Five Happy Schools
November 04, 2003 10:04 PM | General
November 4, 2003
University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft, left, and Athletic Director Lee Roy Selmon, right, hold a banner after a news conference in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003, announcing the school will be joining the Big East conference beginning in 2005.(AP Photo)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Tuesday’s announcement that Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida have accepted invitations to join the Big East Conference for the 2005-06 season culminates more than six months worth of anxiety, doubt and concern.
These emotions were generated by the ACC’s decision to add three schools to create a football championship game. And while it may appear that the Big East used the same tactic employed by the ACC to acquire its new members from the same conference, Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese noted several distinct differences in the process.
“The ACC had a choice,” said Tranghese. “They made their choice. We had no choice. We were sitting here with schools like West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers – incredible football traditions – and Connecticut, who’s made this enormous commitment to play I-A football.
“The only thing I can tell you, and I don’t want to sit here and pontificate, but as early as our first meeting, I was on the phone with other commissioners telling them what we were thinking, what the possibilities were,” Tranghese continued. “We walked down the path with those conferences. I think by walking down the path with them, it enabled them to reconfigure themselves.”
The five departing C-USA schools were elated to be joining the Big East and the prestige associated with being a part of a league that will make up 25 percent of all of the television households and 27 percent of the population in America.
“We are honored and delighted to be joining the Big East Conference, a conference with a storied history of both athletic and academic success,” said DePaul Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto.
“When the Big East looked at this athletic program,” said Marquette Athletic Director Bill Cords, “they saw quality, substance and they saw positive things.
“If you want to look at a blueprint of how college athletics ought to run its business, go back and see how the Big East did its business,” he added. “This is a result. This is what college athletics is all about, this is what it should be about. This is a wonderful time for our university.”
South Florida president Dr. Judy Genshaft relishes the opportunity to finally compete at the highest level of collegiate sports, “Now is the time for USF and now is the time for the Bulls to take advantage and to be on the national stage, to assume its rightful place among top tier teams, to compete in venues like Madison Square Garden, and to secure the bowl bid we deserve.”
In the case of Louisville, an athletic department committed to fielding a top-rate football program, joining the Big East culminates a long-standing effort to be affiliated with a conference that will enable its football program to finally be put in the same light as its storied men’s basketball program.
"First and foremost, I'm pleased for this community,” said Tom Jurich, Vice President and Director of Athletics at U of L. "This association will provide us the national stage that we all desire. This athletic department has worked long and hard over the last six years to put ourselves in the position to be attractive to a conference as prestigious as the Big East.”
Like Louisville, Cincinnati has a long tradition of basketball excellence. UC coach Bob Huggins says his program helps make the Big East the nation’s top basketball league, "If we were all together this year, we would have seven of the top 25 teams in the country,” he said. “I can't remember the last time that happened.”
Huggins will be returning to his roots in the East, where he was a three-year letterman at West Virginia University.
“I'm sure the people of West Virginia, because Bobby is an alum, will love to have him come back here for a homecoming,” West Virginia coach John Beilein said Tuesday.
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who led his Orangemen to the 2003 NCAA title, believes a good league has just gotten enormously better. In an interview with ESPN.com’s Andy Katz, he drew some interesting comparisons between the new Big East and the new ACC.
“We've been even with the ACC the last few years,” said Boeheim. “Now we're adding three teams in the top 20 and they're adding three teams in the bottom of the top 100. Do the math. The other team we're adding -- DePaul -- is on the way up. To me there is no question that we'll be significantly better than them in basketball.”
Now, Big East football has something to shoot for.
Louisville’s Jurich is anxious to get started, “On behalf of our entire department, we are excited and proud to join the BIG EAST and are anxious to begin competition.”
