Ferd Lewis
WAC has stability, now it's time to win

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

The Western Athletic Conference this week kicked off its 40th year with a feisty, proactive call to arms among the most widely-distributed membership roll in its history.

From Honolulu to Ruston, La., went out the rallying cry from Commissioner Karl Benson on a "WAC Awareness Campaign" — WAC, get it.

Emboldened by the addition of two new members, an ESPN television contract and a set conference lineup for the first time in four years, the WAC has burst forth with acronyms and hope. We are told WAC also stands for "Where Action Counts," "Where Athletes Count," "Where Academics Count," "Where Achievement Counts" and "Where Attitudes Count."

For a confederation of schools that has for too long looked at itself as a group held together by a shared lack of options rather than any higher common goal, it is a step in the right direction. For a bunch of schools more focused on where they aren't right now rather than where they are going, it is a timely reminder of the difference.

But public relations slogans and alliteration will only take the WAC so far in the season that begins tomorrow when Fresno State plays Colorado in the Jim Thorpe Classic. Ultimately, it is how the 10 schools do on the fields and courts that will determine how the WAC is thought of. Or, indeed, if it is to be thought of at all.

For the rest of the college football and basketball worlds to notice, the WAC is going to have to win some contests against the teams that do count on the national landscape. For the WAC to consider carving out a more commanding niche among the 11 conferences and 117 schools that make up Division IA, it is going to have to open some eyes when the cameras are on it.

And there's no time like the present. The WAC opens its 40th year tomorrow in the form of FSU and CU on ESPN2, one of the conference's better opportunities to make a statement.

It is a chance to dance on the national stage for the WAC, a game that comes with the advantage of being one of only a handful of contests on the day and not against overwhelming odds.

Then, in short order, the schedule serves up San Jose State against Southern California, Boise State vs. South Carolina and Fresno State against Oregon State...

In the first month of the season alone, WAC members play seven schools in The Associated Press Top 25. Over the course of the season, they come calling on Alabama, Auburn, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, North Carolina, etc.

Not an easy road, to be sure. But, if there is to be a case made for the WAC moving up in the college football food chain, this is where it will have to be made. Otherwise, WAC might as well stand for Would Anyone Care?