Remembering Bill Carr (And The SEC Bid That Never Came)
The Daily Oklahoman posted a pretty good article earlier this week about the demise of the Southwest Conference (and with it, the football program at the University of Houston):
Fred Jacoby presented and lost his case more than a decade ago at the Embassy Suites by the Will Rogers World Airport.
It was there that Jacoby, the commissioner of the now-defunct Southwest Conference, told Big Eight athletic directors he wanted in. And he was going to bring eight Southwest Conference schools, including the Houston Cougars, with him.
It would be the country’s largest power conference and control the lucrative college football television market from upper Midwest to the Gulf Shores of Texas, Jacoby said.
“Then Bob Devaney (then AD at Nebraska) looked at me and said, ‘What are you trying to do, run us out of the Orange Bowl?’ ”
And Jacoby knew he had lost. The meeting was the death knell for the SWC and signaled the demise of the Houston football program.
After 26 mostly successful years under Bill Yeoman and three more successful years with Jack Pardee, the Cougars are on their fourth coach in the last 15 years. The combined record of those coaches is 57-101-1. There was an NCAA investigation, which uncovered no major infractions but revealed John Jenkins’ habit of splicing adult film scenes into practice films.
At one point in the ’90s, the Houston faculty petitioned to abolish sports at Houston. Only 11,048 showed up for a 2002 home game. To top it off, Houston has operated with a budget deficit since the breakup of the Southwest Conference in 1996. That deficit has climbed to $10 million early this decade but has since been trimmed to slightly more than $2 million.
“To me, the breakup of the Southwest Conference really hurt (Houston),” Jacoby said. “And it developed an elitist group in college football.”
That group, Jacoby said, started to take a strong hold on college football in the early ’90s. And the Big Eight was, in large part, responsible.
“Some of the conferences got a little chesty,” Jacoby said. “The Southeastern went with ABC, and then Notre Dame went with NBC. The whole thing started to unravel and everyone was left to fend for themselves.”
Houston developed the stubborn attitude of a child who didn’t get his way. Then-Houston athletic director Bill Carr refused to talk with the other three left behind schools - Rice, SMU and TCU - about the future. Carr held to the far-fetched belief the SEC would absorb Houston.
Bill Carr's decision was disastrous, and UH is still paying the price for the fact that he had no backup plan, and UH wound up in a dog of a conference (C-USA).
Later in the story, the author quotes Bill Yeoman, who suggests that the state's elite schools conspired to keep UH out of the Big 12. Nowhere does the article mention the role of Ann Richards, who got Baylor into the Big 12, where it has been outclassed ever since (proving there is some justice in these things, however little). UH would have been a much more sensible choice at the time, but was completely outmaneuvered. So it goes.
(09-12-2004 Update) Tom Kirkendall of Houston's Clear Thinkers offers some thoughts here. Kirkendall was close (and even counsel) to various UH parties at the time.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/10/04 23:17 | Sports | Technorati
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You wrote
"Bill Carr's decision was disastrous, and UH is still paying the price for the fact that he had no backup plan, and UH wound up in a dog of a conference (C-USA)."
Where else would UH have gone? The only alternative would have been the WAC, and Rice and SMU eventually came to C-USA anyway. It was the best of a bad lot.
"Later in the story, the author quotes Bill Yeoman, who suggests that the state's elite schools conspired to keep UH out of the Big 12. Nowhere does the article mention the role of Ann Richards, who got Baylor into the Big 12, where it has been outclassed ever since (proving there is some justice in these things, however little). UH would have been a much more sensible choice at the time, but was completely outmaneuvered. So it goes."
No - the Big 12 needed a private school. The 11 public schools in the Big 12 are individually subject to all sorts of open-records laws because they are state-supported. Because Baylor is a private school, however, the Big 12 as an entity can claim itself exempt from those laws, because not every member of the conference is a public institution. After the selection of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech for the new conference, the question came down to which private school would be the 12th member. Richards's connection with Baylor answered that question.
Posted by Jonathan Sadow @ 04:04 on 09/11/04
This is why I hate college sports. I love seeing the Big-12 teams lose.
Posted by Gary C.-s Radio Station @ 09:37 on 09/11/04
Jonathan: I think that argument, which I've seen, gives too much weight to the private school connection and not enough weight to the preferences of A&M and UT and the Ann Richards political angle. But that's debatable. Still, the author gives NO weight to the Ann Richards angle, which is a crucial part of the story. As such, the story told by the author is incomplete, although its main point (UH has been hurt badly by its conference affiliation) is valid.
And I do think a UH affiliation with remaining SWC members in the WAC might have made that conference stronger, and been a better fit than trying to manufacture rivalries with teams like Cincinnati and Memphis and East Carolina (honestly, who cares?). UH seemed to have delusions of grandeur with regard to those excluded SWC members as well as the SEC. A decade later, they have trouble keeping up with Rice in the three major men's sports. I think that reflects well on Rice's athletic administration (although everyone knows I think a new basketball facility would give them an even bigger boost), but not as well on UH's over the period.
Regardless, I guess you try to move forward. I like what Dave Maggard's trying to do, and am happy he didn't jump ship, as he's apparently had recent opportunity to do. But it may well be a sinking ship. I say that as someone who'll be out at Robertson cheering on those guys and hoping for the best. It will be a sad day for me if UH (or Rice) has to shut down football because of lack of interest/resources.
Posted by Kevin @ 10:17 on 09/11/04
Gary: As an old Big 8 watcher, I still like to watch those teams, and I do like to follow "big time" college football. But I realize it's big business and big politics as well, and I can understand folks who find that distasteful and want nothing to do with it.
Posted by Kevin @ 10:22 on 09/11/04
As I recall, Bob Bullock also had a role to play in Baylor's Big XII invite. Doesn't change your basic point that there was a political angle in play, but it wasn't all Ann Richards.
Posted by Charles Kuffner @ 16:24 on 09/11/04
Good point -- Bullock was also involved.
Posted by Kevin @ 16:26 on 09/11/04
Kevin wrote
"And I do think a UH affiliation with remaining SWC members in the WAC might have made that conference stronger, and been a better fit than trying to manufacture rivalries with teams like Cincinnati and Memphis and East Carolina (honestly, who cares?)."
In terms of having conference mates to play with, it might have started out better if UH had been in the WAC, but I don't think it would've changed things in the long run. It definitely wouldn't have changed the current Mountain West schools' breakaway from the WAC, and that was the key factor in making the WAC less desirable as a home for the eastern WAC teams that will be Conference USA. In the end, UH would have been in the crowd switching to C-USA next season.
Like UH, Rice had to try developing rivalries with schools that most Rice fans didn't (and still don't) care about. Really, neither school had great options after the treachery from the new Big 12 members. With all of them in C-USA starting next season, things are probably about as good as one could reasonably expect now.
Of course, Texas Christian is a big exception to this. It's giving me a good chuckle to see TCU putting itself into the same bad situation Rice was in and calling it an improvement....
Posted by Jonathan Sadow @ 03:55 on 09/12/04
I am going from memory, but before the poo poo hit the fan with the U of H football program.... weren't there discussions with the SEC and U of H under Pardee...U of H consulted with the other schools to see if they were going to leave the SWC, and were told that they were going to stay... so U of H did not pursue the talks, then a couple of years latter, then the big colleges started to bolt from the SWC...and when U of H went back to talk to the SEC, they were no longer interested...
Again this is going from memory so I could be off...
Posted by Jaime @ 06:52 on 09/17/09
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