Cabrera: A Conference Conspiracy

I don’t like liars. They make everything more difficult and less efficient. Unfortunately, escaping the presence of a liar is inevitable, especially in sports. Today, liars in sports range from steroid-using baseball players, to greedy sports agents, and even gambling referees and players. Lies lead to conspiracies. Now, I’m not one to be a conspiracy believer, but when something so strange is happening right in my backyard, involving my institution of higher learning, I can’t help but be suspicious.

The NCAA is broken up into three divisions: I, II, III. In those divisions, many different conferences exist. The oldest of those conferences is the Big 10. It’s history dates back to 1895 when seven University presidents met in Chicago to organize and regulate a system for collegiate athletics. The “Intercollegiate conference of Faculty Representatives” included the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Purdue University, University of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin. Eventually, what was then the State University of Iowa, Indiana University, and Ohio State University joined the conglomerate. The University of Chicago withdrew and Michigan State College (now University) joined, rounding out the conference in 1949. This group of ten, elite universities stayed intact for 40 years, during the time in which the name “Big Ten Conference” probably emerged.

Throughout the evolution of the Big Ten conference, many other conferences sprouted throughout the nation. One of those conferences, the Pacific Coast Conference was born in 1915. Containing schools on the west coast, the Pacific Coast Conference eventually was renamed the Pacific 10, or Pac-10, in 1978, but only after the conference expanded to ten teams, welcoming the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. A newer conference, the Big 12, solidified its standing in the NCAA in 1996 when the four teams from the Southwest Conference joined the eight from the Big Eight Conference. How numerically sound these conferences are.

As previously stated, the Big Ten Conference competed comfortably with ten universities for 40 years. But what happened that 41^st year in 1990? UNLV destroyed Duke in the NCAA Basketball title game 131-101, Georgia Tech and Colorado shared the NCAA football hardware, but Penn State changed the ebb and flow of college sports permanently. The Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten Conference. They came from the Atlantic 10, where they enjoyed two stints from 1976-1979 and 1982-1990. It was old Joe Paterno who wanted to organize the “Eastern Conference”, but couldn’t convince the likes of Syracuse and West Virginia amongst others. Solution: Jump west and target Penn State as the centerpiece of lasting conspiracy.

Why is the Big 10 still called the Big 10 if the Big 10 doesn’t have 10 universities? Sure, they try to compensate their lying ways by discretely placing an “11” within the conference logo, but that gives even more of a reason to be suspicious. If there wasn’t some grand secret, originating from Joe Pa’s belly in 1990, why didn’t the conference change its name to the “Big 11”? Many conferences have changed their names to match their numbers, as discussed earlier about the Pac-10. Interestingly enough, Penn State came from another misfit of a conference, the Atlantic 10, which currently has fourteen teams, but that’s another story. Penn State isn’t even located in the Midwest, like all the other member schools. Why would they be allowed in after all those years of peace, harmony, and correct numbering? It would seem more appropriate for a school like Iowa State or Nebraska to create this mathematical disaster. But Why Penn State? Why 1990? And why no conference name change? Could this be the reason why Joe Paterno is still alive? I don’t know, but I do NOT like being lied to.