Conference Expansion Is Hypocrisy, Baby

Memo to NCAA officials, university presidents and those wishing to give the impression they are doing this coaching thing until they become a Buddhist monk or something: No more talk about the student-athlete, because you've been exposed -- again.

Academics? Please.

These kings of hypocrisy also can throw integrity off the top of a bell tower at one of their campuses. That, along with videos of those sappy commercials they run during games showing college kids in chemistry labs instead of locker rooms.

In big-time college athletics, it always has been about money, money and more money. It's just getting worse.

You now have the decision-makers of power conferences resembling thuggish dictators who boast of using any means necessary to expand their territories. And then those dictators do it -- sort of like what the Pacific-10 is suggesting it will do by ripping the guts out of the Big 12. And what the Big Ten is suggesting it will do by snatching a couple of other teams from the Big 12. And what the SEC, Big East and ACC are suggesting they will have to do as a result of it all.

That's for starters.

If you listen closely, you can hear Dick Vitale screaming -- I know that's a surprise -- with the rest of us who get it.

"It's crazy. It's wacky. It's nuts. It really is, because this has no logic whatsoever geographically when you look at many of these scenarios," said Vitale, the voice of college basketball for ESPN and of common sense regarding conference expansion.

Added Vitale, his voice just shy of sizzling, "I see no logic to having Penn State in the Big Ten. None. Now they're talking about adding Rutgers. Are you kidding me? And Boston College should be in the Big East. No way they should be in the ACC traveling to play Clemson in games that for people in the Boston area don't really excite them.

"It's exactly what you (as a FanHouse columnist) say it is: They're going to do whatever it takes to make the most revenue. It's all about TV revenue, visibility, exposure. The whole bit. Everything else is a bunch of words, semantics, and it all comes back to their No. 1 priority: Uncle George Washington, and piles of it."

Why don't they just say it? Instead, we get these kings of hypocrisy who enjoy insulting our intelligence such as Lou Anna K. Simon, the president of Michigan State. She also is the chairwoman of the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors.

During a meeting on Sunday with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, Simon and her sanctimonious group talked expansion. She admitted they were forced to caucus after reports that the Pacific-10 is on the verge of asking six Big 12 teams -- including mighty Texas, which also is pursued by the Big Ten -- to join its conference.

Not only that, the Big 12 gave Nebraska and Missouri until Friday to decide whether they will bolt for the Big Ten.

Anyway, Simon mentioned that, although the Big Ten originally wasn't going to address its expansion plans until next year at the earliest, "It's possible (because of the Pacific-10 news) that the timeline may be altered, but not the process."

About that process: Simon said the Big Ten only will consider schools with high academic integrity -- you know, since (ahem) that is what the Big Ten is all about. Then she added it wouldn't hurt if candidates for admission were pretty good on the field on a national level and had the ability to generate a few of those Uncle George Washingtons.

I mean, how greedy can you get?


We're back to the fallacy of the student-athlete. The NCAA always flaunts how it keeps slicing practice and travel time to help student-athletes do their school work.

Blah, blah, blah.

Well, I'm guessing it would be tougher for a men's lacrosse player at the University of Michigan to balance his studies after traveling to Lincoln, Neb. and Columbia, Mo., as opposed to East Lansing, Mich., and Columbus, Ohio.

What a joke. Same goes for what all of this would do to the mid-majors in football. With expansion, you will lessen the chances of an Appalachian State shocking a Michigan, because with more teams in power conferences, there will be fewer opportunities for big teams to play opponents from little conferences.

As for college basketball, what about Butler? With expansion, could the Bulldogs repeat (or better) what they did last year? They rose from the Horizon League to stand within centimeters -- when Gordon Hayward's half-court shot at the buzzer bounced off the front of the rim -- of winning the national championship this spring.

"I don't think it's going to affect those leagues or conferences in basketball very much. I really don't," Vitale said. "I think basketball teams can schedule a certain number of games in terms of out-of-conference play. In college basketball, they have a bigger issue to address that has made the student-athlete a farce. This one-and-done situation.

"There is no way in a world when you have a kid sign with a college team out of high school, and they're already talking about the NBA.

"We're putting the wrong concepts in the minds of everybody that's involved in college athletics. Everything is about dollars. Everything is about greed. It's so sad."

It's also so profitable.

Which means it's so much the reason the kings of hypocrisy wish to expand their kingdoms -- no matter what.