Posted on: Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Building pride in the WAC

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Coumnist

Now, class, eyes to the front of the room and please repeat after your instructor:

The Western Athletic Conference is a darn good league and, doggone it, I'm proud to be a part of it.

The WAC takes a backseat to no one, especially not that Mountain Whatchamacallit Conference.

We are the WAC, hear us roar.

Welcome to WAC Solidarity School in Arizona, where you'll find nearly all the conference's football, men's basketball and volleyball coaches assembled today, lesson books in hand.

It seems the conference has used the occasion of its annual spring council meeting to call together most of its high-profile coaches for a much-needed session in conference pride and cooperation.

If there is a group that is in need of "my name is ..." tags and a crash course in WAC awareness, this is it. After what will soon be 13 defections since 1998; after what will also be, with the coming of Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State as of July 1, six new members in five years, there is much work to be done on both the identity and image fronts.

It would seem to be an elementary part of Coaching 101 that you don't knock the product you're trying to recruit to. Yet, as we have observed, this message can get lost on the coaches themselves.

Just last month, during his introductory press conference at WAC member Fresno State, men's basketball coach Steve Cleveland answered a question this way: "I've got to be careful because I don't want to offend WAC coaches, but, yes, I'll do everything I can to help get us into the Mountain West Conference."

Oops.

WAC officials said their solidarity meeting was planned even before Cleveland stuck a wing tip in his mouth. A mistake, UH coach Riley Wallace said, Cleveland quickly apologized for. But the episode drove home the urgency of a conference working at defining itself.

The thing is, despite all the comings and goings, the WAC has been, and can be, a pretty good conference if its members work at it. "That's why I think this (meeting) is a pretty good idea," said Wallace, whose 18 seasons make him the dean of WAC coaches. "We've got to build up our own conference."

And, as commissioner Karl Benson puts it, "they (the coaches) are among our most valuable, most visible resources. They can play an important role in how the conference does and is perceived."

Whether they are always happy or not, the fact of the matter is that none of the WAC members figure to be going anywhere anytime soon. The game of musical conferences has stopped for a while, and for all their gazing at greener pastures this is their neighborhood. And, it behooves them to make the best of it for the time being.

Anyone for another round of WAC uber alles?

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.