Ackerman leading way for “new ” Big East
http://ajerseyguy.com/?p=7251Officially, it was football media day for the conference that was once the Big East. Now it is called the American Athletic Conference and the 10 coaches who met on Tuesday morning in Newport will pick up the banner of a new season.
But Big East football died last winter in a twisting series of events which most people thought was a long time coming and inevitable.
Big East basketball, once the gold standard for college basketball conferences, is alive and well, if you listen to new Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, ready for a new challenge in the conference’s 35th season, the Big East is ready for prime time–again.
Football? Forgetaboutit. Someone else’s passion, someone else’s problem.
ESPN? Well, maybe as a secondary outlet, but the new Fox Sports One cable channel which will launch next month will use this group of 10 primary basketball playing schools as its cornerstone.
Ackerman, with a history strongly linked to basketball at all levels-and as a Jersey girl as well–will provide the leadership and the direction.
Less than a month on the job after an agonizingly slow selection process, Ackerman is trying to put together a staff and organize a league of 10 schools (for the forseeable future?).
Ackerman’s credentials for the job appear to be impeccable, dating back to high school at New Jersey’s Hopewell Valley High School. She went from there to the University of Virginia here she was a 4 year starter, a 3-time captain, as well as a 2-time Academic All American.
After a brief playing career, which included one year in France, Ackerman dove into the administrative end. She helped start the WNBA, was the first female President of USA basketball, including running the show when the American men and women won gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She is coming off a job as a consultant to the NCAA on women’s basketball.
At all levels–at any level-Ackerman knows the game. She also knows the challenges that starting a league from scratch–even if the components are 10 solid basketball pedigree schools from the old Big East and the Atlantic 10 Conference.
“It’s been very hectic to say the least,” said Ackerman in a phone interview on Tuesday as she continued the business of putting together a league office as well as a league.
Eventually the league office will be in New York City. But for now, Ackerman’s office is her cell phone, where she is setting up everything from schedules to budgets.
“There are some similarities between the WNBA and this,” said Ackerman with a laugh. “But with the WNBA, we were just an operating division of the NBA. We didn’t have to worry about setting up a pay roll system. Clearly we’re on the ground floor with a clean canvas and it’s very exciting.”
After several weeks of conference calls, Ackerman finally had a face to face with her 10 new athletic directors at Newport, Rhode Island last week, which was much more than a meet and greet gathering.
Part of the discussion was how to meld the tradition of the Big East with the issues of 2013 and 2014 which didn’t exist in 1979 when the Big East was founded by Dave Gavitt.
“Part of the heritage you want to keep alive,” said Ackerman. “But we have to find a way of melding the heritage with innovation. Our goal is create as bright a halo over the league as possible.”
For a conference which has been battered into submission and non existence in football because of defections and other factors and then endured a very public divorce among the basketball and football members, any kind of halo would be welcome.
Ackerman knows there might be some more hurdles to clear as the league moves into its new form as a 10 school basketball league which has mixture of old and new, east and Midwest with members of the Catholic 7:Seton Hall, Providence, Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova, DePaul and St. John’s melding with Xavier, Creighton and Butler.
Ackerman concedes the 10 school format, which allows a balanced double round robin 18 game conference schedule is the ideal set up–at this time.
“It is ideal for a lot of reasons,” said Ackerman, “but the Presidents have said they would like to expand at some time and we will have to examine that. But not at this time. For now, it’s the perfect set up for us.”
Ackerman says she has other ideas to promote the league–which will have Fox Sports One as its primary television outlet during the regular season and in the Big East Tournament which will remain in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Basing the league office in New York, allows the Big East more access to the power brokers and as she pointed out, makes the Big East the closest conference in Europe in geographical terms. Without being specific, Ackerman left open the door of a European venue as a site for Big East teams on a promotional basis. “In New York, we’re swimming with bigger fish,” said Ackerman. “There are some innovative things we can do within the NCAA rules.
Those are bigger picture items.
For now, Ackerman just wants the engine to start and everything to run smoothly. Fox is clearly a major factor in this plan.” Fox is about fun, but they see a toughness in us and there is toughness about Big East basketball which can be promoted,” said Ackerman . “We know we cant replace a Georgetown vs. Syracuse,” she said. “But we can create a new magic, with new traditions, with a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new.”
