By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Five years ago this month Karl Benson was recovering from retinal surgery when a group of defectors suddenly emerged from clandestine meetings to tear asunder the Western Athletic Conference he headed.

Now, as the WAC and others await the pending breakup of the Big East and likely some of the biggest changes in the landscape of college athletics since the WAC's parting, Benson is a man on the offensive.

This time, he's attempting to set the agenda for the WAC instead of just picking up the pieces. In meetings with conference members and in newspaper and radio interviews, the commissioner who heads Division I's most geographically widespread conference is aggressively selling the conference and touting its future across five time zones.

Gone is the hesitancy to make pointed comparisons between his league and the rival Mountain West Conference as he says, "I just don't know what the Mountain West can offer WAC schools now that they're not getting."

Instead of talking defensively about just holding onto members, Benson is taking the offensive saying trying to position the conference to be a hunter instead of the hunted: "We're in a position to have potential members," Benson says. "The WAC is in a good spot to benefit from realignment."

No longer is he bound by diplomatic pretensions, as he says, "the Mountain West is not going to get an automatic BCS berth unless they add USC and UCLA."

"He's gotten more aggressive and I'm happy he's doing that," said Hugh Yoshida, former UH athletic director. "Like a lot of us, I think he kinda of hung his head at first (after the split)."

Benson's tough, positive message has come to set the tone of growing confidence for a conference that has emerged from hard times to see itself more as an equal than a languishing victim of the Mountain West.

When the Gang of Five — Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Utah and Wyoming — took along Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico and San Diego State, they also cleaned out the cupboards, snapping up what had been a handshake deal on a seven-year, $48 million television deal, bowl agreements and corporate sponsorships.

The expectation in many quarters was that the remnants, which included Hawai'i and Fresno State, would struggle mightily if not shortly dissolve.

Instead, the WAC has not only survived, it has been competitive and, to a surprising degree, even prosperous in standing the test of time.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.