Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003092387
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: BILOXI, MISS. LENGTH: Long
The Metro, like just about every other Division I conference east of the Mississippi, is seriously considering expansion or realignment.
The conference's joint committee of athletic directors and faculty representatives met Thursday morning and listened to Raycom Sports vice president Ken Haines detail the format for the consultant's study the TV syndicator executive is conducting on the potential for Metro expansion.
The bigger meetings, though, may have been the one held among presidents Thursday evening and the formal presidents' meeting this morning, sources said.
Haines said the eight-member Metro is including in its study Syracuse, Pitt and Boston College of the Big East; West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers of the Atlantic 10; East Carolina of the Colonial Athletic Association, and independent Miami (Fla.).
All of those schools are football independents, like the Metro's eight schools. Metro Commissioner Ralph McFillen has said that the only way the Metro would achieve expansion is through the addition of football as a conference sport.
Perhaps realignment and reorganization will be a scenario more preferable to dissolution for the Metro. Four Metro members have talked informally with Midwestern basketball schools about an alternative if Metro football doesn't happen.
Reports in the Memphis (Tenn.) Business Journal two weeks ago said Memphis State, Louisville, Cincinnati and Tulane - all Metro members -- had talked with DePaul, Marquette, Dayton, St. Louis and perhaps even Miami (Fla.) about a basketball league.
The interest in that affiliation germinated at the NCAA Convention two months ago. The parties have talked by telephone. The subject was not discussed at the Metro athletic directors' meeting Thursday, Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine said.
Memphis State athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro said, "I think what we're all doing is taking a consistent approach that we all have to look and see what the opportunities are. Our No. 1 option - always has been - is a conference with football. If not, then maybe something else.
"But who knows? Maybe the best we can get is what we have right now. And maybe people need to realize that."
A Memphis State source said that school, Louisville and Cincinnati "are tired of hearing in Metro meetings about how everyone's together, then going home and reading that South Carolina wants to join the ACC and Virginia Tech wants to play Eastern football."
Cavagnaro said Tech has been up-front about its intention to find an all-sports, revenue-sharing conference if possible. Florida State has balked at playing Metro football, and a unanimous vote of league members is necessary to introduce a sport.
Braine said Thursday that the Hokies remain committed to finding the best all-sports conference tie possible.
Said another Metro source, "I think whatever Tech does, it's going to do it with West Virginia, and South Carolina, if possible."
Cavagnaro said the interest in strengthing or changing affiliations is inevitable after Penn State's December move to the Big Ten. He said it is "very understandable" that all Metro members "may not be on the same page, because of geographical distance, and the fact that our institutions are not similar."
A report earlier this week said Miami no longer was interested in the Metro. Haines, who is hopscotching Metro campuses and is calling and visiting potential members, said Miami athletic director Sam Jankovich didn't discount the Metro in their discussions.
"The Metro schools are like islands; there's not that conference mentality," Cavagnaro said. "I don't think it's like we're eight different islands. But we sure as hell aren't like one, either. It's more like three groups."
One of those three islands of common ground is formed by Memphis State, Louisville and Cincinnati - all interested in playing football and all former members of the Missouri Valley Conference.
"The study Raycom is doing for the Metro, its purpose, is to determine the impact of adding various schools to their group," said Haines, a former Virginia Tech administrator and Tech network radio commentator.
"We're creating hypothetical groupings of schools to give the conference a chance to study the varied impact."
Haines is dealing in various areas for the Metro study - revenue producing, game attendance, schedule toughness, travel requirements and potential TV exposure.
"We're also studying academic compatibility," Haines said. "Faculty-student ratios, SAT and ACT scores, annual applications, graduation rate, majors of study.
"The entire idea with this study is, `What if this were done?' Or, `If this weren't done and something else was, what would happen?' "
Although Haines isn't close to wrapping up his work, he says he already sees the wide divergence of Metro schools in academics and athletic financing. He is scheduled to give his report to the Metro between mid-April and the Metro spring meetings in Destin, Fla., in late May.
One school of thought at this tournament is that the presidents will put together a tentative plan to seek commitments on Metro football and future Metro affiliation at the May meeting.
"I don't think I'm going to come out in this and tell them what they should do," Haines said. "That's not what it's for. But we will say, if you do this, then these will be the consequences.
"The question the schools have to answer is different for different schools. Are some of them willing to give up some of what they have in basketball to be part of a football conference? Are others willing to give up some of what they have in football to make themselves better in basketball?"
Haines said his original study will not delete any of the eight Metro members in creating scenarios. "After we're through, if they decide they want that or a school decides it might go elsewhere, then we'll have the information in our computer to come up with that quickly," he said.
"One thing good about this: At least the Metro is commissioning a study to put something on paper to come to some decision instead of having 10 years of coffee talk in back rooms.
"There is going to be realignment somewhere in these conferences in the 1990s. It's just that no one is sure how it's going to come out."
Half the Metro schools creating a "Big Midwest" is an option. Whether chances of that are better than Jankovich pulling together an Eastern Seaboard all-sports league, no one knows, and few will speculate publicly.
"One thing I know," said the Memphis State source. "It's going to take the presidents to hammer something out. It's up to them. This one might be out of the ADs' hands."
by CNB