Isn't Richard Moll "Bull" from the show Night Court? d**n, that was a good show in its day.

For more on BE and Temple recruiting woes check this article out at www.washington times.com/sports/20030916-121455-4748r.htm.

Thank you guys for great discussion & info on Big East history. Just a couple of footnotes . . .

UConn was not selected to the Big East to checkmate UMass in New England. Inclusion of Providence & BC alone would have done that. UConn was included because it played most of its games in the Hartford Civic Center at a time when most Eastern schools played in smaller arenas - with maybe an occasional foray into a Madison Square Garden or the like. Syracuse had Manley Field House & did not have the Carrier Dome at that time. Only Providence & UConn played in such large civic arenas. In this manner, UConn brought the Hartford metro market - comparable to Providence although no Boston, New York, or Philly - & more importantly the entire state of CT, which is comparable to bringing the Boston market. UConn had an avid following & statewide TV & newspaper coverage. After playing its initial Big East tournament in Syracuse, the tournament was played in Hartford for 3 years before it went permanently to MSG. Furthermore, UConn was included because the Big East was Dave Gavitt's brainstorm first & foremost before he approached St. John's, Syracuse, & Georgetown. Gavitt was a New England guy, having played at Dartmouth & coached at Providence. He was literally "closer" to the UConn program than were people from outside New England & he understood that it had a rabid, state-wide following.

The landscape of Eastern Basketball was very different at that time. The recently created ECAC regions were the way to qualify for the NCAA tournament. UConn won the New England region the year before the Big East began with a young team & was seen as an emerging power with a good basketball tradition. Syracuse & Georgetown had dominated the Upstate/Southern region, St. John's had been the consistent power in the Metro NY/NJ region, & Providence, Holy Cross, UConn, BC were battling in New England.

The Big East & the Eastern 8, which began 3 years before the Big East, were both organized as basketball conferences with no thought given to football. The Eastern 8 was a strange amalgamation from the get-go. While football schools like Penn State, Pitt, & West Virginia were involved, it also included basketball-only schools Duquesne & George Washington as well as Villanova, Rutgers & UMass whose football programs were regional & nothing of note. Temple was not part of the original league because it competed in the Mid-Atlantic conference with traditional Big 5 rivals St. Joe's & LaSalle. The failure of the Eastern 8 to compete with the Big East was because it was centered in Western Pennsylvania away from the big media markets & because it included schools like Penn State, George Washington, UMass, & Duquesne who were not major players in college basketball at the time. Nor did they change that image with any big recruiting or TV success upon their formation - or for that matter on-court success even though Rutgers was coming off a Final Four season when the conference was first formed. In contrast, the Big East was immediately successful. In the conference's first year, league champion Georgetown went to the Elite 8. They capitalized on that success by recruiting 3 high school All-Americans, including Patrick Ewing, who taook them to the national finals as freshmen & a national championship as juniors. That some year, St. John's, who had been to the Elite 8 the year before, recruited Chris Mullin away from Duke & Coach K, setting up a rivalry that would flourish for the next 4 years on TV. With colorful coaches (Thompson, Carnesecca, Massimino, Raftery, "Dr. Tom" Davis), stars, a TV contract, & major metropolitan locations that the Eastern 8 never matched, the Big East had its formula for success.

Owlfie,yes,good article :oby Jon Siegle for the Washington Times concerning the BE and Temple situations.Try it at http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20030916-121455-4748r.htm.

FriarFan, thanks for your post on Big East history, especially for your insight into UConn's inclusion as a charter member.

I do have one quibble. Its true the Eastern 8 was launched as a basketball league (in fact its formal name was the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League, IIRC). But Joe Paterno, at the time Penn State's athletic director, harbored the vision of creating a "Big 10" of the East, an all-sport conference including football. The Eastern 8, I believe, was intended by Paterno to be the seed from which such a major conference would grow. With Pitt, WVU and Penn State at the core of the conference, and with an emerging Rutgers program in tow, the league could certainly think in those terms.

So I don't think the Eastern 8 was launched without some thought toward football, at least on the part of Paterno and PSU, which drove the conference's founding.

Syracuse was not emphasizing football in the 1970s and decided, along with BC, Georgetown and St. John's, to build a basketball conference anchored in the northeast's major markets, i.e. the Big East. The Big East vision was all about basketball, and initially rejected the idea that there was any need for an eastern football conference.

Obviously, with basketball holding sway in northeastern college athletics (a fact that should not be lost on those pushing for a BE football/basketball "split"), Syracuse and its stronger hoops partners won out in the organization of college sports in the region. Pitt quickly left the Eastern 8 to join the BE. At this point Pitt football was very strong and the school had no reason to believe they couldn't continue to enjoy success as a football independent. To join the BE was the sensible choice to protect Pitt's basketball program. With the Panthers' decision the E8's fate was sealed -- it could only be the No. 2 conference in the region.

The BE schools' vision (football independence and consolidation of a telegenic, big-market, basketball-driven conference) won so comprehensively that Penn State (author of the alternative, all-sports vision on the Big 10 model) petitioned to become a BE member in 1981. PSU's request, of course, led to the Big East's "big mistake," which the BE football schools now regret.

FriarFan,

Just took it off the front cover of Greene's book on the "Public Ivies" as listed at Amazon.com.

Definitely agree with your second point though... :D

MichaelR, thanks for your additional perspective on Big East history. I agree that Paterno envisioned an Eastern All-Sports conference. However, I don't understand how the Eastern 8 could have been conceived as the vehicle to get there. Even if he saw Villanova, Rutgers, & UMass as schools who could compete in football, why include Duquesne & GW?

The Eastern basketball independents in the '70s complained that they were underrepresented in the NCAA tornament. They successfully lobbied the NCAA to provide them with 4 automatic bids. The way I see it, many people in the East in the '70s realized that they had made a mistake when the NCAA required that they actually put the "small" schools in each of 4 geographic regions on their schedules in order to qualify to compete in their regional ECAC tournament for the automatic bid. The Eastern 8 was the first attempt by the bigger schools to affiliate together in order to contol their own schedules. The 3 western Pennsylvania schools + West Virginia were the nucleus. Villanova was a good addition, but when they picked GW, Rutgers, & UMass, they just road the wrong horses. These 3 schools simply were not recognized as the basketball powers in their respective regions. Providence & Holy Cross were the top programs in New England, St. John's in New York (despite Rutgers' great year in '76), & Georgetown was emerging in DC. They also failed to realize the importance of Syracuse. Perhaps some or all of these schools were not ready to move into a conference yet - like Notre Dame today, they valued their independence in those days. (In fact, many reporters referred to the Eastern 8 in its early days as the "East Indies" because of their long histories of independence.) In that case, the Eastern 8 was just a victim of bad timing - & of settling for lesser choices when they couldn't get the ones they really needed.

I have read Crouthamel's reflections on Big East history, but Paterno disputes his version of things. JoePa claims that Penn State never applied for Big East membership. He says that all along he wanted an all-sports conference & that his conversations were intended to bring together like-minded schools - including some from the Big East. Regardless of whether the Big East took a vote on extending an invitation to Penn State, Paterno failed to sell his vision to other Eastern schools.

I would love to see Joe Paterno give his account of the formation of the Eastern 8 (Eastern Collegiate Basketball League -- ECBL, to correct an earlier post).

But here's what I can piece together about that period.

In the mid-1970's, the five Division I football-playing members of the original ECBL could be seen as the future core of a northeastern all-sports conference. Penn State, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Rutgers were all committed to major-college football. And remember that Villanova, with Jim Weaver as AD (he's a football guy and now AD at Va. Tech), was upgrading its football schedule and had ambitious plans at the time.

UMass was in the Division II Yankee Conference, but it was, like PSU, Rutgers and WVU, an original Land Grant institution (Paterno places great stock in the links among the original Land Grant schools -- PSU and Michigan State play a season-ending game for the Land Grant Trophy), and the flagship public university of the the most populous state in New England. It had (and still has) potential for an upgrade.

I can only see Duquesne and GW as makeweights -- the schools that would give the fastest "yes" while others were holding out to see what other conferences might form -- to get the ECBL's number up to eight.

It seems clear to me that Paterno believed that Syracuse, BC, Temple, Holy Cross (then a competitive Division I program), Army, Navy and others would be attracted into associating with the E8's core members. All of the aforementioned schools stood to improve their football programs through a conference affiliation with eastern powers Penn State and Pitt.

But Syracuse (and later Pitt) did not see the need for any kind of football conference, and the big-market approach was obviously the better and more profitable approach for a basketball conference.

In an interview with the American Enterprise Institute (a politically conservative think tank), Paterno was asked "Doesn't Penn State belong in an Eastern league with Pitt and West Virginia and Syracuse?"

His answer: "I tried to do that years ago but Pitt wanted to go with Big East basketball. If you had asked me that question seven years ago, I would have said you're absolutely right." He went on to say that Penn State is "at home" now in the Big 10 with nine other flagship state universities and Land Grant institutions.

Here is Joe's son, Scott Paterno, writing in PSU Playbook, a Penn State fanzine:

"In the early 1980s, Joe and Jim Tarman started discussions about the formation of an all-sports Eastern conference. At the time, Pitt still had a national football presence on a regular basis, and the Big East was far from an established basketball only conference. Joe’s vision was a conference in which Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia, Rutgers, and Temple would form the founding membership of an Eastern conference. From there, it is easy to see the addition of Maryland and Va. Tech, with UConn’s current foray into D-1A football making them a natural addition. It could have developed into a great conference."

Here's the link to the rest of the excerpt:

http://psuplaybook.fantalk.org/article.php?sid=2412

My recollection is, of course, a little different. Paterno was Tarman's predecessor as Penn State's AD, during the founding of the ECBL (E8). The E8, including as it did four of the six schools Scott names as would-be founding members of an Eastern conference, seems to me to be a clear attempt to begin grouping together those schools. This all happens before the 80s, when Scott's recollection picks up.

At any rate, the critical schools were Penn State, Pitt (the two leading national football powers in the East) and Syracuse (which had recently been a national football power in the 50s and 60s).

To summarize, PSU and Syracuse had radically differing visions of organizing college athletics. Pitt had the deciding vote, if you will, and chose the basketball-driven model. This may have been the right decision in the short run, but in the long run it sowed the seeds for the BE's current difficulties.

Great info, Michael. Thanks for posting it. :)

I still contend, however, that the old Eastern 8 had nothing to do with football. there was no need to add Duquesne & GW to get to 8 conference members. There was no requirement for an 8 member minimum for conferences at that time. The Big East played with 7 members in its first year & the Metro Conferece (Louisville, Cincy, Memphis, etc.) was a 6 team conference for a number of years. As I recall, 6 was the minimu.

Scott Paterno's "recollections" make no sense. It may be easy for him to see Maryland as an addition to this new conference in the early '80s, but I don't think that it would have been "easy" for anyone else to have seen this. At that time the ACC had national football champions at Clemson & national basketball champions at Carolina & NC State & recent Final Four participants at Virginia & Duke. No way this pipe dream of a conference would have matched that. I'm not saying that Maryland wouldn't have left to join a conference with Penn State, but it sure wouldn't have been an easy sell. Virginia Tech was an also-ran in college sports at the time. Other than being a finalist in the declining NIT in the early '70s, they hadn't done anything in football or basketball. And to even mention UConn football as a factor in a 20-year-old idea is just silly.

Hi, Michael -

Sorry that I didn't get back to you when you posted this note yesterday, but it took me a little while to dig out the book. You were correct that New College of South Florida was on the list of second tier schools, but St. Mary's of Maryland was not on the list.

I also discovered that I had made other errors. I listed University of Washington on the list of 8 when it belonged on the second tier list, I erroneously included Indiana & University of Wisconsin on the second tier list while leaving off Illinois from this list, & I listed 9 research campuses of the University of California while Moll lists 8. I have corredted these errors on the my original post & have typed them in bold face.

Thanks for picking up on the error so I could post accurate information. :)

Will the WV government apply pressure to get Marshall in the Big East? ???

Zooks a Croc, stranger things have occured in the Virginia's.

Friarfan, I have followed the eastern schools for a long time. The old Eastern 8 was developed before the plans to create the all sports eastern conference. It probably was the reason to push for an all sports conference. The Eastern 8 was developed to bring consistency to the old ECAC that had unwieldy number of basketball members. This could ring a bell to the new proposed 16 team Big East. Smaller may be better.

Friarfan, You may not like this, however, if the eastern all sports would have been formed taking among Syracuse and BC, the Big East basketball conference would never have got all the publicity that help build Georgetown and Villanova into bb powers in the 80s. The bb only schools should really thank Pitt for taking the bb only route and killing the plans to create an all sports conference. If Pitt could have predicted the future, there would already be an eastern all sport conference and the current Big East basketball schools would be in the same situation as the current A10 schools.

I disagree with you on Maryland. The ACC was a basketball conference in those days minus Florida State and Maryland would more than likely joined this eastern conference if invited. Virginia Tech and UConn would not have been considered as both were really not much good in any sport including UConn basketball. Once again the BE help build UConn basketball. An all sports conference would not have provided UConn the opportunity to grow into today's bb power.

This is the same situation that should concern the bb only schools today as any all sports conference will overshadow the bb schools regardless of the large eastern cities. This is the primary reason the Atlantic 10 added football to keep the conference name through out the season.

This is probably the major reason the Big East bb only schools are desperate to keep the conference together.

The time may be near to go it alone for bb only schools.

Excellent points, Lash. I will conced your point on Maryland possibly leaving the ACC for an Eastren All-Sports League. Except for Clemson, the ACC was certainly a basketball league in those days & Maryland did have football aspirations. I also agree that the Big East built UConn basketball beyond where it had been - as it later did for VA Tech football. And agree that neither would have been considered for an All-Sports Conference.

However, the Eastern 8 was not developed to bring consistency to the ECAC. Although the ECAC had a lot of basketball members, when it was divided into 4 divisions, each division was about the size of a normal conference & therefore was not unwieldy at all. In fact, the Upstate region only had something like 7 members.

When these 4 divisions were first formed, teams in each region continued to play independent schedules & 4 were selected at the end of the year to play in that region's NCAA qualifying tournament. However, in about 1975, the NCAA put into effect a requirement that for any group of schools to gain an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, they had either to play a round robin schedule AND play a poat-season tournament OR play a double round robin schedule. This forced a St. John's to schedule fellow Metro NY/NJ St. Francis (NY), for example. It is this loss of control of their schedules that prompted the hasty formation of the Eastern 8 & later the formation of the Big East so that the members could affiliate themselves with other schools that they wanted to schedule.

You are wrong about the ability of an Eastern All-Sports conference to take the publicity away from the Big East at that time. By the time discussions of an all-sports conference began, Georgetown already had Patrick Ewing, St. John's already had Chris Mullin, Villanova already had John Pinone & Eddie Pinckney. The Big East also had ESPN & a roster of colorful coaches. It was these rivalries on TV - along with Syracuse - that built the Big East in its early days. Remember it was Georgetown who won the league's first national championship, Villanova who won its second, & St. John's who joined the other 2 at the 1985 Final Four. It was Providence who joined Syracuse at the '87 Final Four. And Seton Hall who follwed them 2 years later.

An All-Sports league wouldn't have stolen the basketball spotlight from the Big East because the Eastern football schools weren't great basketball schools - with the exception of Syracuse & Maryland. BC was good. Pitt didn't become good until years after it joined the Big East. Temple & West Virginia were mediocre at best. Rutgers, which had been terrific in the mid to late '70s, was in decline. Penn State was terrible. As were Army & Navy (until David Robinson got there).

But the time is now. And I agree that the time has come for the basketball schools to go it alone.

They might but I don't see it happening

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Interesting discussion regarding the history of conference development in the late 70's. A few thoughts:

- I have read elsewhere (sorry for the lack of a cite) that the Big East considered and voted down Penn St., by a margin of 5 in favor, 3 against, before Pittsburgh was considered. Providence and Gavitt were among the supporters of Penn St.'s admission.

- When Pittsburgh was invited to join the Big East, while I was at Syracuse, I recall that there was a feeling that if Pittsburgh declined, SU would have to seriously consider leaving the Big East to join Pittsburgh and Penn State (presumably with Rutgers, Temple and WVU). I recall that many were "relieved" when Pittsburgh accepted the invite.

- Georgetown, St. John's, Providence, Syracuse and Rutgers were the 5 basketball superpowers in the East during the '70's. UConn did not reach this level until Jim Calhoun came on in 1988-89. Seton Hall reached it only for a while in the 80's with Carlesimo.

- Temple and Nova were about equal in hoops in the late '70's, each with 1 NIT and 1 NCAA bid in the '75-'79 timeframe.

- With all due respect to 'Nova, Seton Hall and UConn, here's what the Big East should have looked like in 1979:

Penn St.
Pittsburgh
Boston College
Syracuse
West Virginia
Rutgers
Temple
Georgetown (hoops only)
St.John's (hoops only)
Providence (hoops only)

- Temple gets the nod over 'Nova principally because of its commitment to football at the time. They were roughly equal in basketball ands football, but 'Nova was unwilling to commit the resources to upgrade to 1-A (and dropped football for a while). I don't think an invite would have changed that, since 1-A requirements would have forced them to move to the Vet (well off campus) or upgrade their stadium (not really possible due to neighborhood issues).

- This conference accommodates both Gavitt's vision (large TV markets, with 1. NYC, 4. Phi, 6. Bos, 8. DC and 11. Pittsburgh all represented) and Paterno's vision for all sports. The only difference for Paterno is that some basketball-only members are used to fill in some large TV markets and include all of the major hoops powers of the decade.

- UConn and 'Nova would have been natural additions as conferences moved to 12 members. Army, Navy and possibly Va.Tech would have fit in nicely as football-only members. SHU probably disappears from the picture.

Paterno was focussed on football schools in trying to form his conference, while Gavitt was focussed on basketball and large media markets. As shown, these were not mutually exclusive visions. If the two had compared notes, they probably could have come up with a better long term configuration. Too bad if you ask me.