And so it is done. All but done. Done in. Done for.
Go ahead and sing that requiem for a dying league, but don’t be so mournful about it. No. No need to shed tears here.
The Pac-12, one of the major conferences in all of college sports, is breaking apart. I see no joy in it, only tugs of sentimentality in the changes ahead.
It’s not a dark day, though, as some are saying. It’s not doomsday.
Oregon and Washington are headed to the Big Ten. Arizona and Arizona State are out the door. Utah’s board of trustees voted quickly and unanimously to accept their own Big 12 invitation Friday night. USC and UCLA … well, you know the story there, those schools having committed to the Big Ten long ago.
Some say this is a travesty, the end of college sports as we know it.
Baloney.
If the first half of that sentence is partially true, the second is not.
It’s damaging to certain schools and their fans: Washington State and Oregon State, possibly Stanford and Cal. Here’s the thing: There have always been deserving schools and fans pushed aside or left behind, left out, disrespected and disadvantaged. This is nothing new in that regard.
Some blame the Big Ten and the Big 12 for their ravenous appetites in gobbling up schools. They, indeed, are hungry beasts. Some blame TV networks for orchestrating and incentivizing such mashups, as though they are evil puppet masters.
Don’t forget that this has been going on for some time now. The Big 12 has had members taken away by the Big Ten and the SEC and the Pac in recent years, at one point threatening the Big 12′s survival. The Pac-8 took Arizona and Arizona State away from the old WAC more than 40 years ago. Whatever happened to some of the schools in the old Southwest Conference? Did anyone mourn for the Mountain West when Utah and TCU were taken away? It’s always been a world of eat or be eaten. In college sports, somebody’s or a group of somebodies’ pockets have always been filled, been opened up to be filled at somebody else’s expense.
This is not the end, then, rather the continuation of what has happened for decades now. Certain schools, certain associations of schools, looking to put themselves in positions of advantage against other schools and other associations. It’s gone on from the beginning, and it will continue to do so in the form of super conferences. Everyone should have seen it coming. Some did.
Like many of you, I’m a sappy, sentimental fool. I like tradition, the idea of tradition. I like college football nostalgia, the way things used to be. You know, schools with fight songs and bands and cheerleaders and booster clubs filled with wealthy folks willing to give young people gifts illegally or now legally because they can chuck a football or tackle a ballcarrier or run to daylight or drain an open jumper. I love longtime rivalries, especially regional ones, bringing people together and dividing them on account of which institution of higher learning they favor, the concept of sometimes-inexplicable and somewhat irrational connections between fans, many of whom didn’t even attend the school for which they cheer, and university teams.
I remember over a half-century ago, as a kid, dialing in to watch the Rose Bowl game on Jan. 1, finding myself rooting for whichever school represented the Pac-8 against whichever team represented the Big Ten. Why that lean? I do not know. Growing up on the East Coast, sitting through ice-cold winters, I appreciated the sight of green grass and what looked like warm skies, and decided that those teams from those schools in that more moderate climate were deserving of a fan that knew little else about them. Plus, despite USC’s student-body left, student-body right, more innovative offenses seemed more prevalent among the guys from USC, Stanford, UCLA and Washington, as opposed to those attacks utilizing the strategy of 3 yards and a cloud of boredom from Ohio State and Michigan.
But something that became apparent early on was that the schools with teams that prospered did so not just because they had smart, creative coaches and better athletes. They had resources to draw more talent into their programs, they had money and a willingness to use it in whatever way was necessary to win.
The pride that came alongside that winning was traced not just to individual universities, but to the leagues to which they belonged. That’s always been true. Regional pride. And some schools were accepted into those conferences and some were not. Some “belonged,” some did not. Some were more equal than others.
People associated with Big Ten schools truly believed the midwest was the only place where real football was played and real football champions were born. Same with leagues like the SEC, the Pac-8, the Big 8, all of the so-called major ones. That’s the way it’s been since the days of burly dudes decked out in raccoon coats, waving pennants and swallowing goldfish.
The Pac, back in the day and now, was as arrogant as any of them, despite the fact that officials on the left coast always believed they were being done dirty by the power brokers back east. Utah fans, before they were welcomed into the Pac-12 remember what it felt like to be left out. BYU fans still hold it against the Pac-12 that they were rejected by that league, even though they deemed their teams more than worthy.
The Pac-8, the Pac-10, the Pac-12, like other dominant conferences, were elitist and they were greedy, looking out for their own best interests — money and winning. Nationally, UCLA basketball was adored as the noble John Wooden coached the Bruins to title after title. But even the revered mentor benefited from boosters who were behind the scenes, paying players to come to Westwood. It was all part of the machine. Alabama and Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Miami, USC and others did it at varying times in football.
There were always certain powers, at schools and in leagues, crafting champions and making bank.
Now, those powers are being rearranged. Some are being edged out, some are being elevated. USC and UCLA were invited into the Bi1G, Missouri and Texas A&M were invited into the SEC, Nebraska was invited into the B1G, Oklahoma and Texas were invited into the SEC, Colorado was taken by the Pac-12. Yeah, regions have been and are being stretched and networks are pulling their strings, money being money, advantage of association being an advantage.
As mentioned, I rooted for the Pac-8 teams all those years ago. And I wanted the Pac-12 to stay together now. In-between, I lived a few 9-irons from the Rose Bowl for many years. My wife’s high school graduation was held inside that massive stadium. Ghosts and good memories linger there.
But I shed few tears for the Pac-12 now. It has been devoured, just as it has done its own devouring in the past. Let’s ease off the romance, then. It’s been the same as the rest, self-interested, self-aggrandizing, only with better winter weather. I hope the leftover schools find a quality place to compete. I hope the same for all the teams on the outside looking in, the Boise States, the Utah States, the Colorado States.
The Pac-12 might have endured. It hired pompous, weak and clueless leadership a number of years ago, leaders that couldn’t and wouldn’t see or acknowledge the mistakes they were making, and it’s paying a steep price for it.
Some other leagues, other commissionerships will be rewarded moving forward, gaining more teams, more money, more influence, more power. But the schools themselves, at least the invited, privileged ones, will go on doing what the invited and privileged have always done, forgetting about those left out or left behind — make money and win or lose games, as the fans, even the sentimental ones, cheer on.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
