We’re back. Sort of. “News for CougGroup” daily email
reports have been sent for a long time. Sorry, the daily email reports are
almost 100 percent retired. But, the “News for CougGroup” postings at the “News
for CougGroup” Facebook page. There’s also a “News for CougGroup” blog, but it
has not seen much action. Nonetheless, here’s a sports column from the Seattle
Times that should be of interest.
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The
Pac-12 will never be the same again, and that’s sad
July 6,
2022 by Larry Stone, Seattle Times
I have a six-decade relationship with the Pac-12 — old
enough that I lived through its incarnations as the Pac-8 and Pac-10.
My affiliation spans from John McKay to Lincoln Riley, from
Lew Alcindor to Johnny Juzang, from Ann Meyers to Anna Wilson.
That doesn’t make me unique. Every sports fan who grew up on
the West Coast has been steeped in the tradition of the “Conference of
Champions” (a title Bill Walton — another early idol — won’t let anyone
forget). My association is no doubt surpassed in longevity and intensity by
many who are reading this.
So I’m wondering how many of you are feeling as ...
melancholy ... wistful ... sad as I am. Look, there are lots of more important
things going on in the world to lament and fret about than the dissolution of
an athletic conference. They used to call the sports section “the toy
department” for a reason. Yet in the wake of the defection of USC and UCLA last
week, leaving the survival of the Pac-12 in limbo, it’s impossible not to feel
like something intimate and personal has been torn apart. That always hits one
straight in the heart.
This story now revolves around financial, logistical and
strategical machinations, as every Division I school in the country desperately
tries to position itself for the best chance at relevance. But I don’t want to
lose sight of the emotional angle, which I suspect will get shunted aside in
the ongoing fights for survival.
The first football player I worshipped, as a youngster in
Southern California, was O.J. Simpson at USC (yeah, I’d like a do-over on that
one). I reveled in the John Wooden men’s basketball dynasty at UCLA. I took
deep pride in the Rose Bowl, basked in the televised oohs and aahs about the
beauty of the San Gabriel Mountains and rooted hard for the Pac-8 team, no matter
whom it was. Loyalty to the Pac overruled fandom.
Then I grew up, went off to Berkeley and viewed the
conference from a new angle. Cal football was teeming with talent in those days
(but it didn’t quite translate into the still-elusive Rose Bowl berth) — the
likes of Chuck Muncie, Steve Bartkowski, Wesley Walker and Steve Rivera. Those
names might be dimming with time, but they always will be indelible in my
memory bank.
My years in the Bay Area also provided a deeper immersion
into the virtues of women’s sports — just as the benefits of Title IX were
taking effect — and the so-called Olympic sports. My first beat at the Daily
Californian was water polo, followed by gymnastics, followed by track and
field. I loved covering them all and realizing that there was an immense
storehouse of passion and talent away from the football fields and basketball
courts — and not exclusive to the men. A half-century later (gulp), and it’s
become apparent that the Pac-12 leads the country in these realms.
Or, at least it did.
I also got to see a close-up view of one of the conference’s
most hallowed rivalries, between Cal and Stanford. I would characterize it as
fierce but refined. One fond memory was the annual joint news conference before
the Big Game when I got a chance to lunch with and pick the brain of Stanford’s
rising coach, Bill Walsh. I was in the Daily Cal offices in July 1978 — summer
session — when news came down that the Pac-8 was now the Pac-10 with the
addition of Arizona and Arizona State.
In 1996, I moved back to the Northwest (having spent six
years in Yakima out of college) and was exposed to new rivalries, new bastions
of passion and prowess. The Pac-12 was born in 2011 when Utah and Colorado
joined the conference (after a bid to lure Texas, Oklahoma and possibly
Oklahoma State fell apart — cue ominous music).
The Pac-12 was a fount of stability, and there was no reason
to think that was going to change. At least, until the very fabric of college
sports began to unravel — gradually and then suddenly, to quote Ernest
Hemingway in “The Sun Also Rises” (hey, I was an English major at Cal).
That’s not to say the changes are all bad. I’m a believer in
athletes’ freedom of movement and their long-overdue ability to be compensated,
and I think it will become an accepted part of the landscape once some
regulation and order is installed.
But this land rush of schools to join the “haves” and not
get stuck for perpetuity with the have-nots — in which alliances are betrayed,
trust is nonexistent and self-interest trumps everything — will take some
getting used to.
Suddenly, geography means nothing. Loyalty means nothing.
Tradition means nothing. Increasingly, even educational excellence isn’t the
preeminent consideration. The only thing that means something, it seems, is
television revenue, which must be maximized by any means necessary.
No matter how this all shakes down, the Pac-12 as we know it
effectively died Thursday. There’s a chance that is a literal assessment.
Depending on which conference, and which schools, are shrewdest in their
maneuvering, there’s a possibility the Pac-12 could simply cease to exist,
because all its members will have fled to greener pastures. Or been forced to
settle for whatever lesser conference will take them.
Welcome to an era of strange bedfellows, where schools would
be wise to hold their friends close and their enemies closer. Suddenly,
Washington and Oregon, sworn athletic rivals, have reason to work in concert
(until one gets a solo offer it can’t refuse). But Washington’s other sworn
rival, Washington State, now desperately needs the Huskies to adhere to
in-state fealty and stick with them — even if it must be enforced by the
legislature.
As the Pac-12 commissioner, George Kliavkoff, tries
desperately to hold things together, every conceivable scenario results in a
vastly altered landscape. Maybe Washington and Oregon find safe haven in the
Big Ten, or maybe that conference decides to poach a different combination of
schools. Maybe the Pac-12 (now technically the Pac-10 again), turns around and
poaches the cream of the Big 12 — or vice versa. Maybe the Pac-12 and Big 12
execute a full-bore merger. Maybe the ACC and/or SEC decide to delve into the
picked-over Pac, scavenging the most enticing remnants; remember, geography
means nothing anymore.
But no matter what happens, it will never be the same. Maybe
that’s just a sign of our times, and the price of progress. Maybe I’m just an
old man yelling at a cloud. But for this child of the Pac-8, it still hurts my
heart.
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