'We're very close to being at the end of this,' says ACC chief
Reports: ACC chooses Virginia Tech, Miami

ACC commissioner John Swofford said there are "no done deals at this point," but he did not anticipate any more teleconferences.

By DOUG DOUGHTY THE ROANOKE TIMES

Virtually ignored in Atlantic Coast Conference expansion talks until the past week, Virginia Tech on Tuesday night appeared to be on the verge of receiving an invitation to join the ACC.

The Hokies were to join Miami on the ACC's invitation list, according to reports in The Washington Post, on USA Today's Web site and in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"We're very close to being at the end of this," said ACC commissioner John Swofford when he met with reporters at 11:30 p.m., outside ACC headquarters in Greensboro, N.C. "I would expect us to have an announcement in the next couple of days."

A teleconference involving ACC presidents had ended nearly three hours earlier.

Swofford said there are "no done deals at this point," but he did not anticipate any more teleconferences.

"It's the one that has brought us closest to the end," he said.

Tech had expressed interest in ACC membership at various times over the past 50 years, but recently had joined fellow Big East schools in filing suit June 6 against the ACC, Miami and Boston College.

Two days later, Tech president Charles Steger told USA Today that Tech would not accept an ACC invitation if offered, but overtures from Georgia Tech president G. Wayne Clough last week led to dialogue between Steger and the Tech board of visitors.

It was the presidents’ fifth teleconference since June 10, and they have spent close to 13 hours in deliberations.

According to the Post story, the ACC presidents were pledged to secrecy while efforts were made to contact four Big East schools.

Carol Wood, interim vice president for university relations at Virginia, said she was notified by the UVa presidents' office that there were no developments that would require her services.

UVa president John Casteen was in Ireland and North Carolina State chancellor Marye Anne Fox was in Switzerland.

Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver and university spokesman Larry Hincker did not respond to phone messages left Tuesday night.

The Big East has a $1-million exit fee that doubles if a school does not notify the conference by June 30.

In the days leading up to the presidents' Tuesday teleconference, there had been growing speculation that the ACC would invite one team - Miami - after having formal talks with Miami, Syracuse and Boston College.

The ACC took site visits to Miami, Syracuse and Boston College, as required by league by-laws, but there have been no reports of an ACC visit to Blacksburg.

Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, in an annual sit-down with reporters, said Tuesday that Duke would vote in favor of expansion if it included only Miami. North Carolina chancellor James Moeser expressed similar sentiments last week in an e-mail to UNC faculty members.

Virginia had said it would vote against expansion if it did not include Virginia Tech. Seven "yes" votes from the nine presidents were needed to carry any motion.

Miami, Va. Tech chosen by ACC
BC, Syracuse not part of plan
BY MIKE HARRIS AND JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS Jun 25, 2003

In a shocking turn of events, Big East members Virginia Tech and Miami have been invited to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, according to published reports last night.

If they accept, the ACC would become an 11-member league that probably would split into two divisions for football.

The ACC had sought Miami from the start in its expansion plans, along with two other Big East schools, Syracuse and Boston College.

Virginia Tech didn't become a serious candidate until last week and is one of five Big East schools suing the ACC, Miami and BC to try to block expansion.

The ACC's Council of Presidents decided against BC and Syracuse and settled on Tech and Miami - a combination that hadn't been mentioned publicly - during a conference call that lasted more than three hours last night, The Washington Post reported. The ACC wants Tech and Miami to join for the 2004-05 school year, The Post reported.

In a two-sentence statement released early today, ACC Commissioner John Swofford said, "We are very close to reaching a definitive conclusion to this process. We expect to have an announcement in the near future."

The ACC was believed to be withholding its announcement so it could notify officials from BC and Syracuse.

Neither Virginia Tech's president, Charles Steger, nor its athletic director, Jim Weaver, was available for comment last night.

Miami officials declined to comment, the South Florida Sun- ACC Sentinel reported.

University of Virginia President John Casteen, whose support for Virginia Tech proved crucial, is traveling abroad and wasn't available for comment.

In its original expansion plan, the ACC targeted Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. The Council of Presidents voted May 16 to begin formal discussions with those three schools and later sent delegations to each campus.

Syracuse and BC were expected to accept had they received invitations from the ACC.

The conference's original plan failed in part because of pressure from politicians in Virginia, most notably Gov. Mark R. Warner and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, who were intent on ensuring that Virginia Tech remained in a strong conference.

The ACC never visited Virginia Tech officially or announced that it would begin formal discussions with Tech. Georgia Tech's president, G. Wayne Clough, met with Steger in Blacksburg last Wednesday, at which point Virginia Tech re-emerged as a candidate.

But a plan under which the ACC would have expanded to 13 schools generated little enthusiasm and was taken off the table over the weekend, sources said.

Casteen's insistence that Virginia Tech be included in any expansion may have proved decisive.

For a school to be offered admission to the ACC, it must receive at least seven affirmative votes. Duke and North Carolina opposed expanding to 12 or 13 schools, and Casteen would not have voted for adding Miami, BC and Syracuse.

The New York Times reported last night that Virginia Tech and Miami were approved 7-2.

The Council of Presidents' conference call last night was its fifth in 15 days. Before this teleconference, speculation had been widespread that the ACC would vote to add only Miami.

A spokesperson for Virginia Tech's athletic department said the school had not heard anything officially as of 11 o'clock last night and that it would not have any comment until it knew exactly what had happened.

Virginia Tech's board of visitors would have to ratify a change in leagues, but sources said that's basically a formality and could be done after an invitation is formally accepted.

If they notify the Big East by Monday that they will leave after the 2003-04 school year, Tech and Miami would each have to pay a $1 million exit fee. They would probably each have to pay a $3 million entry fee to the ACC.

Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers and Connecticut filed suit last month against the ACC, Miami and Boston College. Virginia Tech remains a plaintiff but is expected to remove itself from the suit.

The ACC wanted to expand to 12 schools largely because that's the minimum the NCAA requires for a league to play a championship game in football. Such a game could generate at least $8 million annually for the ACC. If Miami and Virginia Tech come aboard, the ACC is expected to ask the NCAA to change the rule so that an 11-school league can play a title game.

 

For Tech, finally, a night to remember
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Jun 25, 2003
Contact Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or e-mail blipper@timesdispatch.com

The Supreme Court just reversed field and lateraled Florida to Al Gore. A recount just gave Arnold Schwarze- negger the 1991 Oscar for "Terminator II." The French judge just recalibrated the math and handed the gold to Tonya Harding.

Oh, yeah, and Virginia Tech apparently just slid its foot into the glass slipper and got invited to the ball.

Holy mother of upsets! For 50 years, Virginia Tech's nose has been pressed against the picture window that fronts the house the ACC built. Fifty years of longing. Fifty years of rejection. Fifty years of trundling its fun-and-games division from conference to conference like some waif seeking shelter from the storm.

One night of stunning redemption.

Tech has to accept this bid. It might feel a little icky in the taking, a little unclean, a little like a turncoat - and it should. This ACC expansion saga has been lousy business from the get-go, and it's no tidier just because one of our own seems about to benefit. Virginia Tech has belonged in the ACC for just about forever. The shame is it'd be gaining membership under less than pristine circumstances.

Earlier yesterday, Duke hoopsmeister Mike Krzyzewski held court in Durham and took a large swipe at the method by which the ACC has sought to plunder the Big East - a hostile-takeover thrust that originally targeted Northeast-market shareholders Boston College and Syracuse.

"There is a lot to be said for your geographic landscape," Krzyzewski said. "You don't just go in and say, 'I'm going to take you and you and you' and not have sensitivity. I don't think we've distinguished ourselves in doing that."

John Swofford's conglomerate still looks more like conquistadors than church missionaries. By (stunningly) choosing to add Tech and Miami, the ACC would be snatching the Big East's two most-identifiable name brands - football powers that have played for three of the past four national championships. It's also abandoning BC and Syracuse after all but greeting them at the altar, lifting their veils and kissing them on the lips.

My guess is Swofford might soon be getting billed for those nice lunches Eagles and Orangemen spread before him when the ACC conducted those dog-and-phony campus visits.

And maybe a revised summons from the legal eagles in Hartford who are frantically revising their lists of plaintiffs and defendants as we speak.

 

Swofford: End is near in ACC expansion
By NEIL AMATO : The Herald-Sun
namato@heraldsun.com
Jun 25, 2003 : 12:56 am ET

Standing outside the ACC offices with the clock near midnight Tuesday, Commissioner John Swofford called the league's latest expansion conference call one that has "brought us closest to the end."

Although Swofford said he didn't see the need for another call among the league's nine presidents, he declined to say expansion was a done deal. He also declined comment on reports that the ACC had invited Miami and Virginia Tech, a previously unheard-of combination of schools that would bring the ACC to an unbalanced 11 members.

The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- citing anonymous sources -- all reported that the Hurricanes and Hokies would be invited to the ACC and that previous expansion targets Boston College and Syracuse were excluded. The Associated Press reported the same plan, quoting a "high-ranking league source."

A Syracuse official said Tuesday night that his school's chancellor and athletics director had not heard from any ACC officials. Several Virginia Tech leaders did not return phone calls seeking comment, and Miami and BC officials could not be reached for comment.

Swofford's statements, made three hours after the end of the 2½-hour call, were vague but offered hope a conclusion was near.

"There's very little I can say," Swofford said. "Certainly a lot of progress has been made. Tonight, we are very close to bringing this to a conclusion."

Swofford said no other calls among the presidents were scheduled. A total of five have been held in the past two weeks.

The ACC announced May 16 it would pursue Miami, Boston College and Syracuse of the Big East, and those additions seemed certain after ACC delegations completed site visits in early June.

Since then, however, a lawsuit, a governor and various other parties have gotten in the way, gumming up Swofford's plan to form a superconference on par with the Big 12 and SEC.

Two ACC presidents were far from home during the call. Virginia president John Casteen was in Ireland, and N.C. State chancellor Marye Anne Fox was in Switzerland, attending a seminar entitled "Reinventing the Research University."

She was on the phone until at least 2 a.m. with her ACC peers.

Earlier Tuesday, one of the ACC's own -- Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski -- said the league had some repair work to do, no matter what way expansion ended.

"I hope we mend fences because we've obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor-trailer and knocked down a few trees," Krzyzewski said.

Krzyzewski, like Duke athletics director Joe Alleva, supported the idea of adding only Miami to the ACC. That bump to 10 schools would keep the familiar and popular round-robin basketball schedule. UNC chancellor James Moeser said last weekend that he favored adding Miami alone, calling it the best compromise.

But expansion advocates didn't want to stop at 10 schools. They say that a 12-team ACC produces more TV dollars, has more of a voice on NCAA issues and gives the league enough teams to stage a lucrative football championship game.

Currently, NCAA rules allow football championship games in conferences with 12 teams only, but it is believed the ACC and other leagues with fewer than 12 members would petition the NCAA to change the rule.

Those against expansion say a 12-team league cuts into athletes' class time, adds to travel costs and hampers basketball rivalries.

Also, Moeser and others against expansion to 12 teams are skeptical of the financial projections. ACC schools received $9.7 million each last year. The Big East has offered Miami $9 million a year for the next five years.

The nine-team league is now five days away from its stated deadline for completion of expansion. June 30 is also significant if any Big East schools plan to begin ACC play in the 2004-05 season. Big East bylaws stipulate a $1 million exit fee by June 30 of the previous year; that fee would double if a school left after June 30 and began play elsewhere in 2004-05.

On June 6, five Big East schools filed a lawsuit against Miami, BC and the ACC, claiming secret negotiations and a plan to purposely destroy the Big East. ACC lawyers have said the case has no merit and that the lawsuit wouldn't hamper the expansion effort. Opening arguments are scheduled for Thursday in State Superior Court in Connecticut.

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was one of several politicians to weigh in on expansion. He said publicly that a third party should mediate the ACC-Big East dispute and privately put pressure on Virginia president Casteen to vote against any expansion plan that did not include Virginia Tech.

Casteen proposed including Virginia Tech in expansion talks last week, even though Virginia Tech remains one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Georgia Tech president Wayne Clough told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before Tuesday's call that the plan to go to 10 schools with Miami only was a last resort.

"We would consider [that] a fallback position and the expansion question would still not be resolved," he was quoted as saying. "But if that's the way we need to go, so be it."

Clough's wife said later Tuesday night from the couple's home that her husband would have no comment.

Big East founder Dave Gavitt supported the compromise plan for the ACC to take Miami only. He hoped the two conferences could work together and perhaps play their own football championship game.

"The Big East and the ACC should agree to collaborate on ideas to strengthen both conferences," Gavitt said, "including the idea of an interconference championship game and other forms of confederation."

 

ACC talks end in double OT

6-25-03

By TIM PEELER and ROB DANIELS, Staff Writer
News & Record

GREENSBORO -- The nine chief executive officers of the ACC are done talking about expansion and are now ready to act.

What will they do? Several published reports -- none confirmed Tuesday night by anyone at the league offices at Grandover Resort -- say the league is ready to invite Miami and, in a stunning turnaround, Virginia Tech to join the 50-year-old league. An announcement could come as early as today.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford, who emerged from the league's offices around 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, would not comment on those reports.

"There are no done deals at this point," Swofford said.

If Miami and Virginia Tech are extended invitations and accept, the ACC would grow to a conglomeration that falls one school short of the 12 required for a football championship game, but would essentially stay within the Greensboro-based league's geographic footprint from Florida to Maryland.

But it also would leave Boston College and Syracuse, the two other schools that had been courted by the ACC at the behest of fellow Big East Conference member Miami, with no invitation to join a new league and with a litigious group of comrades to answer to in their current league.

In mid-May, Boston College, Miami and Syracuse were all thought to be shoo-ins for the ACC, which has expanded only twice in its history, adding Georgia Tech in 1979 and Florida State in 1991. After reviewing a consultant's recommendation at the league's annual meetings, seven schools voted to pursue expansion, with North Carolina and Duke voting against the proposal.

That three-team invitation list, however, seemingly fell apart because of political pressure applied to Virginia President John Casteen, who said he could not support expansion if it did not include Virginia Tech, even though the league voted against pursuing formal talks in May with the Hokies.

That allowed Duke and North Carolina, the most vocal opponents of adding the two Northeast schools, to put the brakes on all expansion talk, even while league representatives were making visits to the campuses of Boston College, Miami and Syracuse.

Meanwhile, Virginia Tech joined fellow Big East schools Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia in a lawsuit against the ACC, Miami and BC, alleging the three conspired to destroy the Big East. Preliminary arguments in that suit are to begin Thursday in Hartford, Conn.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said any new expansion plan will not affect the lawsuit.

"Even if the deal is different, our determination is undiminished to hold accountable Miami and the ACC," Blumenthal told The Associated Press late Tuesday. "We will vigorously pursue our legal claims to protect the Big East and recover for the harm done. Our legal cause is alive and well."

Tuesday was a late night for everyone in the ACC's discussions, particularly for Casteen and N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, who are traveling on separate trips in Europe. When Swofford emerged from the league's headquarters at Grandover, he would not confirm any plans to add Miami and Virginia Tech.

"We are very close to being through with this process," Swofford said. "We expect it to be done in the next couple of days. We are very close to being at the end of this."

Swofford said no other teleconferences are planned among the presidents.

Tuesday's CEO teleconference was the fifth in two weeks. Swofford said no other conference calls were scheduled.

In recent days, it became clear the league was willing to rethink its expansion plans, adding only Miami if necessary, a proposal both North Carolina and Duke advocated. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Tuesday he "was all for" the addition of only Miami.

If Virginia Tech is extended an invitation, it will fulfill a longtime pursuit for the Blacksburg, Va., school, which wanted to be a charter member of the league in 1953 but was turned away. But school officials will have to decide if they want to accept the invitation or stand with their four fellow plaintiffs in the lawsuit against BC, Miami and the ACC.

Although the ACC claims the suit has no merit, the attorneys general of several states are pursuing litigation. On Tuesday, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist said he was ready to help Miami if it wanted to leave the Big East for the ACC.

"We have decided that if there is some way to be of assistance, we will do so," Crist said.

The ACC has expanded twice before.

The last expansion, under the direction of the Commissioner Gene Corrigan, brought in Florida State's football dominance and helped the ACC use its voice in developing several schemes to produce a football national champion.

Adding the Hurricanes, who have won five football national titles since 1983, and the Hokies, who played for the national title in 1999, would be a similar boost to the ACC's status as an equity member of the Bowl Championship Series, the coalition of bowl games that attempts to match the two best football teams in the country in four rotating bowls.

The original BCS contract expires after the 2005 season, and the ACC based its expansion plans on additional television money from that contract and a new contract for the TV rights to ACC games.

Coach K rips ACC's behavior

6-25-03

By TIM PEELER, Staff Writer
News & Record

DURHAM -- Regardless of the outcome of the ACC's expansion plans, which remained unclear after a Tuesday night conference call, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski sounded almost ashamed of the way the Greensboro-based league has behaved during its bid to add as many as three members.

"Obviously, we haven't distinguished ourselves," Krzyzewski said Tuesday afternoon during his annual summer news conference.

But the Hall of Fame coach reluctantly admitted that he -- and his school -- would go along with a plan to add just Miami, one of a number of scenarios that was being discussed Tuesday night on a conference call of the league's CEOs.

"I know we would vote in favor of adding Miami and going with 10 teams," Krzyzewski said in the early afternoon, supporting a move advocated by North Carolina Chancellor James Moeser and others during the past week. "I absolutely know we would do that. If that is what happens, I am all for it."

But that doesn't mean Krzyzewski approves of how things have been handled during the process, which has caused attorneys general from Florida to Connecticut to jump into a decidedly shrill legal battle and has seriously tarnished the ACC's national image.

A public relations blitz by the Big East Conference, which stood to lose Boston College, Miami, Syracuse and Virginia Tech at various stages of the expansion process, has portrayed the ACC as a heartless raider. Big East statements have painted the 50-year-old league as being intent only on lining its pockets by "poaching" schools from an established conference with promises of nearly $40 million in television contracts and a football championship game.

That perception bothers Krzyzewski, whose teams have won three of the ACC's nine NCAA titles in basketball.

"That's sad," Krzyzewski said. "We have to be sensitive to our brethren in other conferences. This isn't about big business, swooping in and getting another company. If it is, then the hidden cost (of expansion) is the destruction of what, in essence, intercollegiate athletics is."

With Miami likely on board -- but the fate of Boston College, Syracuse and Virginia Tech still unclear -- the next phase of the process for the ACC is to restore its image, Krzyzewski said.

"We have obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor trailer, with our John Deere, and knocked down a few trees," Krzyzewski said. "We need to mend some fences."

Krzyzewski's problem with expansion has been what adding three teams would do to the integrity of basketball in the ACC, which is one of the few major conferences that still plays home-and-home series against all the league's members. A 12-team ACC wouldn't allow that to continue and the league would have to be split into divisions that would almost certainly separate the Big Four of Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest.

Krzyzewski said the spirit of the league's basketball tradition would not be maintained by adding the two Northeast schools along with the Hurricanes and that the study commissioned by the ACC, conducted by sports consultant Dean Bonham, didn't address how expansion would adversely affect basketball.

"To take the spirit, the intangibles of this league -- and I have been here for 23 years -- it's incredible," Krzyzewski said. "Before you do any of those changes, you'd better have an unbelievable analysis. That's why I have been against it from the very beginning. I really don't think the people who are proponents of that know that feeling."

Bonham, who heads a Colorado-based consulting firm, was hired by ACC Commissioner John Swofford more than 18 months ago and charged with assessing where the world of college athletics was headed. He concluded that the ACC needed to expand if it wanted to have a clear and audible voice at the table when discussions began about a new Bowl Championship Series.

And while the report did focus mostly on football, Bonham said he spent considerable effort looking into the effects of expansion on all sports.

"Mike Krzyzewski is a great basketball coach and I am not going to get into a war of words with him," Bonham said Tuesday evening. "But the report I put together for the ACC is as thorough and rigorous and diligent as any I have put together in two decades in this business.

"If coach Krzyzewski doesn't agree with that, then that's a difference of opinion."

Krzyzewski's opinion was widely heard Tuesday, and he had harsh words for the schools who seems to be leading the charge for a 12-team ACC. Those schools are generally thought to be the league's Southern football powers: Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson, who have four national titles among them in football and none in basketball.

Krzyzewski said anyone who doesn't like the addition of only Miami certainly has other options.

"If anybody has an attitude like that, they should get out, go somewhere else," Krzyzewski said.

He also suggested that if the ACC is dead-set on having a football championship game -- one of the primary motivations for expansion -- it should challenge the NCAA's rule requiring 12 members for a playoff. Only the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference have championship games in Division I-A.

"My first question was, instead of changing the conference, why don't we change the rule?" Krzyzewski said. "The rule came up because of Division II playoffs. The BCS kind of took it just because it was there. It's a rule. Moses didn't bring it down from the mountaintop. It's not etched in stone."

Tech football coach has chest pains
Beamer spends night in hospital

Tests show no major blockages of arteries after Beamer enters a hospital in Atlanta while on vacation.

By RANDY KING
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   Virginia Tech head football coach Frank Beamer spent Tuesday night in an Atlanta hospital after he experienced chest pains while vacationing at his Georgia lakefront home.

    Beamer, 56, underwent a coronary arteriogram at Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday afternoon. The results showed no major blockages of arteries, according to a statement released Tuesday night by the hospital.

    John Ballein, Tech's associate director of athletics for football operations, talked with Beamer via telephone Tuesday night.

    "I talked to Coach Beamer about 8:30 tonight and he said he thinks he's going to be OK," Ballein said. "His wife, Cheryl, Shane [son] and Casey [daughter] are all there with him.

    "I would not be surprised if Coach Beamer got out of the hospital [today], but then again I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed over another day. We just have to wait and see how some more tests they're going to run on him [today] go."

    Beamer was vacationing with his family at their summer home off Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Ga., when he began to experience chest pains late Monday night, Ballein said.

    "Coach Beamer went and saw a doctor [Tuesday] morning," Ballein said. "They advised him to go to Atlanta and go to the hospital."

    Ballein said there was much concern for Beamer "because he has had this problem once before."

    Ballein was referring to 1989, when Beamer began to experience chest pains during the Hokies' 14-10 loss at East Carolina on Oct.21. After the team returned home, Beamer was hospitalized at Roanoke Memorial Hospital for tests. Beamer underwent an angioplasty procedure on Oct.25 of that year to widen a nearly closed artery that could have eventually sparked a heart attack.

    At doctors' orders, Beamer was forced to miss the Hokies' game the following Saturday, a 30-13 victory over Tulane at Lane Stadium.

Sources say saga will end with invitations to two schools
By JOSH BARR, THE WASHINGTON POST, Associated Press
© June 25, 2003

After 1½ months of deliberations, discussions and telephone meetings, the ACC stunned nearly everyone Tuesday night, extending invitations to Virginia Tech and Miami, according to a source close to the situation. Boston College and Syracuse — Big East schools that had gone through a formal process to receive invitations — were not included, the source said.

“It’s all new,” another source said.

The expansion is expected to occur for the 2004-05 season.

Tuesday night’s 3½-hour conference call among ACC presidents was one of the closing chapters in a lengthy saga.

It marked a 180-degree reversal for Virginia Tech, which Tuesday night had yet to learn of its invitation according to a university spokesman, and remains a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by five Big East schools against the ACC, Miami and Boston College in an attempt to stop expansion.

Multiple sources said that ACC presidents pledged to keep Tuesday night’s events in confidence so that the four affected Big East schools could be notified. The conference call was the fifth in recent weeks.

A news conference at league headquarters in Greensboro is expected to be held today. A spokesman for Syracuse Tuesday night said his school had heard nothing from the ACC.

The conference’s original expansion plan — which included Boston College and Syracuse in addition to Miami — unraveled from nearly a done deal in mid-May to a political nightmare that resulted in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit and public relations battle, with many school administrators facing awkward decisions.

“Obviously we haven’t distinguished ourselves in how we’ve gone about this,” Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon before Tuesday night’s events. “That’s sad. ... We have to be sensitive to our brethren in other conferences.’’

With Duke and North Carolina solidly opposed to a three-team expansion, the original plan was foiled when Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore used their political influence to force University of Virginia President John Casteen to protect Virginia Tech’s interests, sources said.

The only way that a three-team expansion could occur was if Virginia Tech was included so that Casteen could vote for expansion.

Miami and Virginia Tech have until Monday to notify the Big East they will leave before the Big East exit fee doubles to $2 million.

The schools are expected to pay a $3 million entry fee to the ACC, though that is expected to be spread over their first few years of membership and deducted from their annual conference payout.

Although NCAA rules require a conference to have 12 members in order to stage a conference championship football game, the ACC is expected to try to change that so that a conference with 11 members could hold such a game. An ACC championship game could be worth $12 million.

It remains unclear what is next for the Big East.

When it seemed that losing only Miami was the most likely scenario, a league source said that the Big East’s top preference to replace Miami was Louisville.
 

ACC snub hits SU football hardest
Without Va. Tech and Miami, the Big East would lose its spot in the BCS and its allure.
June 25, 2003
By Donnie Webb
Staff writer

The Syracuse University football program finds itself exactly where Pittsburgh, West Virginia, ANALYSISRutgers, Connecticut and even Virginia Tech were a few hours ago - on the outside looking in.

The Orangemen appear to be headed back to the Big East Conference along with Boston College after their two-month courtship by the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC, according to some published reports today, is prepared to invite Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East and leave Syracuse and Boston College behind.

And while that might be fine with a lot of Syracuse fans who never wanted the school to leave the Big East in the first place, and while it should have no impact on Syracuse's national championship men's basketball program, it could have an enormous impact, a negative impact, on the Orange football program.

A Big East without Miami AND Virginia Tech would almost certainly lose its spot in the Bowl Championship Series.

And Syracuse will find itself in a league without a lot of star power, television positions or bowl possibilities, all of which impacts recruiting and the school's ability to attract blue-chip talent.

It will also find itself much poorer. Football drives money in college sports because of the Bowl Championship Series. That's the financially lucrative series of four bowl games - Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar - in which the Big East receives an automatic spot for its conference champion. The position in the BCS is worth about $13.5 million per year to the league.

Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel has said several times that a Big East without

Miami will lose its spot in the BCS.

But to lose Miami and Virginia Tech would be especially devastating to the Big East and could reduce it to the same second-tier status as the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA. Those leagues struggle to find television windows or bowl invitations. The Mountain West and Conference USA are not part of the BCS and send their conference champions to play one another in the Liberty Bowl.

The Big East has a contract to send its champion to the BCS through the 2005 season. After that, the television networks and the other leagues that send their champions to the BCS will determine which conferences will participate.

The Big East will survive if it loses Miami and Virginia Tech.

It may not be pretty. At least for awhile.

Syracuse would remain in the Big East along with Boston College, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers and Connecticut. The league figures to approach other schools about joining the Big East including Louisville, which appears ready to leave Conference USA if it gets an invitation from the Big East. It's unknown if the Big East will restock its football league with eight members or nine (nine is considered a better number for scheduling). Other potential candidates include Central Florida, South Florida, Cincinnati or East Carolina.

The Big East has been working on models of a confederated league in order to separate the football schools from the Big East schools that only play basketball such as St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, Providence and Notre Dame. In order to fill up the basketball side and balance each group with equal numbers, the Big East may approach several schools including Marquette, DePaul, Xavier and Massachusetts.

One other possibility out there is the Big Ten Conference. Syracuse has long been mentioned as a possible candidate should the Big Ten, which has 11 members. That league took a run recently at Notre Dame without success. It has said it has no plans to expand. But a 12th school would give the Big Ten the numbers necessary to conduct a post-season championship game in football. Pittsburgh has also been mentioned as a potential candidate in the Big Ten.
 

Now it's Miami, Virginia Tech for ACC
By TONY BARNHART
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

In a strange twist to what has been a very strange process, the ACC's nine presidents voted Tuesday night to approve an expansion plan that would add Miami and Virginia Tech and form an 11-team league, people close to the process said.

The deal, if Miami and Virginia Tech accept, will exclude Boston College and Syracuse, which were slated for inclusion in the ACC when it decided to move forward with expansion about six weeks ago.

ACC commissioner John Swofford met with reporters outside his office just before midnight Tuesday but would not discuss the specifics of the meeting or confirm that any deal had been struck. But word leaked. The Washington Post and The New York Times also were reporting late Tuesday that the ACC had voted to add Miami and Virginia Tech. The Times reported the vote was 7-2.

"We hope to have an announcement in a couple of days," Swofford said, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal reported. "There are no done deals at this point."

But when Swofford was asked if there was a need for another presidential teleconference, he replied, "I doubt it."

The three-hour meeting was the fifth in the past two weeks for an expansion process that has gotten bogged down in politics and competing agendas. Virginia Tech, which was thought to be completely out of the ACC's plans a week ago, got back in thanks to political pressure on Virginia President John Casteen. The ACC had completed site visits to Miami, Syracuse and Boston College but had not issued formal invitations.

In order for expansion to pass, seven of the nine ACC schools needed to vote yes. Duke and North Carolina opposed expanding to 12 teams, and political pressure from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore meant that Virginia could not vote for a plan that did not include Virginia Tech.

Thursday, the ACC raised the prospect of adding Virginia Tech as a 13th team to get Virginia's vote. But some of the schools already voting yes balked at that idea because they didn't want to split the league's revenues 13 ways.

Adding to the pressure on the ACC presidents was a lawsuit Virginia Tech and four other Division I football-playing Big East teams filed against the ACC. There also was pressure from the attorneys general in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, who were against ACC expansion because of its negative impact on Big East teams in their states.

So Tuesday night's meeting began with four apparent options:

A 12-team league that would include Boston College, Miami and Syracuse of the Big East.

A 12-team league that would include Virginia Tech but exclude either Boston College or Syracuse.

A compromise plan that had been floated by a number of parties and on Tuesday was endorsed by Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski: Inviting only Miami to make the ACC a 10-team conference, at least in the short run.

Remaining a nine-team conference.

While no one from the ACC would allow the information to be attributed to them, people close to the process said that adding only Miami and Virginia Tech achieved several goals.

First, it would keep the ACC in its geographical "footprint" rather than go so far north with Boston College and Syracuse. That would address the concerns from faculty that expansion would add to travel for student-athletes, particularly in non-revenue sports.

Adding Miami and Virginia Tech also upgrades ACC football with two teams that have been consistently in the top 10 in the past decade.

How quickly the ACC would move to add a 12th team could not be determined late Tuesday. But under NCAA rules, only conferences with 12 teams can hold a conference championship football game. The ACC will work to change the rule if it doesn't add a 12th team, those familiar with the situation said.

The ACC was under serious internal pressure to complete a deal Tuesday. Krzyzewski, one of the nation's most high-profile coaches, criticized his league's handling of the expansion process during a session with the media Tuesday.

"I think we haven't distinguished ourselves in doing this," said Krzyzewski. "I hope we mend fences because we've obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor-trailer or our John Deere and knocked down a few trees."

If they want to join the ACC for the 2004-05 academic year, Miami and Virginia Tech have until Monday to inform the Big East of their intentions. If they miss that deadline, their exit fee for leaving the Big East increases from $1 million to $2 million.
 

Miami, Va. Tech invited
During a conference call, ACC leaders vote to ask the two Big East members to join league
By BARRY SVRLUGA AND BARBARA BARRETT, Staff Writers

In an unexpected turnabout, the ACC presidents and chancellors voted Tuesday to invite Virginia Tech and Miami -- but not Boston College and Syracuse -- to join what would become an 11-team conference.
The Washington Post and USA Today, quoting anonymous sources, reported an expansion scenario that was confirmed to The News & Observer by a source who also asked not to be named.

The ACC Council of Presidents held its fifth conference call in 15 days Tuesday night, but Commissioner John Swofford refused to make a definitive announcement about the ACC's future when he emerged from the league's Greensboro office at 11:35 p.m.

"No done deals at this point," Swofford said. "Certainly, a lot of progress has been made, I think, tonight, and we're very close to bringing this to a conclusion, and I would expect us to have an announcement in the next couple of days."

Swofford was asked whether another conference call among the league's CEOs -- seven of whom must vote "yes" for any expansion plan to be approved -- would be needed.

"I doubt it," he said.

Now the ACC must wait for responses from the prospective members, and The Miami Herald reported that Miami was prepared to accept an invitation.

The new members probably would begin ACC play in 2004-05. To do so, they would have to inform the Big East of their intentions to leave by Monday and each pay a $1 million fee.

ACC bylaws state that the league must make an on-site visit to any prospective member before an invitation is extended. Last week, Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough, already in Blacksburg, Va., on vacation, visited with Virginia Tech President Charles Steger.

Clough's meeting with Steger is the only known official interaction between the ACC and Virginia Tech.

The latest development leaves out Syracuse and BC, which were officially courted more than a month ago. Spokesmen from each school said late Tuesday night that neither knew their status with the ACC.

Syracuse athletics director Jake Crouthamel declined comment when reached at home late Tuesday night.

Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo, who has said his school's athletic future is tied to Miami's, was asked Tuesday whether BC felt jilted.

"How would you think we would feel?" DeFilippo was quoted as saying Tuesday by The Boston Globe. "It's certainly a turn of events. I've said all along our goal was to be in the same league with Miami. I'd be very, very happy to be in the Big East with Miami, but if they leave, of course, the league is going to take a big hit."

The leaders of the ACC's nine schools spoke for 2 1/2 hours, beginning at 5:30 p.m., and conference officials, including Swofford, huddled for hours afterward.

Reached by phone, Wake Forest President Thomas Hearn declined comment. Other presidents and chancellors did not return phone calls late Tuesday.

Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who has said the ACC's plan to lure schools from his conference would be destructive to college athletics, declined comment Tuesday night.

John Rocovich, the head of Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors, said that he hadn't been informed of the plan by Steger.

An 11-team conference would seem an odd configuration, given that the NCAA requires that a league have at least 12 members in order to stage a potentially lucrative championship game in football. In its push to expand, the ACC has projected that a football title game could be worth $7 million a year.

To get the rule changed, the ACC would have to petition the NCAA. Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who voiced his support for a 10-team league earlier in the day, endorsed the idea of trying to get the rule changed.

"Moses didn't bring that [12-member rule] down from the mountaintop," Krzyzewski said during a news conference Tuesday in Durham. "It's not etched in stone. It's a damn rule. So then, why not attack the rule and say, 'Look, why can't we have a playoff if we have 10 teams?'"

The NCAA's championships and competition cabinet, which is meeting in Bonita Springs, Fla., has no such proposal on its agenda.

"That's not to say that it couldn't be blowing out there in the wind right now," chairwoman Jean Lenti Ponsetto said Tuesday. "But if anyone's considering it, they haven't brought it forward to us."

A plan to add only Miami seemed to have the most momentum heading into Tuesday's call. That plan was endorsed by North Carolina Chancellor James Moeser. Rutgers athletics director Robert Mulcahy said earlier this week that he would urge the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the ACC -- Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Virginia Tech and West Virginia -- to drop their case if the ACC added only Miami.

But swiping two schools might not bring an end to the lawsuit.

"Even if the deal is different, our determination is undiminished to hold accountable Miami and the ACC," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told The Associated Press late Tuesday. "We will vigorously pursue our legal claims to protect the Big East and recover for the harm done. Our legal cause is alive and well."

The ACC's plan to add Miami, Syracuse and BC seemed to be moving toward completion after the league leaders voted 8-1 to begin discussions with those schools. But problems arose after ACC committees visited the campuses of each school.

Duke President Nan Keohane and Moeser, who had voted against expanding to 12 but in favor of entering discussions with Miami, BC and Syracuse, expressed concerns about such issues as student-athletes' time away from classes and travel costs.

On June 6, Keohane wrote an e-mail message to Swofford and her colleagues outlining her concerns. Moeser, facing a faculty that opposes expansion, also wrote e-mail messages to colleagues reiterating his reservations.

The issue became murkier when Virginia President John Casteen III began feeling political pressure from Gov. Mark Warner and others to vote against any expansion plan that did not include Virginia Tech. Last week, that brought the Hokies back into the mix, potentially as a substitute for Syracuse.

But Rocovich said Tech could only wait.

"Our attitude is one of considerable curiosity, but because we have no input, we're short on information and short on any ability to affect the outcome," he said.

Dean Bonham, the ACC's chief consultant on expansion, said all scenarios had been considered.

"We've looked at every scenario from one -- well, I just don't even want to tell you the range -- but up to more than 12," Bonham said Tuesday. "I will tell you that analysis has been done on the Miami scenario, as well as on others."

Krzyzewski, for one, sounded embarrassed about the way the ACC had conducted itself.

"Let's end it," he said. "And I hope we also mend fences, because we've obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor trailer here ... and knocked down a few trees, and we need to mend some fences."



 

ACC opts to invite Miami, Va. Tech
By Craig Barnes | Hurricanes Correspondent
Posted June 25, 2003

FORT LAUDERDALE -- In a stunning development, the Atlantic Coast Conference voted Tuesday to extend formal invitations to Miami and Virginia Tech, sources said, expanding the conference to 11 schools.

Left out of the mix were Boston College and Syracuse, two of the schools originally under consideration.

ACC officials made no announcement after a 3ƒ¦1/2ƒ§-hour teleconference because neither Miami nor Virginia Tech has accepted. Also, there are legal issues remaining.

With Boston College and Syracuse left out, it is unclear whether Miami will accept. Officials from Miami and Virginia Tech had no comment Tuesday night.

"This [two-team expansion] hadn't received a lot of time," a UM source said. "It will take some time to study it and also see what the ACC has planned."

The Hurricanes are a defendant in a lawsuit filed June 6 by five members of the Big East, including Virginia Tech. The Hokies could be moved from plaintiff to defendant status as early as today. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had vowed to seek an injunction when the ACC took definitive action.

In order for the nine ACC presidents to reach the point of extending a formal invitation to Virginia Tech, they needed seven votes to open formal discussions with the Hokies. Since they already had passed a resolution to expand from nine to 12 teams, no vote was needed to reduce by one.

They also had to hear a report from Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough, who had visited the Virginia Tech campus, and approve it as the onsite inspection that is required by conference bylaws.

The addition of Miami and Virginia Tech, the Big East's two biggest football powers, strengthens the ACC's football position, and that was the real reason for its expansion. It also leaves a spot vacant for a 12th team. Notre Dame and others could be pursued to fill that position.

By inviting Virginia Tech, the ACC allowed Virginia President John Casteen to vote yes for expansion and break the 6-3 impasse that has existed for two weeks. Duke and North Carolina were resolute in their positions against expansion.

Miami and Virginia Tech also fit the ACC regional footprint better than Boston College and Syracuse. It means lower travel costs and less time away from class for students, both concerns of several presidents.

To move the Virginia Tech vote forward, presidents had to be convinced the reduction in revenues with the Hokies included wouldn't be as great as originally projected.

The presidents showed no support for 13 teams that would have included Miami, Boston College, Syracuse and Virginia Tech. And the presidents couldn't agree on any one 12-team model among UM, Syracuse, Boston College and Virginia Tech.

The expansion issue now hangs on the decisions of Miami and Virginia Tech to accept. If they do, the next question will be pending legal action and what happens. Once that is resolved, attention will turn to a possible petition for a championship game. NCAA regulations require conferences to have 12 members before a title game can be staged.

"There is a consensus that the petition will have an excellent chance," one source said. "If the teams accept and move for the 2004-2005 season, it could mean no 12th team or championship game, but one could be put in place by 2005-2006."

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist announced he is willing to intervene on behalf of Miami in a lawsuit involving potential expansion of the ACC and supports the university's right to make its own choice regarding conference affiliation.

The lawsuit, filed by five members of the Big East Conference, includes the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia. At issue is whether Miami can dissolve its affiliation with the Big East and join the ACC.

If and when the university moves to dismiss or seeks to move the venue of the case, Crist will formally intervene.

"We stand at the ready to assist any way possible. This is a fundamental dispute among athletic conferences and universities," Crist said. "Our reason for supporting is equally fundamental: Universities have the right to join any conference that invites them.

"The law does not compel Miami, or any institution, to rebuff a legitimate overture, as long as existing contractual obligations are satisfied. The law clearly gives Miami the right to control its own destiny."

Miami President Donna Shalala said she appreciated Crist's efforts on behalf of her school. Florida State President T.K. Wetherell, whose university is affected by ACC expansion, thanked Crist for his commitment to Florida's universities and supporting the position "that we should determine our fate."

It remains unclear what is next for the Big East. When it seemed that losing only Miami was the most likely scenario, a league source said that the Big East's top preference to replace Miami was Louisville.
 

Dunkin' Dick will layeth the smack down
BOB HERTZEL

The language of sports is an ever-changing thing. Has anyone heard a pop fly single called a "Texas Leaguer" lately or a "can of corn"? How about a high bouncer called a "Baltimore chop"?

Today you have "flares" and "frozen ropes". When you throw hard you "bring the cheese" and you hit a home run you "go yard."

In basketball, no one jumps high any more. You have "ups" or "hops". You don't dribble well, you have "good handles".

Because of this, your sportswriting servant must constantly keep up on the latest of sports terms in order to translate the modern era's "Sportspeak" for you.

And so it is that today, during a conference call with a person who has become the latest sports idol up and down the East Coast, save for in Miami Beach and on Tobacco Road, we were given the A-B-C's of the latest in the sports vernacular of today.

On the other end of the line was the No. 1 sports figure in the state of Connecticut. No, not Emeka Okafor. Not Jim Calhoun. Certainly not Geno Auriemma.

We're talking about Dunkin' Dick Blumenthal. Talk about an attorney general with "ups", this guy plays the game in the rafters. You talk about a man who can "bring the cheese", he's the man and he was throwing nothing but heat at the ACC and the defectors from the Big East.

The man can talk his trash. You could almost see Dunkin' Dick standing there, his nose an inch from Donna Shalala's, staring right into those beady little eyes of her's and accusing her of "violating fiduciary duties."

Honest, he just dropped that phrase like you say third-and-five -- and he was only getting started.

"Injunctive relief" was another term he used. Now I've heard of long relief and short relief. But this man is talking about "injunctive relief."

If those dogs (and Deamon Deacons and Blue Devils) in the ACC vote to expand, he's threatening to ask for "injunctive relief." Why, that's almost like calling a balk on the ACC.

And then he went on to fire off the term "deception and reliance". Threw it right out there like Dick Vitale drops "diaper dandy" on you.

"Deception and reliance" is sort of like a double reverse. See, you deceive them by handing the ball to one player and you rely on the defense following that ball, and then you pull off yet even more deception and hand the ball to a wide receiver going the other way.

The Big East's suit, he said, is based on the conceptions of "deception and reliance". The way Dunkin' Dick Blumenthal tells it, Miami and Boston College "explicitly and purposely" (now there's another new sports term) reassured Big East schools they were firmly committed to this conference while knowing they were secretly negotiating with the ACC.

"They knew we were relying on their statements. Our claims are based on the existence of a conspiracy," Dunkin' Dick said.

Can't you just see our man in Connecticut, hopping in his latest LeBron James kicks, his hair in corn rows, dancing around G. Wayne Clough, Georgia Tech's president, zapping him with that conspiracy theory jive.

Man, you know he's getting under their thin skins. These academic dudes haven't heard anything like the talk Dunkin' Dick is talking at them.

Now try this phrase one on. He said he's heard so many scenarios about the ACC expansion that "the rumors and speculation have become an echo chamber."

An "echo chamber". Think that doesn't resonate with the ACC honchos?

We figure it's only a matter of time before they give it up. No matter how many crossovers they pull out, they have no one to go one-on-one with Dunkin' Dick Blumenthal.

 

Cool-headed coach serves as architect of Virginia dynasty
Starsia plays by his own rules in leading Cavaliers to second national championship in four years with 9-7 win over Johns Hopkins in Baltimore
Sean Mclernon
Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

With his deep raspy voice and intimidating physical stature, it's easy to imagine Virginia lacrosse coach Dom Starsia as a tough and loud type from the Vince Lombardi or Leo Durocher mold who inspires his players with fire and brimstone locker room speeches.

In truth, Starsia's style is the antithesis of those of these legendary coaches. He manages to stay cool and keep things in perspective while still maintaining a level of success comparable to the legendary Green Bay Packers football coach and Brooklyn Dodger skipper.

"Some coaches can make their kids do things they don't want to do better than I can," Starsia said. "I think of myself as leading these guys to water and at that point it's up to them to decide how deep that ship is going to be. My job every year is to improve the blueprint of it all."

Starsia's latest edition of this blueprint proved to be a successful one. His Virginia squad avenged it's only two losses of the regular season by defeating Maryland and Johns Hopkins in the semifinals and finals of the NCAA tournament to give Starsia the championship that had often eluded him and his team during his tenure.

"We've had some wonderful seasons where we haven't won the championship," Starsia said. "We lost twice in overtime in the championship game before finally winning in 1999. To have a season like that judged as less successful simply because we didn't win that faceoff and get that first overtime goal in there is unfair, but I accept the fact that we live in a world in which we keep score and in the end you're expected to win."

In Starsia's second year as Virginia's coach in 1994, the Cavaliers fell to Princeton in overtime of the title game, 9-8. Two years later, Virginia lost to the Tigers again in the championship game, this time by a 13-12 score. In 1997, the Cavaliers followed an impressive 11-2 campaign where the squad averaged a school record 18.2 goals per game with a disappointing 10-9 quarterfinal loss to Maryland in the NCAA tournament.

The title in 1999 finally removed the monkey from his back and secured his place among the top coaches in the NCAA, but possibly more impressive than winning the championship is Starsia's ability to consistently bring talented players to Virginia each year and keep the Cavaliers part of the nation's elite teams throughout the 90's.

"He has a great ability to maintain a high level of enthusiasm every day," assistant coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "He always has this positive core of energy that the team feeds off of."

This core remains strong even after over 20 years of coaching behind him. Starsia began his head coaching career at his alma mater, Brown, in 1983. Two years later, he led the team to an Ivy League championship and an NCAA tournament appearance. The Bears were able to reach the NCAA quarterfinals in Starsia's three final years as coach from 1990-92.

In 1993, Starsia succeeded Jim Adams at Virginia. Adams coached at the university for 15 years and still hold the school record with 137 wins. Starsia is quickly approaching this milestone, currently standing 13 wins short.

It seems inevitable the Starsia will pass Adams in the record book, quite possibly before the end of next season. But with 21 years under his belt as a head coach, will he stay long enough to win 200 or even 250 games leading the Cavaliers?

Starsia can't help but laugh when he is asked the question. After considering the possibility, however, he says his coaching career will probably not be ending anytime soon.

"I still love what I do," Starsia said. "In fact, I think I love coaching more that I did when I was younger, and that's not just the delirium of winning the championship. As long as the hunger to improve and willingness to change is there, I'll keep going."

After all, Starsia is in it for more than just winning championships. To him, the phrase "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" couldn't be further from his core philosophy. It seems that the secret to Starsia's success is caring about more than simply the result on the scoreboard at the end of night.

"Some coaches feel their way is the only way," Starsia said. "Others believe strictly in X's and O's. I wouldn't put myself in wither of those categories. I see my job as a coach as helping these young guys make good decisions."

When the final whistle blew on May 26 giving Starsia and the Cavaliers the national championship, Durocher probably rolled over in his grave. Starsia proved that nice guys can finish first.