Expansion in Big Ten could hurt Big East
MORGANTOWN — Once upon a time there was a group of colleges in a cold, northern part of the land who decided they would join together for their own mutual good.Shortly after reaching an agreement on how they would put this conglomerate together, they decided they needed a name. Since there were 10 of them, and as colleges went they were quite large, they thought that should be included in the name, sort of to give them a unique identity.
“Why not call ourselves the Big Ten?” someone named Woody suggested, and everyone agreed, even the man named Bo, who did not utter a peep in protest.
So it was that we had a conference named the Big Ten. Shortly thereafter a group of eight schools out West came together and formed a conference, too. Lacking originality, they decided on calling it the Big Eight. And they came a group from the land of cattle and sheep, who opted to be the Big Sky Conference.
Not to be done back East, a group of their schools merged and became the Big East, to be followed by the Big South.
Everyone, it seemed, was happy, for they all were big in their very own way, until the Big Eight said, “Wait a minute, we can be bigger and better than ever if we can add four schools.” And so they did, becoming the Big 12.
At that same time an independent football school in the East, led by a wise old man so fatherly that he was named Paterno, clearly a takeoff from the word “paternal”, which means fatherly, begged to be included in the Big Ten.
Complete story -The Times West Virginian
