By Ann Miller, Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writers
In his seven years as Western Athletic Conference commissioner, Karl Benson has seen the nation’s most far-flung Division I college athletic conference undergo a major expansion, a bitter division and a restructuring of itself.
In Honolulu for meetings with University of Hawai‘i and bowl officials, Benson met yesterday with The Advertiser in a wide-ranging, hour-long question-and-answer session.
Q: There is speculation the Mountain West Conference could vote to lift its moratorium on expansion, how solid is the WAC lineup?
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| WAC commissioner Karl Benson said expansions and breakups of the conference are in the past. |
A: I am confident we’re going into 2001 as a 10-team league and, for the first time in almost three years, we can be assured that this is going to be the WAC. There’s always gonna be speculation. There’s always gonna be rumors but that is the way it has been for the last 20 years. I haven’t seen any institutional comments that would alarm me. It is the fans, it is the internet-based reports that, I think, are exaggerating the level of interest. But I’m confident there are no institutional contacts being made. I’m confident the Mountain West is not actively pursuing any of our schools.
Q: You had been a proponent of the WAC expanding to a 12-team, two-division format. Is that still in the works?
A: I’m confident we’re going to be a 10-team league. Now, it is my job to build that 10-team league. The three critical areas we identified last fall to really give glue to that 10-team league are a BCS (Bowl Championship Series) affiliation, television component and bowl game component. We’ve affiliated with the BCS and are going to be around the table on the same level as the Mountain West and Conference USA. The two other areas, the TV and bowl components, are on-going.
Q: What is the status of the television agreement?
A: We should know what the TV future will be by April 1. We are currently under contract with Fox through the end of (this) basketball tournament and are talking about tweaking the current contract in terms of the number of games, financial terms and distribution.
Q: And the bowls?
A: We have the Humanitarian and Silicon Valley bowls and are in negotiation to renew with Mobile. We’re hoping to have three bowls this season. And I also will be talking (today) with Fritz Rohlfing about the Aloha and O‘ahu bowls and their future plans.
Q: There are concerns here that the WAC is holding back Wahine volleyball.
A: We have some unique concerns in our women’s sports, where we have three high profile teams which could win a national championship, Hawai‘i in volleyball, Fresno State in softball and Louisiana Tech in basketball. We’ve got some real quality at the top. What we need to do do is bring up the bottom so those teams feel like conference competition is healthy and beneficial.
Q: What is UH-Hilo’s future as an associate member in baseball after this season?
A: With Louisiana Tech coming in (next season), it doesn’t appear they’ll be with us next year. But to say they would never be considered (again) is probably not accurate, either.
Q: There is a proposal before the NCAA to do away with the so-called "Hawai‘i Exemption" in basketball. Has the conference taken a position?
A: That’s a very pertinent issue right now. The WAC has submitted an amendment to that piece of legislation. We want to make it clear that the University of Hawai‘i is different than the Maui tournament; different than the Alaska tournament and different than the Puerto Rico tournament.
The University of Hawai‘i , both the men and the women, depend on the tournaments for 90 percent of their non-conference games and for more than 25 years now Hawai‘i has been afforded some relief in terms of scheduling. Our amendment speaks to that and would permit the University of Hawai‘i to host those tournaments and for a (visiting) team to only have to count it as one game. That would be specific to Hawai‘i.
Q: How does the WAC view Hawai‘i’s resumption of scheduling the so-called breakaway schools like Brigham Young?
A: I’ve encouraged it. I think it is healthy. I’ve said all along that we need to create a rivalry with the Mountain West and the only way to do that is to schedule them. I think we’ve shown it from a competitive standpoint that there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t play Mountain West teams.
Q: It has been a while since the WAC had a representative on the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee. When does it get one again?
A: Next season (for a four-year term). I’m privileged to be selected but more important it is a statement that the WAC has regained some of the credibility it had.
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