So, back in 2003, Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech left (abandoned?) the Big East to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. At the time, both the three schools and the ACC were decried for their greed and overall lack of integrity. Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg stood tall as a beacon of integrity as he led the charge to hold things together and keep the Big East in tact.
Today, you all know the story....Pitt, under the leadership of Chancellor Nordenberg, as announced that it is bolting the Big East and heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference. So much for integrity, so much for loyalty to your conference brethren. Hey, just exactly whose ox is being gored here?
Of course, if you have been following college athletics for the last few years, ever since the ACC's original raid on the Big East in 2003, really, you know that it isn't really that simple, that black and white, and you also know that the concept of "integrity" has very little place in big time college athletics. Pitt can certainly defend their move to the ACC, and everyone will be dancing the happy dance of joy when North Carolina and Duke come to the Peterson Center on a regular basis. Hey, I'll still be a Pitt fan, so if you want to call me a hypocrite, go ahead, but the whole thing still makes you want to take a shower after you read about it.
Still, I'd love to overhear the next conversation between Nordenberg and his counterpart at Texas Christian, who were lured into joining the Big East beginning next year.
Lost in the shuffle of the Pitt-to-the-ACC news was the rather horrific loss that the Panthers suffered to Iowa yesterday. Up 24-3 in the third quarter and 27-10 in the fourth, the Panthers managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. While traveling, I listened to the Iowa broadcast ofnthis game via satellite radio. That gave the whole thing a rather unique perspective from a Pitt Fan's point of view. Any way you slice it, that was a very bad loss for the Panthers.
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