By Bill Koch
One of the first things Rick Taylor realized when he took over as the athletic director at the University of Cincinnati in 1988 was that the Bearcats needed a conference home for their football program, which played as an independent at the time.
The Bearcats competed in the Metro Conference in basketball and all other sports along with Louisville, Memphis State, Southern Miss, Florida State, Tulane, Virginia Tech, and South Carolina.
Those eight schools had the makings of a pretty good football league, but Florida State and South Carolina, which had the most successful football programs in that group, wanted no part of playing in a football league with the other six.
In 1990, Charlie Cavagnaro, the Memphis State athletic director; Bill Olsen, the AD at Louisville; and Taylor went to the Metro’s spring meetings in Destin, Fla., hoping to resolve the football issue.
“We needed to find a home where we could get a constant schedule instead of playing the teams that we were playing,” Taylor said.
Reporters from around the league were on hand to cover the meetings. The Cincinnati Post, at my urging, agreed to pay for me to go. The Enquirer chose not to cover it.
Near the end of the week, the schools’ athletic directors conducted a press conference to provide an update on the burning football issue. One of those AD’s was Florida State’s Bob Goin, who would later become the athletic director at UC.
They talked about the progress they had made and promised they would continue to talk in the future, presenting a united front, as if everything was fine.
I sat through the press conference shivering with a fever and chills, wanting nothing more than to return to my room and slink back into bed. But after the press conference broke up, Taylor asked me if I had had lunch yet. I told him I wasn’t interested in lunch because I was sick.
Taylor looked me in the eye and said in a very serious tone, “I really think you should have lunch with me.”
At that point, my keen reporter’s instincts took over and I agreed to have lunch with him. As we sat in the hotel restaurant, he told me that very little progress had been made. As a result, UC, Memphis State and Louisville had decided to leave the Metro and form their own conference. He said I could write the story for the next day’s paper because he felt he owed it to the Post for spending the money to send me to the meetings. But he wouldn’t let me attribute it to him.
I went back to my room, wrote the story, and sent it to the paper. Then I crawled into bed. The Post was taking a huge risk by running the story. I had only one source and he wouldn’t let his name be used. I talked to my editor and we both agreed that in this instance, considering the source, we should go with it. It turned out to be one of the biggest scoops I ever had.
Eventually, UC, Memphis State and Louisville joined with Marquette, Saint Louis, and Alabama-Birmingham as the charter members of the Great Midwest Conference.
What happened to Louisville?
“Bill Olsen dropped out,” Taylor said. “He thought that Louisville had the name and they were going to get most of the money. We said no. We used the Big Ten model where everything was shared.
“We were going to have a meeting in Chicago and Louisville was supposed to come. When they found out that they weren’t going to get the lion’s share of the money, Bill Olsen said, ‘I’m out.’ Within 10 minutes we called Gene Bartow (at UAB) and said, ‘Gene, would you guys like to come up to the meeting?’
“Gene had access to a plane and he made the 2 o’clock meeting,” Taylor continued. “That’s how Great Midwest basketball got started. Bill Olsen was shocked. At the time UAB was a pretty good basketball school with Gene Bartow, and we got them in 10 minutes.”
The Great Midwest was successful from the outset. During its first year in 1991-92, it sent three of its six teams to the NCAA Tournament. UC and Memphis State played each other in the Midwest Regional final, and UC went to the Final Four.
But it still didn’t solve UC’s football problem. That solution wouldn’t be found until 1995 when the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest essentially merged, along with Houston from the Southwest Conference, to form Conference USA.
That’s not how Taylor and Cavagnaro envisioned things coming together when they set out to find a home for their football programs.
“We had a huge meeting about starting a major, 16-team league,” Taylor said. “We wanted to have this huge metropolitan league with television sets the key to who got in and what we would do.”
The meeting Taylor referenced occurred in Dallas in 1990. According to a 2011 Sporting News story, the group commissioned a study that included a plan with UC as part of a super conference with Louisville, Memphis State, Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Miami (Fla.), Florida State, South Carolina, East Carolina, Tulane, and others.
But the league never materialized.
Instead, Florida State joined the Atlantic Coast Conference, South Carolina joined the Southeastern Conference, and the Big East added football. In 2005 the Bearcats joined the Big East after Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami (Fla.) left for the ACC. At long last, it appeared their conference woes were over.
Nine years later, another round of conference realignment meant the demise of Big East football. When the Bearcats failed to receive an invitation to one of the so-called Power Five conferences, they helped to form another new league, the American Athletic Conference, where they've competed since 2014. Three years later, they were mentioned as a strong candidate to be part of Big 12 expansion. But that expansion never happened.
During our conversation this week I asked Taylor, who left UC for Northwestern in 1994, if he remembered tipping me off to one of the biggest stories in Bearcats' sports history.
“I guess I gave you a story,” he said, “but no, I don’t remember that.”
One of the first things Rick Taylor realized when he took over as the athletic director at the University of Cincinnati in 1988 was that the Bearcats needed a conference home for their football program, which played as an independent at the time.
The Bearcats competed in the Metro Conference in basketball and all other sports along with Louisville, Memphis State, Southern Miss, Florida State, Tulane, Virginia Tech, and South Carolina.
Those eight schools had the makings of a pretty good football league, but Florida State and South Carolina, which had the most successful football programs in that group, wanted no part of playing in a football league with the other six.
In 1990, Charlie Cavagnaro, the Memphis State athletic director; Bill Olsen, the AD at Louisville; and Taylor went to the Metro’s spring meetings in Destin, Fla., hoping to resolve the football issue.
“We needed to find a home where we could get a constant schedule instead of playing the teams that we were playing,” Taylor said.
Reporters from around the league were on hand to cover the meetings. The Cincinnati Post, at my urging, agreed to pay for me to go. The Enquirer chose not to cover it.
Near the end of the week, the schools’ athletic directors conducted a press conference to provide an update on the burning football issue. One of those AD’s was Florida State’s Bob Goin, who would later become the athletic director at UC.
They talked about the progress they had made and promised they would continue to talk in the future, presenting a united front, as if everything was fine.
I sat through the press conference shivering with a fever and chills, wanting nothing more than to return to my room and slink back into bed. But after the press conference broke up, Taylor asked me if I had had lunch yet. I told him I wasn’t interested in lunch because I was sick.
Taylor looked me in the eye and said in a very serious tone, “I really think you should have lunch with me.”
At that point, my keen reporter’s instincts took over and I agreed to have lunch with him. As we sat in the hotel restaurant, he told me that very little progress had been made. As a result, UC, Memphis State and Louisville had decided to leave the Metro and form their own conference. He said I could write the story for the next day’s paper because he felt he owed it to the Post for spending the money to send me to the meetings. But he wouldn’t let me attribute it to him.
I went back to my room, wrote the story, and sent it to the paper. Then I crawled into bed. The Post was taking a huge risk by running the story. I had only one source and he wouldn’t let his name be used. I talked to my editor and we both agreed that in this instance, considering the source, we should go with it. It turned out to be one of the biggest scoops I ever had.
Eventually, UC, Memphis State and Louisville joined with Marquette, Saint Louis, and Alabama-Birmingham as the charter members of the Great Midwest Conference.
What happened to Louisville?
“Bill Olsen dropped out,” Taylor said. “He thought that Louisville had the name and they were going to get most of the money. We said no. We used the Big Ten model where everything was shared.
“We were going to have a meeting in Chicago and Louisville was supposed to come. When they found out that they weren’t going to get the lion’s share of the money, Bill Olsen said, ‘I’m out.’ Within 10 minutes we called Gene Bartow (at UAB) and said, ‘Gene, would you guys like to come up to the meeting?’
“Gene had access to a plane and he made the 2 o’clock meeting,” Taylor continued. “That’s how Great Midwest basketball got started. Bill Olsen was shocked. At the time UAB was a pretty good basketball school with Gene Bartow, and we got them in 10 minutes.”
The Great Midwest was successful from the outset. During its first year in 1991-92, it sent three of its six teams to the NCAA Tournament. UC and Memphis State played each other in the Midwest Regional final, and UC went to the Final Four.
But it still didn’t solve UC’s football problem. That solution wouldn’t be found until 1995 when the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest essentially merged, along with Houston from the Southwest Conference, to form Conference USA.
That’s not how Taylor and Cavagnaro envisioned things coming together when they set out to find a home for their football programs.
“We had a huge meeting about starting a major, 16-team league,” Taylor said. “We wanted to have this huge metropolitan league with television sets the key to who got in and what we would do.”
The meeting Taylor referenced occurred in Dallas in 1990. According to a 2011 Sporting News story, the group commissioned a study that included a plan with UC as part of a super conference with Louisville, Memphis State, Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Miami (Fla.), Florida State, South Carolina, East Carolina, Tulane, and others.
But the league never materialized.
Instead, Florida State joined the Atlantic Coast Conference, South Carolina joined the Southeastern Conference, and the Big East added football. In 2005 the Bearcats joined the Big East after Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami (Fla.) left for the ACC. At long last, it appeared their conference woes were over.
Nine years later, another round of conference realignment meant the demise of Big East football. When the Bearcats failed to receive an invitation to one of the so-called Power Five conferences, they helped to form another new league, the American Athletic Conference, where they've competed since 2014. Three years later, they were mentioned as a strong candidate to be part of Big 12 expansion. But that expansion never happened.
During our conversation this week I asked Taylor, who left UC for Northwestern in 1994, if he remembered tipping me off to one of the biggest stories in Bearcats' sports history.
“I guess I gave you a story,” he said, “but no, I don’t remember that.”
Comments
Post a Comment