now, the Hokies are worried they will take several steps backward.

"How do I tell Virginia Tech, who will arguably be a contender for the national championship, that they do not deserve to be in a conference that will have automatic access (to the Bowl Championship Series)? I can't tell them that," Tranghese said.

At least the Hokies have had a taste of big-time football success. Connecticut has been dreaming of it for years and may not get the chance.

The biggest loser in this may not be the future football players at the school but Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who pushed the bulk of a $91 million stadium project through the state legislature.

Athletics director Lew Perkins, who came to UConn from Maryland in the early 1990s, began talking about Division I-A football the moment he set foot on campus. But Rowland, who is in his third term, has invested serious political capital in the Huskies' 40,000-seat facility in East Hartford, which opens when Indiana visits Aug. 30. How many decent opponents will show up to play there if UConn is not a member of a BCS conference? How many luxury suites will be filled?

On Tuesday, Crouthamel and his BC colleague, Gene DeFilippo, took a stroll together around the conference center here. They ducked in a side door, faces glum and understandably avoiding reporters. The ACC's formal campus visits to the three prospective institutions are expected to take place next week. Formal invitations may follow.

Miami Eyes Financial Security With ACC
By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 21, 2003; Page D08

The Big East Conference concluded its annual meetings yesterday in Ponte Vedra, Fla., leaving Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee to return to his school's campus and prepare for what many believe will be the final steps in what has become a very public process.

It is no secret that the ACC views Miami as the key to its plans to expand to 12 teams, split into two divisions and hold a lucrative football championship game. It also is well-known that money is expected to be the driving force in Miami's decision.

Perhaps not as widely circulated, however, is why balancing the budget is such a challenge for Miami even though it has one of the nation's top football teams and has received more money from the Bowl Championship Series than any other school in each of the past two seasons. According to the school's Equity in Athletics and Disclosure Act filing with the U.S. Department of Education, Miami's athletic department lost more than $1.4 million during the 2001-02 academic year.

According to college athletics officials, Miami faces two key challenges to balancing its financial books. First, as one of just 11 private schools among the 63 schools in the football BCS, Miami faces significantly higher scholarship costs. Second, Miami plays all of its home football games in the city-owned Orange Bowl and is unable to reap the benefits from revenue streams that teams with on-campus stadiums are able to earn.

The stadium, built in the 1930s, does not have luxury boxes, a key source of money for colleges and professional teams. The Orange Bowl keeps 10 percent of gate receipts as rent, and Miami receives no revenue from concessions sales. Also, the university purchases the parking from the stadium at $50 per space for the season and then sells spaces at a higher rate. The school also bought the signage rights from the Orange Bowl for $72,000 per year and then brokers its own deals.

The city is exploring naming rights for the stadium, but Miami likely would not receive any revenues from such a deal.

Miami did open a new basketball arena this past season, but with an average home attendance of only 3,600, the school's gate revenues for basketball do not compare to those for football.

Making things even more difficult, Miami's location in the extreme southeastern part of the country limits its marketing range, sources said, and forces non-revenue teams to travel at least three hours for most of their games. That leads to high transportation costs, including more plane flights. And with a scattered alumni base, building local support and donors can be difficult.

Such donations are needed. Annual tuition is nearly $26,000, not including room and board, books or activity fees. All told, a full scholarship might run in the neighborhood of $35,000 annually, a much greater expense than for a public university.

"I've always felt the difficulties at Miami are as hard as you will find," the source said.

One possible reason that Miami might move to the ACC is to establish consistent revenues. Part of the Big East's distribution of revenue is incentive-based; the conference gives its BCS representative $4 million -- not including its one-ninth share of all other revenue (divided among the eight schools and the conference office) -- more than any other conference. The Big East, like many other conferences, also has appearance fees for televised games.

While those methods are fine for Miami when it is on TV and in the BCS, they can be a serious financial hit when the Hurricanes go to a lesser bowl game. In the ACC, all revenues are divided equally, and the conference BCS representative receives just $1.6 million.

With all of the financial issues facing Miami, there is some carryover onto the athletic fields. Because its tuition is two to three times more expensive than many public schools, Miami has a hard time attracting walk-ons, which football programs often count on as an additional talent source. One private school in a similar situation is Southern California, which plays football in the Los Angeles Coliseum and basketball in the L.A. Sports Arena.

"Competitively we're at a disadvantage. And if you don't win, it hurts your pocketbook," Southern California Athletic Director Mike Garrett said. "Because L.A. is such a competitive town, if you don't win they don't come to see you play. So it hits you both ways."
 

Tranghese lashes out at Miami, ACC
Big East commissioner says ACC expansion will ruin intercollegiate athletics.
May 20, 2003
By Donnie Webb
Staff writer

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.- It was a good day to die, which is what the Big East Conference seemed to be trying to do with dignity on Monday.

There was thunder, sprinkles, intermittent blasts of sunshine and enough dark images and sounds to suggest that this is an athletic conference resigned to finding closure.

It was a tumultuous third day of meetings for the Big East Conference at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club. More meetings are scheduled today, though the league may break camp without meeting on Wednesday.

The Big East athletic directors are desperately trying to find an escape route that will cause the University of Miami, Syracuse and Boston College to turn down impending invitations from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Athletic directors met from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Monday. Around midday, Miami athletic director Paul Dee, Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel and Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo were excused and the remaining membership plotted strategy.

At 3:30, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese ended his silence by delivering a powerful, defiant and painful attack on what he characterized as willful and destructive aggression by ACC presidents on his league.

Tranghese's defense came during a 37-minute news conference attended by about 50 reporters, a few athletic directors and conference officials. It was his first and last meeting with the press.

"They are ruining programs," Tranghese said of the ACC. "This will be the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime. It's wrong."

Tranghese insists that the Big East has not yet lost Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. He said every conceivable option is being pursued, that no timetable is set for the three schools to decide and that the Big East will fight to the death in order to survive.

Just as Tranghese was backed up against the wall before reporters, various coaches and athletic directors painted a telling picture. Ebullient Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver seems long on blank stares and short on answers. women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw and Miami men’s basketball coach Perry Clark both said their meetings on Monday were emotional. DeFilippo looks like he’s suffered a few verbal tongue-lashings.

Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim said he agrees with Tranghese and is dumbfounded by the unholy alliance between the ACC and the three Big East schools.

"It’s just a sad thing," Boeheim said. "Basically, you’re looking at one school changing the future of 30 or 40 schools. It’s something that makes no sense. I think the ex-president of North Carolina (William Friday) said (last week) that this was a move of greed and power. We don’t belong together. These schools don’t belong together.

"The association with that league doesn’t help Miami football. They’re the No.1 program in the country. Seeing how we won the national championship this year, I don’t see how it’s going to help us. Is there something better than that? Not that I know of. It makes no sense."

The problem for the Big East is that it can’t seem to convince Dee and Miami that the pot of gold being promised by the ACC might not be there and is not worth destroying other schools.

The only school that matters is Miami, because what the Hurricanes do, Syracuse and BC will follow. Dee doesn’t seem to be swayed that he should stay in the Big East.

"There is the sense that it’s over, that they’re gone," said a Big East official.

Tranghese said there are three issues facing Miami: money, integrity and the "irreparable harm" a move would cause on surviving Big East schools.

Tranghese and the Big East have waged an exhaustive, perhaps futile battle to convince Miami that the money projected by an expanded ACC is akin to buying swampland in Florida.

Worse, Tranghese said he cannot believe that for an extra $1 million a year — which is a drop in the bucket in an institutional budget — the Hurricanes would destroy the Big East and hurt so many schools left behind.

"Is that worth just providing a body blow to a group of schools who were there when nobody else wanted Miami?" Tranghese asked. "When we extended the invitation to Miami, there was no one else there.

"We’re going to end it and damage the people who extended this opportunity? I just find it to be unacceptable."

The integrity button Tranghese pushed is aimed squarely at Miami president Donna Shalala, who promised the Big East 18 months ago that her school would remain in the league. That was a promise that allowed other schools like Connecticut and Virginia Tech to move forward on multi-million dollar investments. The Huskies are ready to move into a new $96 million stadium this season.

Tranghese’s final point was aimed at asking Miami if it was prepared to accept the damage it would inflict on so many by leaving.

The Big East has existing contracts with bowls and television that could be litigated. It could have bowl opportunities and money withdrawn. Then there is the damage to other Big East schools.

"This act will basically limit the playing field at the highest level in college football," Tranghese said. "How do I tell Virginia Tech, who will arguably be a contender for the national championship, that they don’t deserve to be in a conference that will have automatic access? I can’t tell them. I saw (Tech head football coach) Frank Beamer yesterday. I can’t tell him that."

Tranghese asked to imagine a world without a major basketball and football conference based in the East. He said the ACC is fooling itself if it thinks New York City will care about a Clemson vs. Boston College basketball game at Madison Square Garden.

Tranghese said it is preposterous that in his league’s greatest hour on the field that the Big East finds itself being liquidated like some business acquisition.

"The purpose of this dinner tonight is to honor what Miami did this year," Tranghese said. "They’ve had this incredible two-year run in football. Syracuse won a national champion ship with its best player being a freshman. And we’ve now won four consecutive championships in women’s basketball. And I’ve got to come here and talk about this? My people are fighting for their lives."

Dee seems to be enamored with the benefits of a 12-team league. Tranghese said that has been discussed in the past. He said the problem is finding three schools to add to the Big East group that it considers quality. He declined to name two of the schools, but said one was Florida State. Tranghese said the Big East ultimately decided against expansion because it did not want to harm the ACC.

Now, the ACC presidents have turned the tables, and Tranghese is furious.

Tranghese said Miami’s decision has enormous implications on all of college athletics. He said if all that’s left at the end of the day is a series of 12-team conferences, then those leagues should "cut to the chase and go leave the NCAA."

Tranghese said the presidents of the Big East would ultimately be able to sit down with Shalala before any decision is reached. He said the Big East schools have a compelling argument, that the presidents of the league are engaged and will continue to talk.

"They’re going to do whatever they think they have to do to keep this conference together," he said. "We think it’s worth saving."

Jake's take on possible future life in ACC
May 20, 2003
By Donnie Webb
Staff writer

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. - Syracuse University athletic director Jake Crouthamel said the first contact with the Atlantic Coast Conference came Friday at 1:30 p.m. in a telephone call to chancellor Kenneth "Buzz" Shaw.

Crouthamel said he called ACC commissioner John Swofford and set in motion the impending process that could lead the Orangemen out of the Big East Conference and into a new league.

The ACC has announced that it intends to expand and will talk with Syracuse, Miami and Boston College about joining their league.

Crouthamel said he has not received requests from the ACC seeking data about the school and does not know when the league plans to send a representative to Syracuse on a fact-gathering trip.

During the Big East meetings on Monday, Crouthamel touched on dozens of subjects relating to the state of the current league, its survival and the possible future of life in the ACC.

Q: Head basketball coach Jim Boeheim is staunchly against joining the ACC.

A: Jim wasn't in favor of joining the Big East. Jim was reluctant to play in the Carrier Dome. And I respect his position. I would just suggest he isn't always right.

Q: Any timetable?

A: They have invited us to be involved in a process that is required by the ACC bylaws as we understand it. We have agreed to engage in that process.

Q: Such as talking to your president and being on campus?

A: Yes. I'm not sure of all the details. That's part of the process.

Q: Are you collecting data for them and preparing a report?

A: We have not been asked to do that, yet, at this point. We're kind of new at this. We're not very far along in understanding the complete process. Site inspections might take place next week. I don't know. All of the process as regulated by the ACC has to take place before any final decision is made by the ACC in terms of a formal invitation.

Q: Could you agree to a site inspection even if you've not made a decision?

A: Absolutely. Technically, we cannot make the decision. Let me rephrase that. We will not make a decision until other people make decisions. There's only one decision that's been made and that we are being considered for membership in the ACC.

Q: The logistics of the ACC, do they play a role in your decision?

A: We have to fly into the ACC to play Virginia Tech, and Georgetown. We have to fly over the ACC to play Miami. We're in that location anyway. We've played in North Carolina a number of times. We play at North Carolina in our opening game this fall. We've played basketball teams in our building and have returned games. It's not a brand, new, wow. It's not who are you? We know the ACC and they know us.

Q: Is student athlete welfare a factor?

A: Nothing else is going to change. Practice is going to start the same time. It'll end the same time. Be the same number of days. Preseason isn't going to change. The off-season isn't going to change just because it's the ACC and not the Big East. If you're talking about travel, we travel to Miami, West Virginia, to Washington, to Boston. It's a matter of do you leave at 3 o'clock or 2:30. I'm not sure what the student issues would be unless it's an increased burden on their time. And I don't see that as apparent.

Q: Concerned about the ACC financial numbers being floated?

A: I would prefer not to base the decision that Syracuse University makes solely for financial reasons. They would certainly enter into the decision-making process. But we would not say, we'd get X number here and Y number and we're going to X conference because we like the numbers. That's not how we're going to make our final decision.

Q: Which leaves what else?

A: It means comfort level. Part of the process the ACC, as I understand it, involves getting to know one another better, getting to understand what the ACC is, up close and personal. It's kind of a get-to-know-one-another process, which is healthy, should happen.

Q: The SEC and Big 12 had good fits geographically when they went to 12 teams. Is this a good fit?

A: Look at the Pac 10.

Q: They're not 12.

A: But they're 10 teams and cover even more geographic area than we do/would. The ACC, and I can't speak for the ACC, but I speak as an outsider trying to look at the rationale for what they're doing.

Q: What do you think it is?

A: Clearly, Miami is driving the whole operation; has been for the last five years. That's no secret. If they're looking to be a true Atlantic Coast Conference, then why not span the Atlantic Coast? From Miami to Boston. Doesn't that make sense to you? It makes sense to me if you're the ACC. How Syracuse fits into that? We drive 2 hours to the Hudson River and end up in New York and we're in the big water. Maybe that's how we get there.
 

Big East appears to be beaten
Tranghese's scathing attack on ACC Monday may have hastened Miami's departure.
May 21, 2003
By Donnie Webb
Staff writer

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.- A somber Big East Conference wrapped up its meetings Tuesday, one day early and one day after commissioner Mike Tranghese's remarkable vow to fight the enemy.

It remains a difficult, perhaps impossible task. And while Tranghese's vent summed up the anger and frustration of many, the verbal attack on the Atlantic Coast Conference came off some thought as desperate and may have hastened the departure of the University of Miami.

Hurricanes athletic director Paul Dee was clearly unhappy Tuesday over Tranghese's public outburst.

"I'll have a reaction at some other time," Dee said.

Tranghese played the guilt trip as a major defense against Miami's potential move to the ACC, which has identified Syracuse, Boston College and the Hurricanes as teams it will consider for expansion.

Tranghese said the Big East took in Miami when no one else wanted it. He questioned the integrity of Miami president Donna Shalala. And he said Miami's decision would cause "irreparable harm" to the Big East.

Dee was having none of that. He answered with a curt "no" when asked if Miami accepted responsibility for irreparable harm" should it leave the Big East.

Was the commissioner wrong?

"You asked me a question. I gave you an answer," Dee said.

He was also asked if Miami is being painted as a bad guy by Tranghese?

"Any other questions? I'm not going to answer that question," he said.

Shalala was in daily contact with Dee throughout the meet

ings. Dee said he expects to meet with Shalala today, then travel to Los Angeles to watch the Miami baseball team.

Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo said he's scheduled to meet with university president William P. Leahy on Thursday.

Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel said he's not sure when he'll meet with Chancellor Kenneth "Buzz" Shaw. He said he's had no further contact with anyone from the ACC since Friday when he spoke with Commissioner John Swofford.

"We've been invited to engage in the process with the ACC," Crouthamel said. "That process has not started. I have no idea when it will. They haven't sent anything to us to explain the process."

Swofford hasbeen unavailable for comment the last few days because he had some type of dentistry work, possibly a root canal.

"Why not?" Crouthamel said. "I just went through root canal surgery today. Actually, four of us, no, eight of us did."

Big East athletic directors for the eight teams that play football met for nearly nine hours Tuesday at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club. They continue to talk about potential solutions and ideas that could avert what Tranghese calls a crisis.

At least one consultant from either a television or sports marketing firm met with the Big East directors Tuesday. No one would identify the person or the substance of the information. Crouthamel said the consultant was another example of the league pursuing all options.

Potential litigation over the breakup of the league was also floated on Tuesday. The Big East has contracts with ABC and ESPN through 2007. The league has a contract to send its champion to the Bowl Championship Series through 2005.

"I think in the modern world, you don't rule anything out," said University of Pittsburgh vice chancellor Jerry Cochran. "My personal view is, I have a deep-seated commitment to the University of Pittsburgh and a similar commitment to the Big East Conference. I guess if there was a point in my life I believed any of my children's safety and security were in jeopardy, I would do everything I could to block that jeopardy. I'd feel the same way about the University of Pittsburgh."

Rutgers athletic director Bob Mulcahy offered a toast to Tranghese during a league dinner Monday night that included athletic directors from all 14 schools, football coaches and men's and women's basketball coaches. The room gave Tranghese a standing ovation.

Mulcahy, who left the meeting early Tuesday to attend a graduation ceremony, has taken a no-prisoners approach. He reportedly stood up and yelled at Dee during a particularly heated meeting Monday.

"We're not going to sit back and let them destroy our league," Mulcahy said. "When you're faced with adversity, stand up and fight. You don't back down. Nobody in that room is backing down. I can't make it any plainer."

The Big East Conference presidents are apparently trying to set up a face-to-face meeting with Shalala. Athletic directors meanwhile continue to gather information that will determine the direction of the Big East and Miami.

Crouthamel re-iterated Tuesday there is no timetable to decide and Syracuse would take as long as it needs to "discharge what we feel is our responsibility to the institution and the conference." He said a process has begun to consider all options, including joining the ACC, splitting the Big East, saving the Big East or expanding the Big East.

Asked if he was hopeful or worn out, Crouthamel said, "both. It's been a demanding time. It's not your typical conference meeting for sure."

Dee seemed to be in the same mode. He was asked if the decision was up to him and it was needed now, Dee deferred.

"I'm going to Disney World," he said.
 

BC should do the right thing

By Mark Blaudschun, Globe Staff, 5/21/2003

ONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Somehow we missed it. So did almost everyone else, of course. What we are talking about is the switch at the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference. John Swofford, the energetic, ambitious commissioner is out. His replacement: Gordon Gekko, the ambitious wheeler-dealer portrayed by Michael Douglas in the movie ''Wall Street.'' The new ACC motto: Greed is good. If the rumblings about the expansion of the ACC from nine to 12 teams (with the addition of Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse) are to be believed -- and at this point in time, there is little reason to doubt it -- the ACC will turn into a super conference, stretching from Miami to Boston, with all 12 schools earning millions of dollars.

The cost: Oh, just the elimination of a major college basketball or football conference in the East. The Big East, a league that just happens to have the reigning champions of men's and women's basketball and was a delayed whistle away from having a two-time national champion in football, will be destroyed.

Why? Because of money, of course. It seems that the ACC and its nine members felt that a profit of slightly more than $9 million a year wasn't enough. They wanted more. They wanted the crown jewel of the Big East, Miami. They wanted dominance. Running Tobacco Road wasn't enough.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese got it right Monday when he fired his verbal blast at the ACC and its presidents who said they felt threatened and had to expand to 12 teams for their own survival.

''Who's threatening them?'' Tranghese wanted to know.

Good question.

The SEC? Well, if you go inside the bowels of the ACC, you might find something to that. But the essential truth is that the SEC has little interest in what the ACC does. Besides, it has enough problems dealing with its weekly scandals, whether it's hiring or firing coaches at Alabama or dealing with the latest NCAA probation probe.

Tranghese says he doesn't understand what happened to the old ACC-Big East spirit of cooperation that existed when Gene Corrigan was the ACC commissioner and the two leagues ruled the East from Boston to the Carolinas, with great basketball and football that was improving in both places.

It was good enough for the Big East. But it wasn't good enough for the ACC, especially the ambitious triumvirate of Clemson, Florida State, and Georgia Tech, who thought that football, not basketball, should be the dominant force in the ACC.

Florida State and Georgia Tech are the ringleaders in this, and one former Big East official noted when he looked at the academic problems now plaguing Georgia Tech and the series of crimes and misdemeanors that have been on FSU's resume the last several years, ''Maybe the athletic directors of those two schools should worry about fixing things on their own campuses before they do some other things.''

Those are the outside factors at work here.

But the Big East must do some self-examination as well. Start with Miami, which basically said it was losing money and that the ACC's profit margin looked better. The Hurricanes lost $1.4 million last season, despite a national championship-caliber football team and back-to-back BCS appearances. They will make almost $10 million this season, which still doesn't seem to be enough.

And, of course, there is the loyalty factor. A decade ago, the Hurricanes were in the midst of a national championship run but were a team without a league. The football team probably could have survived on its own for an extended period of time, but the basketball team was an orphan. Basketball was held in such low esteem at Miami that the school once dropped the sport. Think about that for a minute: a major college football power that dropped basketball.

The Big East offered the Hurricanes a home. ''No one else wanted them,'' said Tranghese, who told then-Miami president Ed Foote that the conference could help the Hurricanes and the Hurricanes could help the conference.

But that was then and this is now.

And then we come to BC. Until the arrival of Connecticut, BC was the lone outpost of Division 1A football in New England. The Eagles were a strong symbol of Eastern football and to some good spokesmen for Eastern basketball.

Now, unless things change, BC is going to be known as the school that killed the concept of Eastern football. Wonder what the late Bill Flynn, BC's longtime athletic director and a prime mover in the inclusion of the Eagles in the Big East, would think about that?

Oh, you hear that Miami drives the expansion bus. But BC and Syracuse are the spark plugs and battery. Without either, the bus doesn't move.

BC and Syracuse can say no and force Miami to make a decision. The Hurricanes say they want a Northeast presence. Without those two schools, that presence disappears.

Just say no. And if Miami goes, so be it. The Big East will survive with a core of Syracuse, Pitt, BC, UConn, and Virginia Tech. Pick up a team like Central Florida for a Florida presence and the Big East will be just fine. BC will not be a 1-AA candidate as some at BC suggest.

So what's it going to be -- the right thing, which is to save Eastern football and basketball, or the greedy thing? The guess here is that greed will win out. The words will die down, the switches in conferences will begin, and everyone will adjust and move along.

But it will be different.

And not better.

And that's wrong, and for that everyone involved in this business of conference musical shares should be ashamed.