Despite the backlash of criticism,Tech official confident in decision

Villains. Slugs. Turncoats. Hypocrites. The Hokies have been called every derogatory name in the book - plus some - for what critics perceive as a slimy, backdoor entry into the ACC.

By RANDY KING
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   While its official Atlantic Coast Conference membership card wasn't delivered as expected Thursday, Virginia Tech continued to find its mailbox stuffed full. Full of trash mail, that is.

    As Tech officials longed to receive their confirmation booking number for their fall 2004 reservation to check into the ACC, they found themselves still taking a severe public relations beating from national sports columnists and talking heads.

    Villains. Slugs. Turncoats. Scumbags. Money-grubbers. Hypocrites. The Hokies have been called every derogatory name in the book - plus some - for what critics perceive as slinky, slimy, backhanded, backdoor escape from the Big East to entry in the ACC.

    Say what? Hokies athletic director Jim Weaver isn't listening.

    "Not one second," said Weaver, when asked Thursday if he has heard the verbal bashing Tech has taken the past couple of days from such national radio and television talk-show hosts as ESPN's Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.

    "Number one, the beauty of being an American is freedom of speech. So people have the opportunity to get on talk radio or TV and say what they want to say. I don't have a problem with that.

    "Secondly, though, every institution has a responsibility to consider all the facts at a moment in time and make the best decision for the long term of the university."

    Tech's public relations woes come in the wake of its quest to stay afloat in this deep-water Big East-ACC expansion pool, a swimming hole that became even choppier Thursday with Miami's tsunami-sized decision that it will listen to an 11th-hour life preserver cast by the drowning Big East.

    Hurricanes or no Hurricanes - Miami President Donna Shalala said Thursday her school won't make a final decision until Monday - Tech already has its speedos on and can't wait to dive in headfirst. Murky waters? The Hokies say not.

    "No," Tech President Charles Steger said Wednesday, when asked if Tech's ACC invitation was contingent on Miami being in tow.

    As appealing as its new home appears to be, Tech's sudden move into a neighborhood it has coveted for decades has been anything but simple, quiet, usual Mayflower deal. And, as the Hokies eagerly await to unload their moving van, there are plenty of onlookers shaking their heads in dismay.

    Why? Well, many feel that Tech might as well be renamed Benedict Arnold U. One columnist wondered if the school would be on sale on eBay soon. Certainly, the Hokies haven't reversed field this quickly since a guy named Michael Vick left Blacksburg.

    The scouting report on the Hokies has changed drastically in the past three weeks. When left out of the ACC's original plans to annex Miami, Boston College and Syracuse, the Hokies were quick to join forces with the Big East leftovers on June 6 and resort to what's become America's favorite play - file a lawsuit.

    Two days later, Tech President Charles Steger told USA Today that "if an offer [to join the ACC] came today, we wouldn't accept it."

    Steger, now, of course, undoubtedly wishes he had never made that comment. Certainly, he never could have envisioned that only 11 days later Tech would stunningly resurface in the ACC expansion pool. Weaver claimed the media has unfairly relegated Steger to deep water since that sound byte.

    "When Dr. Steger was quoted some time ago about not accepting an ACC invitation, that was responding to a specific question about replacing somebody [in the expansion puzzle]," Weaver said. "Then the comment was taken out of context. People can't hold that against him forever."

    Heating to the topic, Weaver yanked the conversation's fire alarm button again.

    "Let's discuss the lawsuit," he said. "The background of the lawsuit is not that the Boston Colleges and Miamis did not have the right to affiliate with other institutions or in other conferences. It was more the clandestine way of business being done behind closed doors without any acknowledgement and knowledge.

    "We had not done a thing in regards to expansion for the ACC until May 6 when President Steger, Minnis Ridenour [Tech executive vice president and chief operating officer] and I went [to the ACC office in Greensboro, N.C.]. We had a short 40-minute meeting with John Swofford [ACC Commissioner] to get a gauge on expansion. We just wanted to let it be known we felt we were a good mix for the ACC and we would be very interested in expansion. We had that obligation to the constituency of this university.

    "So then two days before the ACC announced which schools they were going to engage in dialogue, President Steger called Chancellor [Bud] Shaw at Syracuse and Father [William] Leahy at Boston College and offered to sign an agreement that would indicate that everybody would stay in the [Big East]. Both Syracuse and Boston College refused.

    "That said, I have no problems with where we are and how we've gotten to where we are. Because we didn't do anything subsequent to May 6 until we got a call from the ACC last Wednesday."

    Nine days later, the Hokies have their foot firmly inside the front door of a league they felt they should have been in a couple scores of years ago.

    "This just makes all the sense in the world," said a giddy Weaver.

    When asked one more time about the recent pointed comments of Kornheiser and Wilbon, the duo of Washington Post writers who team on ESPN's television show "Pardon the Interruption," Weaver offered a quick retaliatory blow. Five good minutes? The Tech AD says hand him him the microphone.

    "Truthfully, this is an issue I'm not worried about because you've got to do what's right," Weaver said. "I've always said if you do what's right you'll never go wrong.

    "This is the right decision for this university. Virginia Tech did not control all the circumstances around it. That was out of our control.

    "Bring 'em on. Give me five minutes and more. I will answer their questions."

Please, spare all of us and get this over with

Probably too late now, but there has to have been a way to somehow turn this athletic-conference wrangling over the University of Miami into a reality TV show. Considering the weeks and weeks in which the Byzantine drama has inched on, we might well have called the series, American Idle.

Atlantic Coast Conference vs. Big East -- if properly packaged in a way that made the exceedingly dull appear interesting, like they did with Anna Nicole Smith -- might have been the biggest thing since Ruben Studdard vs. Clay Aiken.

Naturally, a national phone-in poll would have decided the winning conference, as the camera bore tight on the pensive face of UM president Donna Shalala while the final tally was being dramatically announced.

Soon, a ''People'' exclusive would reveal the outcome was rigged and that UM, in fact, actually had been voted in as the newest member of the Teamsters Union. But by then it would be too late.

Miami athletic director Paul Dee already would have released a remake of Bridge Over Troubled Water and set out on a European concert tour.

And the network already would have green-lighted a sequel in which a national phone-in poll determined whether the University of Miami would replace France as a voting member of the United Nations.

Oops. Back to reality.

All we get in real life is one last delay before what seems almost inevitable: UM ditching the Big East and joining the ACC, as is Miami's right.

The final decision is due Monday.

Please?

Because this has been more than drawn out over six weeks. This has been sort of ugly. This has been an unfortunate miniseries documenting what too much of American sports has become. It has been about the suits -- the kind lawyers wear, and the kind lawyers file.

U.S. senators and state attorneys general have entered the fray. You'd rank the ACC-Big East mess right down there with LeBron's $90 million Nike contract among the biggest current reminders that sports and money have gotten together like two people at a motel featuring hourly rates.

The conference switch was muddied not only by lawsuits but by the ACC's abrupt change of mind. Now, apparently only Virginia Tech will follow UM from the Big East. Boston College and Syracuse have been discarded like spent packs of Camels.

The change would leave the ACC with 11 members, not 12. Not ideal, but, whatever. Let's just get this done!

If this goes on much longer, the outcome won't be called a decision. It'll be called a birth.

UM is delaying through the weekend to consider counterproposals from the desperate Big East and from the jilted BC and Syracuse.

Terms of the counterproposals are unclear. Cannot confirm rumors that one perk being offered UM is a slight renaming of the Big East. Proposed new conference name:

The Big Shalala.

Hey. It grows on you.

Lawsuits still impede Miami's decision to go ACC-ward.

Virginia Tech was a part of the Big East schools' suit against UM leaving . . . until Tech got invited to also go. Hmmm.

Hmmm II: The Big East, decrying how the ACC would have the gall to raid its membership, plots to make up for the loss by in turn raiding other conferences.

Let's please all just end this and get back to pretending it's all about the student-athletes, OK?

 

BC, Syracuse will vie for last seat at ACC's table

By Greg Stoda, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2003
 

There's an empty chair at the Atlantic Coast Conference table, and the first one to it eats instead of starving out there in the Big (East) Chill.

Boston College and Syracuse? Ready, set, go!

This is what the defection of Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big Least hath wrought. It soon might be the Big Deceased. You think the people currently in shock at Boston College and Syracuse don't know the Big East is football-dead without the Hurricanes and Hokies, who dropped what amounts to a double-dosed H-bomb on the conference?

The Eagles and Orangemen were ready to follow Miami to the ACC in the first place, when it was assumed Virginia Tech would be among the Big East stragglers left behind.

Now?

Boston College and Syracuse will fall all over themselves trying to grab the available seat for an ACC feast.

And the ACC won't have to worry about any lawsuit, because it won't be the petitioner. You might remember that five schools from the Big East -- Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia, Connecticut and (laugh track goes here) Virginia Tech -- went to court earlier this month to keep Miami, Boston College and Syracuse from leaving the conference.

Syracuse wasn't named in the suit, but Boston College was.

Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel didn't take a call Wednesday on the issue, but Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo already had said everything that needed saying in advance of the Tuesday night expansion reports. When asked what his reaction would be if the Eagles were not included, he said: "How do you think we would feel? We've said all along that our goal is to be in a league with Miami."

The race is on.

Sure, there have been source-laden reports about how the ACC doesn't expect either Boston College or Syracuse to be involved in any future expansion. That's a giggle, because what exactly can the ACC truthfully say it has expected throughout this entire episode?

It wasn't too long ago that the conference didn't think Virginia Tech was going to be part of any expansion plan. But that was before the ACC was taken hostage by league member Virginia, which had been taken hostage by state legislators insisting that the Hokies be in the mix.

And if Boston College and Syracuse insist they aren't talking to the ACC at the moment, well, they'll talk later if, for example, the league begins a flirtation with Louisville.

Miami still has to want either the Eagles or the Orangemen to make the move to the ACC.

The Hurricanes might take some satisfaction from viewing the wreckage of what the Big East looks like without them and Virginia Tech. There was, after all, a growing level of bitterness between Miami and the conference in recent weeks.

But the original ACC hope -- and, presumably, the Hurricanes' as well -- was for the creation of a new television landscape stretching from Miami through Atlanta and Charlotte and Washington and into New York and Boston. That's quite a remarkable corridor for one league, and the Blacksburg-Roanoke, Va., market isn't much of a substitute for either of the latter two metropolitan areas.

That's of more than a little importance, what with college football television contracts up for renewal.

And even though the ACC would significantly improve its chances of getting two teams into the financially lucrative Bowl Championship Series by doing nothing more than adding Miami and Virginia Tech, it probably still needs another team to put on its own money-making conference title game. That's because the NCAA isn't likely to change its rules to allow such a contest for a league with fewer than a dozen members.

Hello, Boston College calling?

Hello, Syracuse on the line?

As for Miami, it will endure a 2003 Big East football season during which it will be even more despised than usual.

The Hurricanes' overwhelming success on the field and its perceived selfish arrogance in dealing with the Big East in these ACC matters will make for an uncomfortable UM autumn. A final regular-season game at Pittsburgh, which could decide the conference championship, should be especially nasty.

Not that the Hurricanes have ever been bothered by vitriolic receptions.

They'll play to all the madness while holding an ACC chair out for either Boston College or Syracuse.

Whichever gets to it first.

Miami Puts Off Decision To Monday
School Still Weighing ACC, Big East Offers
By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 27, 2003; Page D01

GREENSBORO, N.C., June 26 -- The ACC's expansion efforts, already a drawn-out, 11/2-month process, will go through the weekend without reaching a final decision.

While Virginia Tech is set to become the ACC's 10th member, Miami -- which all along has been the key to any expansion plans -- delivered the latest twist in this never-ending saga. After a one-hour meeting of Miami's Board of Trustees, university president Donna Shalala said Miami is still evaluating the ACC's offer, weighing counterproposals by the Big East and will not announce a decision until Monday, the final day before the Big East exit fee doubles to $2 million.

"We had not anticipated that Virginia Tech and Miami would be the only two invitees, so we have to finish our analysis under some direction and questions that the Board of Trustees have raised," Shalala said at a news conference, her first public comments on the matter in several weeks.

Additionally, Miami is evaluating what Shalala said was "a list of proposals" informally sent from the Big East, where it currently is a member. It was not known what those offers included, but last month, attempting to keep Miami in the fold, the Big East guaranteed Miami an annual conference payout of at least $9 million for the next five years.

With the ACC potentially adding two teams, several sources have indicated it will be difficult for the conference to maintain the record $9.7 million it paid each of its schools for the 2001-02 school year.

Shalala said Miami is not leaning toward either conference.

Having gone through a protracted process to reach this point, ACC Commissioner John Swofford said he understands Miami's position and need for time to think through its decision.

"I'm just as ready for this to come to a conclusion as you are and probably everybody else," said Swofford, who acknowledged he had anticipated a final resolution today. "It's not the way I had intended to spend my spring."

One part of the expansion that is nearly complete is the addition of Virginia Tech, which has told the ACC it will accept an offer once it is formally extended, regardless of what Miami does.

"Virginia Tech will be in the ACC," university spokesman Larry Hincker said.

All that remains, according to the participants, is the formal paperwork, which is not expected to pose a problem.

The ACC had been planning a news conference for Friday afternoon, multiple sources familiar with the idea said, but it was scrapped after Miami announced its non-decision late this afternoon. Now, a news conference is scheduled here for Tuesday.

"Unbelievable," one source close to the process said after Miami prolonged things further. "Wow."

Miami's concerns focus primarily on the financial and scheduling aspects of an 11-team league that is one short of the minimum required by the NCAA to hold a potentially lucrative conference championship football game. The ACC will propose legislation to lower that figure and allow it to hold a title game and will meet a July 15 deadline that would allow a successful amendment to be enacted for the 2004-05 school year, Swofford said.

"How much support it will get, we'll have to wait and see," Swofford said.

There also is the possibility that if Miami joins, the ACC will move to add a 12th team, although Swofford said the league has not contacted any other prospective members after Syracuse and Boston College were left out of the expansion plan at the last minute.

"We were told that it was the intention of the majority of the ACC to go to 12," Shalala said. "But I would not describe it as an absolute assurance. We were only assured that two teams were invited."

Swofford said he spoke several times yesterday with Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee, trying to answer any questions about the 11-team proposal. Swofford said he planned to remain available to Miami officials for the next few days, but does not intend to travel to the school for a face-to-face meeting with Shalala or Dee.

"The decision is Miami's at this point," Swofford said.

Also yesterday, Shalala, who had wanted Boston College and Syracuse to join her school in the expansion, spoke with Boston College President William Leahy.

"I think she is generally torn about what to do," Leahy told the Associated Press.

Meantime yesterday, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza denied requests by the ACC and Miami to move the lawsuit by four Big East teams to a different court in an attempt to keep that conference together.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, representing the plaintiffs, yesterday dismissed Boston College as a defendant after that school was left out of the ACC's expansion plans.

"Now that Boston College is on our side, we hope their cooperation will mean additional information and evidence," Blumenthal said. Leahy told the Associated Press that Boston College will not join the lawsuit as a plaintiff: "I think it's a waste of time and money."

Sferrazza did not rule on Blumenthal's request to speed up the schedule of deposing top ACC and Miami officials and another hearing was scheduled for July 14.

 

Hokies' entry strange episode in ACC history

6-27-03

News & Record

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi!

Tech, Tech, VPI

So-la-rex, So-la-rah

Poly Tech Virginia

Ray rah VPI

Team! Team! Team!

Ladies and gentlemen, the Gobblers.

There has been no stranger episode in the 50-year history of the ACC than the one that brought us Virginia Tech. If the conference survives another 50 there will still be nothing to compare to the past six weeks.

That we're sitting here today with an 10-team league that includes Virginia Tech is the most bizarre and unexpected reality in the history of Southern sports. Not the fall of Tar Heel basketball, not the rise of NASCAR, not even the arrival of the NHL to North Carolina approaches the arrival of the Hokies to the ACC because as best we can tell, nobody wanted it to happen.

Not Miami, which could still make it an 11-team conference, not the ACC and not Virginia Tech. Only a month ago, Tech athletics director Jim Weaver told another AD from the Big East that "We are committed to the Big East, and we will continue to be committed to the Big East. Our commitment is unwavering."

Not long after, the university joined four other Big East schools in a lawsuit filed against Miami, Boston College and the ACC.

Virginia Tech has now removed itself from the lawsuit, and the remaining plaintiffs are suing Virginia Tech. Legal observers believe the case has no basis other than the precedent set by Tech, which could make it a case to be studied for years by law students, the NCAA and the next university considering joining the ACC.

How Tech got in will never be studied, but it's worth taking another look at just so it will sink in. The ACC needed seven of the nine votes from its member presidents to extend invitations to the three Big East schools on the list of preference -- Miami, Boston College and Syracuse. Though no one has compiled such a list, Virginia Tech's name would've been on a list of schools the ACC had no intention of ever inviting, a ledger that would include East Carolina, South Carolina and maybe even Western Carolina.

You could see Louisville getting in someday, or Notre Dame, or Penn State or even Connecticut. But VPI? Not in 50 years.

Tech got in because its most hated rival was forced to play political football. Virginia's spineless president, one John T. Casteen III, was told by Virginia's mindless governor, one Mark Warner, to back Virginia Tech in any expansion talks, the equivalent of our governor telling Richard Petty how to drive.

Casteen did it, throwing the entire expansion process into fiasco-mode and resulting in the bizarre chain of events that led to Syracuse and Boston College being thrown back to the Big East lawyers and a horrified ACC to inviting Virginia Tech at the risk of watching the entire process crumble.

Now Virginia, which hates Virginia Tech, and Virginia Tech, which hates Virginia (and a lot of people agree with both of them) have become strange bedfellows in a politically induced sleep that has a lot of people bickering and a lot more snickering.

Only a couple of weeks ago, nine U.S. senators, including both from Virginia, mailed a letter to the presidents of Miami, Boston College and Syracuse that smacked of self-righteous indignation even then and sounds now like a joke.

"It was not too long ago that colleges and universities espoused loyalty, leadership and sportsmanship as the qualities that made intercollegiate athletics great," the letter read. "Now those very virtues find themselves under assault, not by the corrosive effects of scandal at the student-athlete level, but rather by the decisions of individuals in leadership positions. To us, that is the greatest shame of this entire affair."

Harrumph, harrumph.

Virginians are a different people. We've known that all along, but we've only had to deal with the cavalier set from historic Charlottesville. We've never dealt with those Hokie maniacs from out west. Now we get both and their politicians, too?

Yes, Virginia, there was a buyout clause, but John III sold it for political favor. Now the ACC has tired of the politics and even Miami's 11th-hour ambivalence, and by Monday the conference will have expanded by at least one. That will be Virginia Tech, with or without Miami.

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi!

Tech, Tech, VPI

Connecticut's new stadium funded by taxpayer money
Expansion is hitting Huskies hard

"When people aren't up front and honest ... a lot of people can get hurt," says Connecticut football coach Randy Edsall.

By MARK BERMAN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   STORRS, Conn. - Randy Edsall feels like a character in a movie, but it's not the coach from "Remember the Titans" or "Hoosiers."

    Edsall, the football coach at Connecticut, has had enough to deal with just getting his program acclimated to Division I-A and preparing it for its 2005 entry in the Big East. As if that wasn't enough, for the past few months he has also had to wonder what caliber of league his team will be joining.

    "You just keep taking shots. It's like a punching bag and people keep punching you. I tell people I feel like Rocky," Edsall said Wednesday in his small office. "I knew when I took this job there was going to be a tremendous challenge. It's like Rocky. You sit there and take the blows and people are beating up on you, but they can't knock us out. Whatever happens from this [conference situation], nobody's going to knock us out."

    With the ACC's invitations to Miami and Virginia Tech, UConn might no longer be in a league with a Bowl Championship Series bid or a lucrative football TV contract. In early June, before those invitations were extended, UConn, Tech and three other Big East schools sued the ACC, Miami and then-expansion-candidate Boston College in an effort to stop the defections.

    The new stadium UConn will move into this fall is called Rentschler Field, but it might as well be called Exhibit A. It is a key part of the lawsuit because the state of Connecticut spent $90 million of taxpayer money to build the facility, which is located 25 miles from campus in East Hartford.

    The stadium "is just a state effort all the way around," Sean Lester, assistant athletic director for facility management and planning, said. "Everybody from the state has got their hands on it a little bit.

    "As a taxpayer in the state of Connecticut, $90 million is a lot of money. People are interested in what's going to happen" with the Big East.

    UConn had been playing on campus in 16,200-seat Memorial Stadium. Its new, 40,000-seat stadium can be expanded to 65,000 seats if the school wishes in the future. There are 38 luxury suites, 600 club seats, a giant video scoreboard and a stadium club. More than 20,000 season tickets have been sold. UConn will pay rent to use the stadium, just as it does to play basketball at the Hartford Civic Center.

    "As a collegiate venue, it's awesome," Lester said. "It's NFL standard. You've got one shot at doing it right and we did it right."

    UConn, which will visit Tech in September, isn't planning to stop with the stadium. There are plans for two new buildings on campus - a multipurpose facility that will include an indoor football practice field, and a football office complex. The total price tag for the two buildings is $42 million.

    "We knew that we were going to be in this conference; we were going to be playing these opponents. The state made the commitment from that, for the $90 million for the stadium," Edsall said. "We're ready to spend close to $42 million on facilities here on campus. When you're talking close to $132 million for facilities for a football program, there's quite an investment that's been made."

    Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sees the lawsuit as a way to protect that investment. The lawsuit accuses the ACC and Miami of taking part in "secret negotiations" that will result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of future revenue. A key argument in the lawsuit is that UConn committed the money for the new stadium based on Miami's assurances that it would be remaining in the Big East.

    "We relied on those false promises," Blumenthal said in a phone interview last weekend. "We made these investments after we received repeated, explicit reassurances that the University of Miami was committed to the Big East."

    Blumenthal said the issue has generated "very strong feelings" among taxpayers and UConn alumni and supporters.

    "There's a real sense of anger and outrage that we were purposely misled and deceived," Blumenthal said.

    Edsall feels their pain.

    "This is the United States of America, and people can basically have the freedom to do a lot of different things, which is great, but there is also a time when I think people have to learn how to do things the right way," said Edsall, entering his fifth season as the Huskies coach. "When people aren't up front and honest with people and they try to go [in] the back door, a lot of people can get hurt that way.

    "It's just like in a marriage. If you're not happy in a marriage, go and try to work it out. If you go and try to do things on the sly, it's going to cause bigger problems."

    The lawsuit contends that Miami's departure "will deprive Connecticut of the value of its investments, and will in substance end the very football conference Miami induced Connecticut to enter."

    Those investments include $250,000 to improve the Huskies' practice field and even more in additional scholarship money. UConn has gradually added to the 63 scholarships it had as a I-AA program; UConn had the I-A maximum of 85 for the first time last fall. The school spent about $500,000 more in scholarships last season than it did in 2000, which was its first season as a I-A independent.

    The school has also been missing out on some chances for revenue. Instead of paying a buy-in fee to the Big East, UConn agreed to visit each Big East football team for one game without being paid a game guarantee. UConn visited Tech free of charge in 2001, for example.

    Edsall is more worried about how the ACC raid will affect recruiting than how it will affect the bottom line. Recruiting isn't easy for a fledgling I-A program, but Edsall said one of his selling points was that UConn was going to be in a BCS conference.

    "We'd like the Big East to stay intact the way it is," said Edsall, whose team went 6-6 last fall. "As a football coach, all's I want us to do is try to be able to play at the highest level and have the opportunity to go and play for a national championship, which is what the BCS allows you to do.

    The BCS is "important from a recruiting standpoint. You might be able to try to reach a higher quality student-athlete if you have an opportunity to play for a national championship."

    Edsall doesn't like to complain, though.

    "You can sit here and you can say, 'Woe is me,' but you know what? Nobody wants to hear that," he said.

Miami's ACC decision due Monday
Virginia Tech is in regardless of'Canes' choice

BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 27, 2003

Miami is making the ACC wait. School officials said yesterday they don't have a decision yet on whether they'll accept an offer made Wednesday to join the ACC.

Virginia Tech, also extended an invitation Wednesday, need not sweat Miami's decision.

"Virginia Tech is in the ACC. Period," Mike Finn, an ACC assistant commissioner for external communications, said in an e-mail to The Times-Dispatch yesterday.

The Hokies were quick to accept the invitation.

Miami, however, says it wants more time to study things and consider a counterproposal from the Big East. Miami officials promise a decision by Monday. After Monday, the exit fee to leave the Big East goes from $1 million to $2 million.

The Hurricanes were caught off guard when Tech was announced as the other school to receive a bid. Syracuse and Boston College were thought to be the ACC's prime targets, along with the Hurricanes, but those schools didn't receive enough votes.

"The circumstances are such that we have more information to review. We want to make sure that in making this decision we make the very best decision that we can make in the best interests of all the parties," Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee said at a news conference yesterday. His comments and those of Miami President Donna Shalala were obtained in an e-mail from the Miami sports information department.

Said Shalala: "The Big East has informally sent a proposal, or at least a list of proposals, to us and we feel a responsibility to review them. We also had not analyzed the Virginia Tech-Miami sequence. . . . We had not anticipated that Virginia Tech and Miami would be the only two invitees.

"So we have to finish our analysis under some direction and questions the board of trustees have raised. We will finish our due diligence by Monday and announce our decision on Monday."

Shalala said she was "deeply disappointed" that Syracuse and Boston College were not included. She wants her school, which draws a number of stu- dents from the Northeast, to have a strong athletic presence there. But she also said she would not ask the ACC to reconsider.

"I wouldn't describe us as leaning one way or another," Shalala said.

Dee said the school needed to take a look at the financial and scheduling implications of an 11-team league. Shalala said she was told "that it is the intention of the majority of the ACC to go to 12 teams, but I would not describe it as an absolute assurance. We were only assured that two teams were invited."

Big East sources last night were unaware of any counterproposal sent to Miami.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said the school hadn't received anything and that Tech "is committed to the ACC."

The Big East office said last night that the league had yet to receive a resignation letter from Virginia Tech. Once it arrives, Virginia Tech loses all voting rights in the league.

A decision on whether the Hokies - and the Hurricanes, if they defect - will be allowed to compete for Big East titles during their "lame duck" campaigns will be made later, the league said. Such a decision will come from the league's athletic directors. When Richmond, American and East Carolina left the Colonial Athletic Association in 2001, the schools were declared ineligible for all conference championships and left to rely on at-large berths to gain places in NCAA championships. The Big East has no precedent because it hasn't had a school leave before.


 

Egg, not smile, on faces in ACC
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Jun 27, 2003
Contact Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or e-mail blipper@timesdispatch.com

Gee, there sure are a lot of sour expressions in the room. John Swofford isn't happy. Donna Shalala isn't happy. Mike Krzyzewski isn't happy. Mike Tranghese isn't happy. North Carolina isn't happy. Duke isn't happy. Syracuse isn't happy. Boston College isn't happy. The consultant whose recommendations were scrapped isn't happy. The clerk in Connecticut who has to keep revising the lawsuit isn't happy.

Virginia Tech is happy.

But wait'll it gets the dry-cleaning bill for its smudged reputation.

The ACC's offseason of angst is over. Maybe. Presumably. Unless Donna Shalala has second thoughts, stares into a camera, nibbles her lower lip and says something like, "I will never have relationships with that numbskull, Mr. Swofford."

Only then would we have the 10-member ACC that UNC's James Moeser and Duke's Nan Keohane threw out there as a compromise candidate - except what each of them envisioned was coconut palms and dining on croquetas or boliche at Versailles on Calle Ocho and not a mouthful of Beamerball.

That possibility lurked yesterday when Shalala declined to curtsy and accept the first dance at the ball with Swofford. She will, instead, entertain overtures for Miami's allegiance until Monday. If she reverses field and kisses and makes up with Tranghese, fine by me. That'd preserve the Big East, put Virginia Tech in the league where it belongs and allow the ACC to maintain its home-and-home basketball structure while upgrading football.

As it is, what's currently on the ACC's table is an 11-member confederation that deviates considerably from the original idea of spreading the league's tentacles onto the campuses of Boston College and Syracuse. That suited expansion linchpin Miami and the ACC's lust for new markets and large wads of greenbacks. Then came the stunning vote for Miami and Tech that supposedly blindsided even Swofford, who only runs the joint. Now, we have the Shalala shuffle.

ACC expansion: It's not just a blob, it's a misadventure.

For being the button-down manager of a button-down league, Swofford sure let this thing get messy. That's what nine wild and crazy CEOs will do to you. From Moeser and Keohane gumming the works to U.Va.'s John Casteen hanging tough for Tech to N.C. State's Marye Anne Fox reportedly vetoing BC as a third invitee, the process lurched to the Miami/Tech two-fer that left the Eagles and Syracuse at the altar and the ACC uneven and unadmired.

"The last conference you would have expected to handle something this poorly was the ACC," Marc Ganis, president of a Chicago sports consulting firm, told the Washington Post. "It makes the ACC a laughingstock around the country. The irony is, they go from the pinnacle - the Tiffany of all conferences in the way they were perceived - and now they're being laughed at for the way they bungled this thing."

So let's take stock. Faculty at UNC and N.C. State termed the process "a disaster" and "a mess." A spokesperson at BC said the turnabout was "unexpected" - in the same way that walking into a steel beam is unexpected. The ACC didn't get what it wanted, and the Big East got plundered (but is trying to get its foot back in Miami's door as we speak). Duke and UNC got dissed. U.Va. partisans get bent at the notion they now share space at the conference table with Tech.

Meanwhile, our state's attorney general and one-time anti-ACC plaintiff Jerry Kilgore can get back to serious litigating and serious politicking.

"None of this has been easy," Kilgore said at a Wednesday news conference. "Tempers have flared on both sides. But I stand proud of what we have accomplished."

I guess Kilgore's happy. Well, there's one more.

 

Sports Focus: ACC Expansion: The Finances
Do dollars make sense? With 11 teams, ACC might not increase income
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 27, 2003

Late in the game, the ACC's nine schools found consensus hard to reach as expansion discussions grew increasingly contentious.

At least two - North Carolina and Duke - preferred no expansion but would have accepted one new member, the University of Miami. Others wanted to add three schools so the conference could split its football teams into two divisions and play a big-money championship game.

From Day One, though, the league's members had agreed on at least one point during their discussions of expansion, an ACC athletic director said last week.

"The premise has always been that expansion should not have a negative impact on the current financial payout from the conference," said the AD, who asked not to be identified.

In the wake of the ACC's stunning decision Tuesday night to invite Miami and Virginia Tech and reject Syracuse and Boston College, the conference may not be able to achieve that goal, that is if Miami decides to accept its invitation.

"Can it work? Yes," ACC Commissioner John Swofford said of an 11-member league. "Is it the best financial scenario? No. But one of the things we've talked about all along is that there may be as much risk staying at nine as there is going to a larger number in order to make the financials work."

The ACC paid out $9.7 million last year to each of its members, the most of any conference. For that payout to remain the same in an 11-school ACC, the league will need to generate close to $20 million in additional revenue.

The ACC's current television contract for football, worth about $25 million annually, expires after the 2005 season. By adding Boston College, Syracuse and Miami, the ACC had hoped to boost its annual TV revenue from football to about $35 million.

Those projections, however, were based in part on adding huge TV markets in New England and New York. Adding Miami and Virginia Tech should lift ACC football to a higher level, but the league already has a TV presence in this state.

"There's no question that the conference [TV] package is more attractive with two football powers like Miami and Virginia Tech, but to what extent, I don't know," said Ken Haines, president and CEO of Raycom Sports.

As they planned for expansion, ACC officials discussed several scenarios with consultants, including former CBS Sports President Neal Pilson and the Bonham Group, a Colorado-based sports marketing group.

Pilson couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. Bonham, asked what the ACC might expect in TV revenue after adding Miami and Virginia Tech, said, "I can't get into that. That's information I provide to my client on a confidential basis."

The ACC gets about $30 million annually from its TV contracts for basketball with Raycom and Jefferson-Pilot Sports. By adding Syracuse, the reigning NCAA champion in men's basketball, the ACC might have been able to renegotiate for more TV money, but neither Miami nor Virginia Tech has much luster in that sport.

The ACC had hoped that by expanding to 12 schools it would get at least another $7 million from a championship game in football. With 11 members, the ACC would need to have new NCAA legislation passed before it could stage a title game. NCAA rules require a conference to have 12 teams if it wants to hold a championship game.

DeLoss Dodds, chairman of the NCAA's Football Issues Committee, said this week that he expects his group, when it meets next month in Indianapolis, to consider a request to allow conferences with as few as 10 members to stage title games.

"My guess is that it would be supported," Dodds, Texas' athletic director, told USA Today. "It allows people to do what they want to do; it's not something you have to do."

An ACC source, however, said the conference isn't optimistic that the rule will be changed in the near future. In the meantime, the ACC's best opportunity to increase its revenue might come during football season. A second berth in the Bowl Championship Series - the ACC's champion gets an automatic bid - would bring the conference an additional $4.5 million or so.

By adding Miami and Virginia Tech, the ACC source said, "I think you'd have increased our chances significantly of that happening."
 

Va. Tech teams to be challenged
'Olympic' sports stronger in ACC
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 27, 2003

In football, everybody knows Maryland, Florida State and North Carolina State from the ACC. In men's basketball, Duke and Maryland are national powerhouses. It's Duke and North Carolina in women's basketball.

What Virginia Tech and its fans are about to find out is that the ACC is an awfully deep league.

Say hello to Florida State in softball. There's FSU, Georgia Tech and N.C. State, among others, in baseball. North Carolina is the national force in women's soccer. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Clemson and Wake Forest have been prominent players in the men's soccer scene.

The list goes on in virtually every sport.

The Big East, which Tech has said it will leave to accept an invitation to join the ACC, is nobody's pansy when it comes to the so-called "Olympic" - or non-revenue - sports.

But the ACC is probably the king of the "Olympic" sports scene.

"This move will be fantastic for the two constituencies I serve: The fans of the Hokie program and the student-athletes," said Tech men's soccer coach Oliver Weiss, who was an assistant at UNC when the Tar Heels won the 2001 national championship.

"As far as quality of the men's soccer programs, I think it is a lateral move. The Big East is a great league with great teams, just a tremendous conference for our sport. But I'm excited [about the ACC] because our fans will see some of the rivalries that we've played as non-conference games become conference games, they'll become a fixture that we play every week."

Many of Tech's coaches were unavailable for comment yesterday, the day after the ACC issued its invitation and Tech said it would accept. Others said they wouldn't comment until the ACC conducted an official press conference, something that hasn't been called yet.

But an ACC spokesman said, "Virginia Tech is in the ACC. Period." And a Tech spokesman said, "We're committed to the ACC." The move is as official as it can be without a "coming out party."

"It'll be fantastic for everybody simply because the standard for Olympic sports in the ACC is outstanding," Weiss said. "Facility-wise, scholarship-wise, support staff-wise, they're pretty much doing an excellent job all the way around.

"It will put some pressure on our folks here to maybe pull even in some areas. Some programs have some shortcomings in facilities and scholarship money. I'm sure we'll look hard at every Olympic sport we offer - if you don't, you'll find yourself at the bottom."

Scot Thomas, Tech's softball coach, has coached in the Atlantic 10 and the Big East. He says his program will see more balance in the ACC.

"We've played some awfully good teams," Thomas said. "And in the ACC, Florida State is the one they're all chasing a little bit right now. But there is no bottom end of the conference. Top to bottom, it's great.

"It's the real deal. I think it is going to help us recruiting-wise. It's a good situation for us."

The opportunity to compete in the ACC should broaden the recruiting reach for all of Tech's "Olympic" sports, Weiss said. Some of the best athletes in every sport, regardless of where they're from, come to the ACC every year, he said.

"We'll have a wonderful time, I know that," Weiss said. "You're now measuring yourself against the best in some of the Olympic sports.

"We know we're good. Now we're going to have to find out how much work we have to put in to be very good. That's what every coach and student-athlete wants - to be challenged."

 

Miami defers ACC decision
BY AL FEATHERSTON : The Herald-Sun
afeatherston@heraldsun.com
Jun 26, 2003 : 9:10 pm ET

The Miami Hurricanes blew away the ACC's plans to announce its expansion to 11 teams today with a stunning decision to re-examine its departure from the Big East Conference.

Miami President Donna Shalala spoke to the media Thursday after the executive committee of the school's board of trustees met to discuss the invitation to join the ACC.

"It had a long discussion about the proposal before us from the ACC to switch conferences," she said. "We did not make a decision today."

Shalala said that Miami, surprised by the ACC's decision to invite Virginia Tech instead of Boston College and Syracuse, will consider a counteroffer from the Big East before making a decision Monday.

"The Big East has informally sent a proposal, or at least a list of proposals, to us and we feel a responsibility to review them," she said. "We also had not analyzed the Virginia Tech-Miami sequence. We had done numbers on Boston College, Virginia and Miami alone, but we had not anticipated that Virginia Tech and Miami would be the only two invitees.

"So we have to finish our analysis under some direction and questions the board of trustees have raised. We will finish our due diligence by Monday and announce our decision on Monday."

That came as a shock for the ACC, which had made tentative plans to announce the admission of Miami and Virginia Tech at a press conference in Greensboro later today.

"These are significant decisions that have long-term implications and we fully appreciate and respect Miami's need to thoroughly evaluate their decision," ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement released by the ACC. "We have had conversations with Miami [on Thursday] and will continue to be available to have any further discussions that may be necessary before making their final decision."

John Rocovich, the rector of the Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors, said he was checking to find out when the press conference would be held when he learned of Miami's action. He was quick to assert that Miami's hesitancy would not impact Virginia Tech's acceptance of the ACC offer.

"Our commitment to the ACC is complete and absolute, no matter what Miami does," he said. "Our offer is not contingent on whether Miami comes or doesn't come. There were no restrictions on our offer or acceptance."

The ACC decision to expand to 11 teams came as a surprise when it was leaked Tuesday night. The conference had voted back in May to pursue three new members, enough to qualify for a football championship game. One ACC source said Thursday that none of the ACC's extensive research into expansion had ever envisioned an 11-team scenario, especially not one that included Virginia Tech.

"They're still gathering all the financial information together," the source said. "We don't know what the impact will be."

Miami athletics director Paul Dee confirmed that the financial uncertainty of the 11-team scenario was one reason his school wanted more time to consider the ACC offer.

"The circumstances are such that we have more information to review," he said. "We want to make sure that in making this decision we make the very best decision that we can make in the best interests of all the parties."

Shalala was "deeply disappointed" that the ACC didn't invite Boston College and Syracuse, the league's other two original expansion targets.

The Rev. William Leahy, Boston College's president, told The Associated Press that he spoke to the Miami president Wednesday night.

"I think she's genuinely torn about what to do," he said.

Shalala didn't provide any information about the Big East's counterproposal. Last month, in an effort to halt Miami's departure to the ACC, the Big East offered to guarantee the Hurricanes $45 million over the next five years if they remained in the conference.

Rocovich said no counteroffer was made to Virginia Tech as of 4 p.m. Thursday. The school did, however, receive a letter from the other Big East presidents, urging the Hokies not to leave.

But the Virginia Tech board member said there never was any doubt that his school would accept the ACC offer.

"I think academically, we are an outstanding fit [with the ACC]," Rocovich said. "We're in business with all these schools. We've had 100 years of interrelationships. We feel very comfortable there. We know them and we feel very comfortable with those people.

"The ACC is a terrific conference -- with or without Miami."

There was some speculation that Miami's delay was meant to pressure the ACC into sweetening the offer for the Hurricanes. It was suggested that Shalala would like the league to waive its $3 million entry fee or at least allow it to be paid off in small installments over a length of time. In addition, the school and the ACC have clashed in the past over when Miami would begin play in the ACC -- the school wants to start in the 2004-05 season, while the league was hoping to bring its new teams in for 2005-06.

Monday is a key day in that regard, since it's the last day Miami could leave the Big East in time for the 2004-05 season and pay a $1 million exit fee. The fee doubles a day later, although if the Hurricanes' exit is for 2005-06, Miami could still leave for $1 million up until June 30, 2004.

Rocovich said that Virginia Tech has no such concerns, calling his school's acceptance unconditional.

"That doesn't mean there aren't little details to work out," he said. "Miami is supposed to be negotiating a six-year pay-in -- $500,000 a year. If they do it that way in the ACC, fine. If they decide they need the $3 million up front, we'll hand them a check tomorrow."

Miami is also concerned about the ACC's eventual expansion to 12 teams. Dee said the Canes weren't sure what the ACC was planning to do in the future. He was asked if the league had offered assurances that a 12th team was coming.

"I would not describe it as assurances," he said. "We were told that it is the intention of the majority of the ACC to go to 12 teams, but I would not describe it as an absolute assurance. We were only assured that two teams were invited."

There continued to be speculation that the ACC had stopped at 11 in order to pursue the biggest name in collegiate sports.

"What we've done is send a clear signal to Notre Dame," one ACC president told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "We left a spot open for them, and we hope that sometime in the next year there will be conversations about them joining the conference."

That president was not identified by the newspaper, but both the Boston Globe and USA Today reported Thursday that N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox cast the deciding vote to prevent Boston College from receiving an offer from the ACC.

It just so happens that Fox was elected to the Notre Dame Board of Trustees last summer.

In other expansion news, Connecticut Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza allowed Virginia Tech to withdraw as a plaintiff and Boston College to withdraw as a defendant in a lawsuit against the ACC and Miami. Sferrazza said he will rule today on a request by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to expedite the trial.

Blumenthal said the rejection of Boston College by the ACC might prove crucial to his case.

"We're hoping their cooperation will shed light on some of the secret back-room discussions in this continuing conspiracy," he said.

 

Big boost or big bust
By FRANK DASCENZO : The Herald-Sun
fdascenzo@heraldsun.com
Jun 27, 2003 : 12:32 am ET

Yes or no, Miami? The Hurricanes are saying they've received a counter proposal from the Big East and will mull an offer to join the ACC. What's there to think about? Miami wanted in the ACC, right? Monday is now the target date.

Remember two things here. If the Canes don't act -- and leave the Big East by Monday -- they risk having to pay double the $1 million fee for leaving. Also, an Associated Press story confirmed on Thursday that a high-ranking Miami source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was "no way'' Miami president Donna Shalala would allow the Hurricanes to stay in the Big East.

Miami wanted Boston College and Syracuse to tag along, and Virginia Tech wasn't part of the mix until earlier this week.

As bitter a battle as has taken place -- partly because of the ACC schools' inability to vote cleanly and quickly on expansion -- a "no to the ACC'' by Miami would be utterly shocking and thoroughly embarrassing to a conference known for integrity and tradition. Most thought Miami would accept an invitation on Thursday. The mere fact they want to wait adds more misery to the ACC's drawn out saga of sadness.

If ACC expansion is about money, which naturally it is that, it is also very much about one other factor -- football.

Assuming the Hurricanes end up in the ACC, Miami and Virginia Tech -- particularly Miami though -- will bring a ferocious reputation into a notorious basketball league whose tainted image over the last six-plus weeks has taken national hits like never before. Integrity, academics and hypocrisy have all been aimed at the ACC. Commissioner John Swofford still surged ahead in an obvious effort to improve the football image of the league first and worry about the rest later.

While the Hokies are good, and well-coached too, the Canes will roll into the ACC with a high-level speed that will either force every other league program to upgrade all things about football or simply fall ridiculously behind.

It's unthinkable, with someone named Krzyzewski and two others named Williams, to ever imagine basketball becoming the second-most popular sport in the ACC, as it is in the SEC and Big 12, but who's to say football isn't on the rise?

Fact: Miami coach Larry Coker has turned in one of the greatest two-year coaching jobs in the history of college football in 2001 and 2002. His Hurricanes were 24-1 in those two years, have played for the national championship twice and won it in 2001.

It wouldn't be unwise in the least to compare what Coker did to what Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski did in 1991 and 1992, guiding the Blue Devils to back-to-back NCAA titles, including the stunning upset of reigning champ UNLV in '91.

As rare as winning back-to-back national titles are in major collegiate sports, consider that the Canes might have been as good, if not better, last season than they were the year they won the championship. Miami rushed for 2,396 yards and passed for 3,643. They beat Boston College 38-6 and Virginia Tech 56-45 before losing to the Buckeyes 31-24. The Canes have won 34 of their last 35 games and 39 of their last 41.

What exactly gives a conference an opportunity to dominate others? Facilities, recruiting budgets, tradition. Sure, all that. But quality coaching counts the most. Great coaches make conferences greater and enhance their image among the best in the history of their sport.

Roy Williams made Big 12 basketball better when he took the Kansas job. Rick Barnes' exit from Clemson, to Texas, was another boost for Big 12 basketball.

Coker and Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer are among the best football coaches in the nation. Already the ACC has some good ones who are believed on their way to bigger and better days.

N.C. State's Chuck Amato, Maryland's Ralph Friedgen, Virginia's Al Groh and Wake Forest's Jim Grobe have improved their programs. Friedgen is the only ACC coach who has been able to win a conference title since Florida State entered the league in 1992. Amato is the only ACC coach who has beaten FSU twice. And Groh's Virginia team beat both the Wolfpack and the Terps last season. And Grobe has experienced back-to-back winning seasons, including a bowl win, at Wake Forest.

ACC expansion targeted football, and although the surprise turn to invite Virginia Tech shocked many, it should enhance the sport's image in a huge way.

Fact: FSU finished 11-1, 11-1, 10-2, 10-2 and 11-2 -- a 53-8 combined record -- in the five years leading up to its being invited to join the ACC. The Seminoles have won every ACC title except the 2001 season, since joining the league. They lost four games last season, the most since 1986, and Bobby Bowden is beginning his 28th season as the Noles' coach (38th overall).

There's no way to know how long Bowden will remain at FSU. And there's no way to know if the Seminoles are slipping, as some are suggesting. We'll know more this season and next.

Then again, we'll know more about the might of ACC football, too. That is assuming Miami says yes.


 

Invitation to Hokies leaves some baffled at Duke, UNC
BY ERIC FERRERI : The Herald-Sun
eferreri@heraldsun.com
Jun 27, 2003 : 12:31 am ET

CHAPEL HILL -- Interested observers of ACC athletics have spent the last couple of days trying to make sense of the league's recent decision to add two schools to its ranks.

But figuring out the reasoning behind the conference's attempt to add Miami and Virginia Tech to its ranks has quite a few people baffled.

"I'm not certain what to think yet," said Richard "Stick" Williams, vice chairman of the board of trustees at North Carolina, one of two local campuses whose leadership opposed the move.

In an abrupt turn of events, ACC leaders voted late Tuesday to invite Miami and Virginia Tech to join them, a stunning switch given that prior information had pointed to the addition of Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. The vote among ACC presidents and chancellors was 7-2, with UNC chancellor James Moeser and Duke president Nannerl Keohane reportedly casting the "no" votes.

Neither Moeser nor Keohane were available for comment Thursday. A UNC official said that at the behest of ACC leadership, Moeser was opting not to comment until the issue is settled.

In making the switch from the initial choices, the conference seems to have hurt itself financially. Syracuse and Boston College brought with them massive media markets -- New York and Boston -- while Virginia Tech does not.

Also, the addition of two teams rather than three means the ACC would not have the 12 members required to hold a conference championship football game, a financial windfall that is one of the primary reasons behind the expansion move.

"I'm in total agreement with the stance that Chancellor Moeser has taken that we, first and foremost, have to be concerned with the impact on student-athletes," Williams said. "What this does is keep us within the same geographic footprint. But it does seem awkward to be considering an odd number of teams in the conference."

"It is an interesting turn," added Matthew Tepper, UNC's student body president. "It seems really bizarre to me. I don't know how it came about. It doesn't really seem that media markets played a big role -- with having Virginia Tech."

Since early June, Duke officials have remained firmly opposed to ACC expansion. The major gripes have been the impact of expansion on the welfare of student-athletes and concerns about traditional rivalries within the ACC.

Nancy Allen, a professor of rheumatology and immunology and president of Duke's Academic Council, said in an e-mail Thursday that the council's stance has not changed.

"We see a flawed process that has consumed enormous amounts of time and energy on the part of the university presidents/chancellors," she wrote. "We also see that the lure of football television contracts and building a `superconference' have `trumped' academics in a manner that has left out discussions of academic excellence."

Allen added that the expansion plans should have been hashed out in the open. Faculty members felt they were left out of the discussions.

In a June 6 statement, Allen said that a gag order had been placed on ACC officials -- including Kathleen Smith, Duke's ACC representative. Conference officials said the gag order was necessary to prevent sensitive discussions from becoming public too early, Allen said in that release.

Virginia Tech is expected to accept the ACC's offer, while Miami officials said they'd announce their decision Monday.

The decision to invite Virginia Tech came after it became clear that the University of Virginia -- under pressure from state legislators -- would not support expansion unless Tech was included.

To UNC history professor Lloyd Kramer, the political element of the expansion process was bothersome. While he said he doesn't harbor any particular animosity towards Virginia Tech, Kramer questioned why suddenly they were invited to join a conference that, up to that point, had actively courted Syracuse and Boston College and hadn't really acknowledged Virginia Tech at all.

"Virginia Tech [doesn't] bring really any major new media market," said Kramer, a member of UNC's faculty athletics committee. "So it's puzzling to figure out what it means, other than the politics of Virginia have dictated this."

Over the past several weeks, it became clear that the issue was -- to a large degree -- driven by the financial ramifications of expansion. Athletics directors along with college presidents and chancellors in favor of the expansion pointed to increased TV revenue and the conference championship game as financial windfalls. Skeptics have said they're not as convinced that the increased money would be adequate in light of additional travel costs and other issues.

And at UNC and Duke, faculty members have raised questions about the integrity of the expansion process. At UNC, several faculty members have called the process "distasteful."

Sue Estroff, the outspoken chairwoman of UNC's faculty, took Virginia Tech to task in a story published in Thursday's Washington Post. In the article, she was quoted as saying she had reservations about Tech's membership in the ACC because of some problems involving athletes there several years ago.

In the mid-1990s, a slew of Virginia Tech athletes were arrested for a number of charges as serious as drunken driving and rape, according to the article.

By mid-morning on Thursday, Estroff's e-mail inbox was filled with irate messages, she said, many of which took her to task in vulgar terms for her comments.

"I don't care how nasty people get," she said Thursday. "I don't think it's unfair to have concerns. I have similar concerns about Miami."

Estroff is one of several UNC faculty members who have voiced apprehension about the impact an expanded conference would have on student-athletes, and she still believes those issues have been secondary to the financial questions.

"The only good thing I can say about it is that it's over. I can't imagine a way it could have been handled worse," Estroff said of the expansion process. "The secrecy, the indecision. We didn't hear any data about increased time out of class, how they'd handle it. Nothing was forthcoming."

Should both Miami and Virginia Tech join the ACC, there will clearly be some hurt feelings to be soothed. Before their invitation to join the ACC, Virginia Tech was a member of a lawsuit, with four other Big East Conference schools, suing to stop the ACC expansion.

And Miami was taken aback by the ACC's decision not to invite Syracuse and Boston College.

John Burness, Duke's vice president for public affairs, said he was not surprised to see Virginia Tech invited considering how much "posturing" went into the expansion talks.

"But to some degree, [Virginia Tech] had to overcome the hypocrisy of their position," he noted. "It sure hasn't been pretty."

Now some faculty members believe university leaders need to concentrate on mending fences.

"The issue now isn't whether the expansion should take place, but how to integrate these two universities into the ACC so everyone can get along with each other," said Joseph Ferrell, a professor in UNC's School of Government. "I would hate for Virginia Tech and Miami to come into the conference with a lot of ill will towards them. Right now it's like coming to a family reunion and finding two new wives there you didn't know, and you have to get along with them."


 

Big East to Big Least overnight
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 6/26/2003

Syracuse had just won the national title, and now Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese was commiserating with his Big East compadres back at the hotel in New Orleans.

Life, he told Connecticut athletic department godfather Dee Rowe, was indeed grand. In fact, he was saying, it had never been better. ''We've been through a lot of things in this league,'' he observed. ''But this is the first time in my 13 years as commissioner I really feel good about where we are. The presidents are getting along great. The football schools are talking to the basketball schools. I've never felt better.''

Eight days later, he wasn't feeling so good. And now he feels even worse. Mike Tranghese is Kofi Annan, trying to hold together a league that has been blown apart by fratricidal warfare.

Miami hasn't gone to the ACC formally -- yet -- but we know it was invited to join, and so was Virginia Tech, which must forever be grateful to Virginia for its intense lobbying effort. Boston College and Syracuse will stay put, but they each have some fence-mending to do before they are welcomed back by the old gang. Connecticut now thinks it has invested many millions of dollars in a move to Division 1-A football under false pretenses. There is good reason to inquire as to whether or not this communal marriage can be saved.

If the only issue were basketball, this would not be a problem. The Big East would have no problem finding schools eager to join the conference. But football is an entirely different matter. Absent Miami and Virginia Tech, the Big East is not a BCS-caliber league. For those of you not hip to the reality of big-time college football, this means that Big East schools would no longer be playing for the big money. None of the schools mentioned as possible additions (Louisville, Central Florida, etc.) will alter this reality.

In college football, only Bowl Championship Series leagues are eligible for the Big Money. Oh, and Notre Dame, of course. In football, there are no Gonzagas or Kent States getting to the Final Eight. Football is not a year-to-year meritocracy. It's more like the House of Lords. If you don't have a peerage, you ain't playing in a major bowl game. Period.

So now the Big East has been exposed. The Big East was only deemed to be a BCS league as long as it had Miami and Virginia Tech. Well, that's not quite true. Forget Virginia Tech. The school that matters is Miami, and Miami alone. The Hurricanes made the Big East viable in football, and no one believed that more fervently than BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo, who had attached himself to Miami from the outset of this process, labeling Miami the ''lead dog'' BC simply had to follow.

But that's not going to happen. BC isn't going anywhere. The ACC did not invite either BC or Syracuse to its league. The ACC will take the Big East's place as a BCS league and BC is left behind in a football conference that has some big-time poseurs but no real runway models. I mean, Pitt, West Virginia, Syracuse, and BC are OK, but let's not confuse any of them with the kind of pigskin factories that populate, say, the SEC or Big 12.

In a better sports world, Mike Tranghese wouldn't be having this problem. He wasn't put on this earth to supervise a football conference. He's a basketball guy. His mentor is Dave Gavitt. He cut his professional teeth as the sports information director at Providence. When I think of Mike Tranghese, I think of Ernie D, Marvin, Kevin Stacom, Bruce Campbell, Joey Hassett, Bob Misevicius and Billy Eason throwing one in to beat North Carolina the weekend of the '78 blizzard. I think of Gavitt, at the peak of his own PC glory, imploring the media to ''find Tranghese a job that can pay him what he's worth.'' Football was not on the Tranghese radar screen.

But Mike Tranghese is not stupid. He saw the Big Picture, and it didn't matter what his own personal leanings were. When he interviewed for the commissioner's job after Gavitt left to join the Celtics in 1990, he told the presidents they were going to have to deal with football. But he warned them there would always be complications because football's dynamics were not basketball's. ''This will change the face of the league forever,'' he warned.

Miami needed a home, and the Big East gave it one. It was understood from the beginning it was a marriage of convenience (the closest Big East destination at the time was Philadelphia, where the Temple Owls were ready for an annual whipping). Miami never fit geographically in the league (say this, however: the other basketball schools loved that mid-winter trip to the 305 area code). But over time the Hurricanes became part of the landscape, so much so that by this football season Tranghese was saying, ''I really think Miami has settled into the Big East.''

What are Tranghese's options? One he does not have is Notre Dame. The Irish regard their football independence as a cherished birthright. They told the Big East presidents when they joined up as a basketball member that if they thought they would one day have themselves a football school, as well, to fuggedaboutit.

But what are his options? All he can say is that he's working on it. This is not the happiest time in Mike Tranghese's life.

What about BC? The athletic department issued a boiler plate statement yesterday explaining it had entered into negotiations with the ACC in good faith, and that the ACC vote to invite Virginia Tech, rather than Syracuse and itself, was ''unexpected.'' BC explained it was now engaged in discussions with its Big East partners concerning ''reconfiguration.'' One might also presume BC was asking those same partners to drop their pending lawsuit.

BC's current official Plan A for maintaining the Big East football status is to hope Miami will do a 180 and spurn the ACC invitation. There's a better chance Whitey will come home to enter St. John's Seminary. Plans B through Z are on hold.

At least one Big East official has labeled the episode an ''embarrassment'' to all concerned. There is enough shame to go around, for sure. The Big East presidents are furious with the ACC presidents, which is amusing since the Big East reached its 2003 state by plundering other conferences. DeFilippo has to wish he'd never come out with the ''lead dog'' analogy. UConn may wish it had never even thought of going Division 1-A. Virginia Tech's groveling was pathetic. About the only one of the principals whose image didn't take a hit was Miami. The Big East was never exactly under the impression it had entered into business with an athletic virgin.

What was it all about? Duh. It's big-time college sports. It wasn't about competition. It wasn't about allying with compatible academic souls. It was about money. Everyone wants to be a BCS school, and BCS schools don't share.

And for Mike Tranghese, that delightful night in New Orleans seems like something from another lifetime.

 

Virginia Tech’s dream comes true, but not without a price
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 26, 2003

Suddenly in Blacksburg, it is Christmas, New Year’s and every birthday Virginia Tech has ever had. Thanksgiving Day, too. Most definitely Thanksgiving.

Suddenly, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the girl of Virginia Tech’s athletic dreams, is at the door, the curl crimped over her forehead deliciously so. And all Tech has to do is answer the doorbell.

After six weeks of some of the most unpredictable and undeniably dirty dealing in the history of big-time college sports, can it be really be that simple now? After more than 40 years of unrequited ACC-lust, is the life and love Virginia Tech has always wanted really there for the taking?

If the ACC-Big East death-match has proven one thing, it is the danger, if not the folly, of assuming anything at face value. The cement shoes the ACC slipped on supposed homeys Boston College and Syracuse on Wednesday when they were sleeping say as much.

And yet, with Virginia Tech poised to abandon the Big East and Miami on the ledge, a football-driven ACC expanded to an awkward 11 teams appears all but complete, for better or worse. Eleven teams for now, at least. Check back in an hour. Lawsuits, loyalties and implied intent be damned. Everything is negotiable, except the instinct of self-preservation. This late in a terribly bungled game, the ACC had to invite Virginia Tech’s good football team to preserve its dream of landing Miami’s mighty football team.

And Tech, a nonplayer in this adventure two weeks ago, had to accept, given its ACC longings. It will wear the badge of a traitor for a very long time, of course. But that, too, will pass.

The way it came down, Tech could have saved Big East football. Even without Miami, the Big East could still be BCS-feasible, to say nothing of providing an easier road to a BCS game for the Hokies. It couldn’t be as strong, but it would be viable.

That would have achieved the stated goal of Gov. Mark R. Warner, who strong-armed Virginia president John T. Casteen III into covering Tech’s flank during expansion talks.

A Big East football league without its two bell cows, though, is a non-starter. Clearly, the ACC expansionists consider it beside the point that the hoops-challenged Hokies add zip to the league’s storied basketball profile, and Miami is no consistent power. They will be a drag on the ACC’s basketball fortunes and traditions the way Florida State, the last football behemoth adopted by the ACC, still is 11 years after the fact.

But this isn’t about basketball or an identity built upon a half-century of hardcourt rivalries. It’s about corporate backstabbing, undetermined amounts of (estimated) new money, and unimaginable ironies — the best of which is that Tech now owes its athletic future to U.Va.’s president.

It could be years before any self-respecting Hokie can again work up a decent disgust for the once-hated Wahoo. Time will tell if this is a good thing.

 

Big price paid to get Canes
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

It's time for the ACC to change its name to the HCC -- the Hokie Coast Conference.

In Tuesday's startling vote, the ACC's presidents invited Virginia Tech, along with Miami, to be part of an expansion to 11 members. It's obvious that the Hokies are already the most influential school in the litter.

Ironically, Virginia Tech had joined a lawsuit against Miami and the ACC to prevent the departure of the Hurricanes, as well as Syracuse and Boston College, from the Big East. Now Virginia Tech has used strong-armed politicians to bulldoze its way into a league that only a few weeks back declined to extend the Hokies a bid.

What's more, Virginia Tech is still paying off its initiation dues to the Big East. Talk about a late-inning rally. As it turns out, VT is the only happy party at the table.

How this mess all came about is "Mystery Theater" material. Digging out the devilish details could take weeks, maybe months.

But at some point during or before Tuesday's presidential telephone hook-up, someone apparently had a change of a heart that drastically altered the expansion equation. Several schools had been solidly against inviting only Miami into the ACC. Then a vote to invite three -- Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College -- failed to gain the required seven votes. Some university, other than UVa, had joined Duke and North Carolina in stopping the latter proposal.

Next came the idea from out of the blue -- a motion from Virginia president John Casteen to bring in just Miami and VT. Only Duke and Carolina said no. This bizarre twist vaulted the Hokies past BC as a potential ACC member.

Why it happened is obvious. Using Casteen as a battering ram, the state's governor, attorney general and various politicians issued a disgusting ultimatum: No Hokies, no ACC expansion.

More responsible folks wouldn't have caved, but at least seven ACC presidents so badly wanted to add Miami that they willingly became pawns of the UVa players.

In the backwash, the ACC is likely to be left with a disjointed 11-team mix that makes less sense on paper than in action.

For now, Boston College and Syracuse have been sent back to the Big East corner. Those two should file a lawsuit against the ACC -- one that alleges breach of promise and unreasonable procedure.

Ultimately, you have to assume a 12th school will be added to reach the original goal of qualifying for a league championship football game.

There has been speculation that Notre Dame or Penn State might be interested in moving in. When pigs fly, they will. Can you imagine those two high-profile schools exposing themselves to the fickle fancies of the ACC presidents?

The one thing that is certain is that the ACC presidents overwhelming succeeded in changing the conference's traditional image.

If football powers Virginia Tech and Miami join a league that has Virginia, Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech, no one could accuse the ACC of being a basketball-first league. If anything, the ACC would more closely resemble the football-crazed SEC.

This collection of presidents has turned outrageous behavior into an art form. As a group, these campus leaders have acted more like starving bounty hunters than a panel of dignified educators. Heaven help us all if they ever really begin to run low on cash.

At the end of the ordeal, the ACC can no longer be called a conference in the purest sense of the word. In a matter of weeks, an honorable family of schools has become a loose collection of entrepreneurs linked primarily by convenient cliques. A spirit of cooperation has been broken.

Competition will go on. Football should be stronger, basketball weaker and financial shares probably smaller.

With 11 teams, basketball almost certainly would lose the home-away series in which each team plays all other schools twice yearly. That would be replaced by a scattergun 16-team regular-season scheduling format. The league tournament would include three play-in games and five byes into the second round.

In football, the league regular-season schedule would stay at eight games but without the current round-robin true championship formula. Certain annual rivalries -- for example, N.C. State vs. UNC -- likely would be protected.

In an effort to grow larger, the ACC has only diminished its own stature. It's a fitting end for a voyage to nowhere.