Posted on: Sunday, April 22, 2001
Would UH answer if Mountain West called?
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
There is a moratorium on expansion of the Mountain West Conference, we are told.
Officially, there is no talk of the conference adding a ninth member any time soon, officials maintain. Nor will any current Western Athletic Conference member admit to possible interest.
Yet, for all the steadfast denials and protestations of disinterest, it is the topic that won't go away. It is the issue nobody admits interest in but can't let go of. MWC expansion is the spicy rumor de jour that just won't die.
Not around the University of Hawai'i, which is seen as the most likely invitee of the WAC lineup, when the MWC deigns to offer membership.
Not at Fresno State, where the Bulldogs have one eye cast solicitiously on the MWC and the other, nervously, on what UH might be doing.
And not elsewhere around the WAC, where they wonder when the next shoe might drop.
Mountain West's Joint Council Executive Committee meets this week and its officials say expansion is not on the agenda. Of course, they confide privately, part of that is for the sake of convenience so they can stonewall inquiries on the issue.
MWC members maintain there is no official — wink, wink — talk about expansion. If pinned down, however, they will say there is what they choose to characterize as "hallway" or "dinner table" talk. Purely unofficial, you understand.
It all has the look of a junior high dance where each group is checking out the other; where not a lot of conversation is taking place but there is no shortage of signals being sent.
Nothing figures to happen until 2002 at the earliest, when the existing cap on expansion ends. Although the MWC presidents, who form the Board of Directors, can lift or extend the moratorium at their pleasure.
Many of their football coaches would like to see the addition of a ninth member to give a four-and-four balance to home and away conference games. But the athletic directors, who this year will divide up a nearly $10 million pot accumulated from TV revenues, bowl receipts, sponsorships etc., among eight members, might be loathe to allow an additional mouth at the trough without a significant contribution.
For Hawai'i, if and when an invitation is tendered, there would be the thorny question of where its future is best tied. Does it recast its lot with group that shunned it in the breakup of the WAC? Would it even be a move up?
It is a decision that would come with the understanding that any overture UH turned down Fresno State might pounce upon. And with concern about how that might leave the resulting WAC.
In the meantime, the Rainbows have a lot to do to position themselves to be able to take advantage of whatever comes.
Unofficially, of course.
