Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 6, 1993 TAG: 9308060099
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. LENGTH: Medium
To Big East Football Conference commissioner Mike Tranghese, the battle remains on - and his thoughts bubbled to the surface only a couple of sentences into his welcoming remarks at the league's third media day Thursday.
"To me, the important things are the games," he said. "Sometimes you get so fed up with dealing with all the administrative bureacracy. We've got to find out way out of it. We've got to come to grips with what this game is."
Just about anybody from the eight schools represented at Giants Stadium Thursday could have stumped for the virtues of college football. Somewhat surprisingly, the task force's Wednesday report did so, too, admitting what many in the game have been arguing: That football (and men's basketball) produce revenue that helps women's sports, and the moneymakers shouldn't be heavily shorn as part of t he gender-equity movement.
Upon hearing that, Tranghese was unmoved.
"What they're saying here is they're not going to do something that's going to devastate football. Everybody knows that," he said. "I don't think that's a big story."
Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer took some consolation in the task force's report.
"I don't think any business in the world would take a product that's selling and bring it down to help sell another product," Beamer said. "Common sense is going to set in and football will be [OK] for years to come."
Tranghese is leery of those who push a "dollar-for-dollar" theory in which spending is the same for football as for other sports - even though the task force's report did not recommend that.
Tranghese heads a league that begins its first true conference season this year with three of its teams (Miami, Syracuse and Boston College) in almost everybody's Top 25,; with three automatic New Year's Day bowl bids; and with eight national over-the-air or cable television games already scheduled.
The Big East is trying to carve its on-the-field niche in the big-money world of college football just when, as Tranghese sees it, off-the-field issues threaten the game's finances.
With so much to gain or lose, Tranghese worries.
"It seems to me we deal in extremes," he said. "As we deal in extremes, we spend more and more time fighting.
"We're trying to legislate a level playing field. It can't be done."
He said he believes Title IX will be decided by the courts. Cost containment is another matter. That movement has had college football coaches trying to justify, for example, how many graduate assistants they need.
"We're trying to tell schools they have to save money in their operations. My argument is, let them do it themselves," he said. If a program is mismanaged, "Let it go bankrupt. They'll straighten it out. We're becoming like the federal government. The NCAA continues to pass rules that have different effects on different people."
What, he was asked, is the worst-case scenario: A catastrophe that brings Miami to the level of Washington and Lee at the expense of flourishing women's sports?
"I don't think it'll ever get that extreme," he said. "But the product could get diluted. That's one of the fears. And then you worry about the revenue potential."
In the meantime, Tranghese continue to seek more money for the league through a fourth bowl tie-in; he mentioned the Independence and Liberty bowls as possibilities.
The Big East's top three teams will be decided by league won-lost record for the first time this year, a fact that may help Tranghese forget about the "administrative bureacracy" for a while.
"We've had some rivalries," he said. "Now, the games have meaning."
by CNB