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Realignment: Official Penn State to ACC thread: “You gotta be sh&$; me”

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why not?
It’s expansion season again and thinking about our old friend Bo, and how the BIG welcomed Penn State with open arms. Right now, Penn State/Notre Dame to ACC may be the only move that could make Texas/Oklahoma look like the consolation prize.
 
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why not?
How different things may have been/could be again.

Because Jones is an idiot. Yes, the process of getting PSU into the Big Ten was a clusterfvck. But the events surrounding the expansion of the ACC to include Miami, BC, VaDreck, and Syracuse make it look like a well oiled machine. Yes, Gene Corrigan would have jumped at the chance of adding PSU to the ACC. The presidents of the conference members are another story.
 

why not?
It’s expansion season again and thinking about our old friend Bo, and how the BIG welcomed Penn State with open arms. Right now, Penn State/Notre Dame to ACC may be the only move that could make Texas/Oklahoma look like the consolation prize.
I don't suppose you could cut and paste.....it's a subscriber story and I am not subscribed to Pennlive.
 
Sorry long
I don't suppose you could cut and paste.....it's a subscriber story and I am not subscribed to Pennlive.
I’m not a subscriber either, the article is very long will not let me copy and paste(or I’m doing it wrong). Type in google search penn state to acc and you should be able to read it if the above link paywalls you.
 
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Sorry long

I’m not a subscriber either, the article is very long will not let me copy and paste(or I’m doing it wrong). Type in google search penn state to acc and you should be able to read it if the above link paywalls you.
Found this free article by Cory Geiger (blech).

But, it does provide some information - the key appears to be a $17MM difference per annum. (Or what @Art finds in his sofa cushions). That is some big money.
 
If they go to the 4 Super Conferences approach for football, with 16 or 18 or even 20 teams each, imo, we will essentially create 8 sub-conferences and not be too far off from where we are now.
With 8 teams in a division, assuming the set-up would be to play the other 7 each season, and to play 2 in the other division, there are still 3 OOC games to go. Many schools will be clamoring to play a 1AA school to ease their 12 game schedule a bit.

And, with expanded playoffs (or invitationals), there might even be some support for going back to a fixed 11 games and then having the 12th game be the x-conference game on the Championship weekend in Dec. I liked that idea from the B1G last season. No one will want to give up the revenue from the 12th game, so they need to make it work somehow.

But with 9 conference games within a super conf., and maybe one step-down game vs a 1AA team or a UMass/UConn/NewMexSt ilk, that still leaves just 2 games for intersectional or marquis matchups, as we have now. A 'challenge' series ala bball would be interesting and lend itself to an equitable matchup. (Example: Auburn-PSU if B1G-SEC challenge). One more to go, so that is where a PSU may want to schedule a K-State or a UCLA or a Colorado or NC State or some team that they would be favored to beat, but still present a tough and fan-pleasing game. And that is where many schools, and probably us, would still opt for a Rice or a South Alabama or a Utah State (no offense to those teams, who may give us a tough game, but without a wow factor).
 
If they go to the 4 Super Conferences approach for football, with 16 or 18 or even 20 teams each, imo, we will essentially create 8 sub-conferences and not be too far off from where we are now.
With 8 teams in a division, assuming the set-up would be to play the other 7 each season, and to play 2 in the other division, there are still 3 OOC games to go. Many schools will be clamoring to play a 1AA school to ease their 12 game schedule a bit.

And, with expanded playoffs (or invitationals), there might even be some support for going back to a fixed 11 games and then having the 12th game be the x-conference game on the Championship weekend in Dec. I liked that idea from the B1G last season. No one will want to give up the revenue from the 12th game, so they need to make it work somehow.

But with 9 conference games within a super conf., and maybe one step-down game vs a 1AA team or a UMass/UConn/NewMexSt ilk, that still leaves just 2 games for intersectional or marquis matchups, as we have now. A 'challenge' series ala bball would be interesting and lend itself to an equitable matchup. (Example: Auburn-PSU if B1G-SEC challenge). One more to go, so that is where a PSU may want to schedule a K-State or a UCLA or a Colorado or NC State or some team that they would be favored to beat, but still present a tough and fan-pleasing game. And that is where many schools, and probably us, would still opt for a Rice or a South Alabama or a Utah State (no offense to those teams, who may give us a tough game, but without a wow factor).
Couple of things

1. They can play less than 12 regular season games (based on current schedule), but not more than that. But doubt that any school would want to give up any kind of revenue opportunity. Bottom line - just ask tell the kids to play more games, not less. In my lifetime, we have gone from 10 to 12 games, no reason not to tell them to play 13 regular season games.

2. The last time PSU played Utah State, Eric Hipple was their quarterback. (This is the unimportant trivia that I know).
 
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How Penn State nearly ended up in ACC: Of Knight and Bo and which Big Ten schools voted “no” in 1990​

By David Jones | djones@pennlive.com
Updated Sep 14, 2020; Posted Sep 12, 2020

It was all coming apart. And Stan Ikenberry felt powerless to stop the disassembling of his plan to bring Penn State into the Big Ten.

Thirty years ago this summer, on a Saturday night in June, the president of the University of Illinois sat in his hotel room in Iowa City and pondered how it all seemed to be going wrong. Only a few months before, It seemed as if there’d been total consensus among his presidential brethren that adding Penn State to the conference was a great idea.

The notion had been germinated by a call from PSU president Bryce Jordan who then sent his business manager Steve Garban, his athletic director Jim Tarman and his football coach Joe Paterno as emissaries. They made a full presentation to Ikenberry at a covert meeting at the UI president’s home in Urbana, Ill. He then soon after communicated their league membership proposal at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Big Ten presidents and chancellors in Chicago. By all accounts, it was very well received.

Though it would be the Big Ten’s first change in membership in over four decades, all agreed it made sense.

And the presidents' little club called the Council of Ten were free to wield the power they’d recently acquired for themselves. Bent on riding herd over what they saw as athletic departments out of control, they had incorporated and assumed something resembling dictatorial power over the conference.

Flush with newfound clout and resolve, the presidents' unilateral announcement on Dec. 14, 1989, made on a conference call by their young ambitious commissioner Jim Delany, was premature. Many coaches and athletic directors had not only not been consulted by their presidents, they’d not even been informed.

“We left that meeting in Chicago all in agreement that it should happen,” remembered Ikenberry recently. “It was only after the news broke publicly that the divisions began to occur.”

One particular figurehead in transition had been on that call and was nothing short of flabbergasted. Bo Schembechler had been called off the football practice field prepping for his final game as coach before sliding into the AD role at Michigan. His reaction to Delany after a few seconds of stunned silence: “You gotta be sh—ting me!”

Bo Schembechler

Michigan coach Bo Schembechler reacted to Jim Delany's conference-call announcement of Penn State's Big Ten invitation with expletive-loaded astonishment.
And so began a period for Ikenberry where his plan began to unravel the moment it became public. For the next six months, the 10 presidents went before their coaches, ADs, faculty reps and boards of trustees and faded the heat. For some, that kitchen was too hot.

By that night of June 2 as Ikenberry mulled what the next day could bring with a vote on Penn State’s membership, he was pessimistic:

“When the presidents went home, that’s when they talked to their athletic directors and all hell broke loose. Instead of having 10 votes in favor, I had a split-vote scenario where the best case was, I had six or seven votes and maybe I only had five.”

In fact, he had just discovered that day in a straw poll at the home of Iowa president Sandy Boyd that it was 5-to-5. The yeas: Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue and Wisconsin. The nays: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Minnesota and Northwestern.

Just the past December, all 10 had seemed onboard. What happened?

For the first time published anywhere, this is the complete story of how Penn State only by the narrowest of margins gained Big Ten membership that summer. And how easily it could now be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference instead.

It’s about how the egos of a couple of coaches with suddenly diminished power almost derailed an invitation that had already been announced. It’s a story of back-channel negotiation by a single woman of action among nine men to secure the critical final yes vote.

It’s told by the heads of three universities who were there in the middle of the action – one advocate who planned the mission (Illinois' Ikenberry), a second who opposed it on principle (Indiana’s Tom Ehrlich), and a third who punched it through against all odds (Wisconsin’s Donna Shalala).

All three remain active, vibrant and sharp of wit as ever in their late 70s and 80s. Ikenberry, 85, is a regent emeritus at Illinois who only 10 years ago returned to serve again as interim president. Ehrlich, 86, is a professor at Stanford. Shalala, 79, is a U.S. Congresswoman in south Florida.

I originally spoke with Ikenberry about the arduous ordeal of Penn State’s Big Ten membership in 1994. As the chair of what is now called the Council of Presidents and Chancellors, he told me then that the vote was not unanimous, as the Big Ten had previously announced, but was in fact by the slimmest of viable margins – 7-3. What he didn’t tell me then was exactly who voted “no” in the end. He left it to me to fill in the blanks.

This time, all three former presidents confirmed them. I spoke with Ikenberry for this story on Aug. 31 and he was the first to divulge them:

“I think it’s OK to confirm now that the negative votes were Michigan and Indiana, where you had two power coaches, one in football, one in basketball, and were uncontrollable by their presidents. And, for whatever reasons I never quite understood, Michigan State, was the third.”

Previously, I had surmised that Minnesota president Nils Hasselmo had submitted the third “no” vote. And he was indeed a “nay” when the original straw poll was taken on Saturday evening at Boyd’s home during the beginning of the Council of Ten’s regularly scheduled spring meetings on June 2-3 in Iowa City. Along with four other presidents.

Ikenberry was so discouraged that he called PSU president Jordan to tell him the deal very well might not get done:

"The debate had gone on for quite some time. We had met before in a living room in the Iowa president’s house and discussed this issue at quite some length and could not reach consensus.

“The next morning when I got up, I immediately called Bryce Jordan to tell him we were going back into session to work on this further. But I wanted him to know that I was not at all sure that I was going to be able to get the seven votes that we needed.”

The final vote was to be Sunday at an administrative conference room on the Iowa campus. Ikenberry recalled his frustration:

“It was a complete insurrection. And what complicated it further was, I didn’t need just a majority [6-4], I needed a supermajority [7-3]. I needed the seven votes. So, one or two negative votes could be very influential. Those turned out to be Indiana and Michigan and the two of them brought Michigan State along.”

All three were clearly firm no votes on Sunday morning. Ikenberry believed that Michigan football coach and soon-to-be AD Bo Schembechler and Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight, both larger-than-life and notoriously outspoken, were his ultimate antagonists.

Knight in particular had disparaged the PSU invitation days after the December 1989 announcement with the comment to a reporter: “I’ve been to Penn State. Penn State is a god---- camping trip. There’s nothing for 100 miles.”

“They were both absolutely in character,” said Ikenberry “They were used to controlling everything that touched them. And the fact that the presidents went off and did something and announced it without clearing it with them first I think really did tick them off.”

Bob Knight

Indiana coach Bob Knight referred to Penn State as "a god---- camping trip" when he heard about its invitation to the Big Ten. IU president Thomas Ehrlich later voted "no" on PSU's admittance to the league.
More important, Ikenberry thought the egotistic coaches bossed around their respective presidents, Michigan’s Jim Duderstadt and Indiana’s Ehrlich:

"Tom Ehrlich was a very refined, easygoing kind of a guy, but absolutely did not have control over Bobby Knight. I’m not certain why Knight inserted himself into this to begin with, but Ehrlich was not able to control him and never attempted to. So, Indiana went negative simply because Ehrlich wasn’t able to face up to him.

"Duderstadt was the same way. He was an engineer, a big guy, congenial person. But obviously not able to control Schembechler.

“And [then-MSU president] John DiBiaggio, who I knew extremely well, was simply out-to-lunch on this particular issue, for reasons I never really understood. I don’t know whether it was his football coach [George Perles] or his trustees. I always thought the latter. He was a great guy, a great human being. But he was not a fighter, not someone inclined to take this on as a struggle.”

MSU’s DiBiaggio died earlier this year at 87. Michigan’s Duderstadt declined comment for this story through former U-of-M associate AD Bruce Madej, though he confirmed his “no” vote.

But Indiana’s Ehrlich had plenty to say. During a Thursday phone conversation from his home in Palo Alto, Calif., I read Ikenberry’s quote about him not being able to control Knight and this was his response:

“Well, that’s just not accurate. I mean, I respect Stan very much. But Bob Knight and I had a big blowout the first year I was there.”

That confrontation regarded, among other issues, two in particular – Knight taking his basketball team off the floor during an exhibition game against the Soviet national team in November 1987, then a comment he made to NBC interviewer Connie Chung in May 1988 about fatalistic handling of stress: “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

Ehrlich publicly reprimanded Knight and condemned his behavior in both instances, judging the debacle with the Russians a “great embarrassment” and the comment to Chung: “in very poor taste. Period. That’s all I really want to say.” But Ehrlich did not suspend or discipline Knight in a tangible way.

Thomas Ehrich

Indiana president Thomas Ehrlich, now a professor at Stanford, was one of three Big Ten presidents who voted "no" on Penn State's Big Ten confirmation in June 1990.
Still, Ehrlich contends his public disparagement of the coach was enough to set him off:

"He was furious, most of all because he’d been snookered by a woman. But he was also mad at me because I spoke out very harshly about what he said and that it [didn’t represent] Indiana.

"So, we had a big set-to, because he had a job offer at New Mexico and ultimately didn’t take it. But for what I call ‘the seven days in May,’ it was a very yeasty time.

"But after that, for the next six years, Knight behaved himself while I was president. So, the notion that I [voted ‘no’ on Penn State] because Knight told me to is just not true. Jim Duderstadt and I did talk. But [the ‘no’ vote] wasn’t because I knuckled under to Knight.

"Knight was a bully and a loudmouth, no doubt about that. But that’s just not why I did that or other things.

“I voted ‘no’ because I felt that our teams traveling to Penn State was just too long a trip. I listened to the benefits as far as money from TV. But I thought the primary thing was supporting our intercollegiate athletes. And to schlep to State College, well, it’s not easy to get there.”

In 1990, the runway at the State College airport had not yet been expanded to accept major jet airliners, which meant that large charter flights could not land there. Instead, connections had to be made with smaller planes through nearby cities such as Pittsburgh or Cleveland, lengthening the time of road trips.

"I felt that was just taking too much campus time, academic time, away from our players.

“Penn State is a very good university. It’s a prominent university. Academically, it’s very strong. It’s just to hell and gone.”

So, Indiana, Michigan and Michigan State looked intractable.

But they weren’t the only trouble for Ikenberry. Minnesota president Hasselmo was getting considerable negative blowback from his athletic director Rick Bay who had been very publicly dead-set against PSU’s membership. And Northwestern president Arnold Weber had absorbed fears from many on his board of trustees that PSU’s inclusion could well mean NU’s banishment.

Shalala, a good friend of Weber’s, understood his sentiments perhaps better than any of the others. Wisconsin was just two hours up the road in Madison. During an Aug. 31 phone conversation, she related Northwestern’s trepidation:

“In many ways, even though they had decent sports, they did not then have competitive football. And he was afraid we were going to throw them out and just have nothing but public universities. Northwestern was the only private university.”

Ikenberry resolved to dig in and give the initiative one last push in the Sunday session:

"I saw Penn State as a really good fit academically, athletically and culturally with the Big Ten. That being said, once I raised this prospect with my colleagues and having had a unanimous agreement that it was the right thing to do, then having several of them jump ship once they got a little bit of heat, frankly, it was just a kind of struggle of power.

“I wasn’t going to back off simply because I had three or four or five presidents who were weak-kneed for whatever combination of reasons.”

Shalala was his most important ally. She strongly believed in bringing Penn State aboard. And critically, she had no real resistance from her board of trustees, her new AD Pat Richter or her new football coach Barry Alvarez:

"My board, while they weren’t enthusiastic, they left [the decision] to me.

"Barry and Pat were there by then. They were fine with it. Remember, Barry was a Pennsylvania guy.

"But we were trying to move the Big Ten into the big time and Penn State was a big-time institution. And Barry was not nervous about ever playing Penn State or about the competition of the future.

“So, my people were fine. But we had a very nervous group once they went back and talked to their boards. I was shocked that Michigan State pulled out. They have elected boards in Michigan. One of the reasons I didn’t take the Michigan job was, they have elected political boards.”

Donna Shalala

Former Wisconsin chancellor Donna Shalala, now a Democratic congresswoman from Florida, was the negotiator in getting the critical 7th "yea" vote for Penn State from Northwestern president Arnold Weber.
Shalala said Alvarez knew about the PSU invitation when the initial invitation was announced. Some presidents and chancellors informed select people on their boards or athletic departments and some didn’t. Schembechler was blindsided. So was Knight.

What ensued between December 1989 and June 1990 was something close to chaos. Sound familiar?

But unlike rookie commissioner Kevin Warren today with the Big Ten’s cancellation of fall sports, the Big Ten’s rookie commish in 1990 by all accounts managed to help build, if not a consensus, then at least a grudging acceptance of PSU’s eventual confirmation. As Shalala put it:

"Delany handled it pretty well. He’s a pro. And Stan. There were a bunch of us who were grown-ups. This was important. This was the beginning of the consolidation movement and we had to respond to the future.

“It had been a very parochial Big Ten. And by bringing in Delany, we knew we were moving into the big time.”

Delany has retreated from public life since his official retirement on June 30 and has declined all interview requests. He could not be reached for comment on this story. But Shalala said he recognized the big-picture significance of Penn State’s membership from the beginning:

“He was a guy who anticipated the future. And he was going to be a player in college athletics and we knew that when we hired him. It put us on the cutting edge. And Penn State was an important piece of that.”

Why?

“Because it broadened us from the narrow Midwest. I actually wanted to talk to Nebraska at the same time. Barry had played at Nebraska. But we could only do one at a time.”

During those six months, how would she describe Delany’s role in the process?

“I think he did keep it together. But I think those of us who really wanted to do it – the problem was, I never did trust the Michigan people. Once the University of Michigan said no, we were going to have to maneuver to get it done, to get the votes.”

So, Ikenberry and Shalala girded for the challenge of flipping Minnesota’s Hasselmo and Northwestern’s Weber on Sunday before the vote. Ikenberry handled Hasselmo and Shalala took on Weber. That they got it done is a study in finesse negotiation.

Ikenberry framed his persuasion toward the Minnesota president, who died in January 2019, in hypotheticals. He knew Hasselmo was being pressured by his AD Bay, to vote “no,” but that his own sentiments were malleable:

"It was clear to me that, if he were the deciding vote, Nils Hasselmo, who was a very good friend and just a wonderful guy, would vote ‘yes’. If he were the only outstanding vote.

“But he wasn’t going to vote ‘yes’ if the thing wasn’t going to pass anyway. He wasn’t walking the plank just for symbolism.”

Ikenberry received assurance from Hasselmo just before Sunday’s session that he’d fall into the yeas if Weber did. And so, as Ikenberry distilled it:

“Arnie Weber was the key.”

It didn’t hurt that Weber was not only an Illinois graduate but something of a free spirit as university presidents go. An economics major at UI, as an avocation he edited a long-forgotten risqué humor magazine called Shaft created by none other than soon-to-be Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. Weber died just three weeks ago on Aug. 20, a month shy of his 91st birthday.

Ikenberry knew Weber’s issue with PSU: “Northwestern was paranoid because they thought Penn State was being brought in to the Big Ten in order to kick them out. Arnie’s trustees I’m sure were telling him: ‘Don’t mess with this. It’s not going to be good for us.’”

Arnold Weber

Once assured Penn State would not be replacing his school in the Big Ten, Northwestern president Arnold Weber flipped his decision from "nay" to "yea" just before the final vote.
Ikenberry sensed the vote to be all but locked at 6-4 unless something dramatic happened.

"The thing that changed it on Sunday morning was this: We had worked for about two hours from about 8 until close to 10. We took a break. And I was about to throw in the towel.

"Donna said: ‘Let’s not vote on this yet. Let’s adjourn. Let’s take a break for 15 minutes and then come back and vote.’

“And during that 15 minutes she got Arnie Weber and me together. We’re off to the side while everybody’s having a cup of coffee and chatting. Donna said: ‘Arnie, I know you’ve got a hard time with this. But if you will vote yes on this, I will precede it with a motion that says the Big Ten will not reconsider its structure, including adding or removing members from the Big Ten Conference for a number of years.’”

Shalala, who would become Secretary of Health and Human Services in Bill Clinton’s cabinet just three years later (1993-2001), then president of the University of Miami (2001-15), was already adept at politics. She recalled her persuasion of Weber:

"We cut a deal. We would guarantee [Northwestern] that we would not allow another school in after Penn State – for I don’t remember exactly how many years.

"But Arnie was a good friend of mine. We had to assure him that we would not take another school in. He was worried about Notre Dame, too.

“Tell you the truth, no one was thinking about throwing Northwestern out. We simply wanted to add Penn State to get the Eastern media market. And because Penn State looked like us. It was a big public [university] with lots of sports, nationally competitive.”

And because of the expansion into Eastern television markets, the Big Ten became a more valuable product to cable suppliers and networks.

“And Arnie bought the deal. It was like old-fashioned politics. We walked out, we negotiated the deal, we went back in and we voted.”

Ikenberry was first amazed, then elated:

"Arnie had this kind of low mumble-grumble voice. And he mumbled out something that resembled an affirmative grunt.

“I confirmed with Nils Hasselmo that if he were a ‘yes,’ we could pass this thing. And he had no problem and confirmed it.”

Ikenberry’s reaction?

“I felt like it was an absolute miracle. I knew I had it.”

So, Donna Shalala made Penn State’s Big Ten membership happen?

"Oh, she absolutely did.

"We walked back into the conference room. I think there was some inkling from our colleagues that the landscape had changed. There was a smile on my face, for one thing, where there hadn’t been before.

"We reconvened. And Donna made her motion to not consider [the expansion] issue for another three years. And then she also presented the motion to permit Penn State into the Big Ten and proceed with a study on that over the next year. That was approved, 7-3. Michigan, Michigan State and Indiana were the 'no’s.

"It all went very quickly. I think we were all done in probably 15 to 20 minutes. We said: This is going to be a controversial decision. We can’t announce this today. We need to have time and talk to our athletic directors and coaches. And some needed to talk to their trustees.

“We agreed we’d announce it on Wednesday.”

Not possible. By Sunday night, several major outlets had been leaked the story.

“First thing Monday morning, I got a call from Sports Illustrated,” recalled Ikenberry. “The horse was out of the barn. It just blew out.”

Ikenberry was to make a formal presentation to Penn State on Thursday:

“I was scheduled to be in New York that morning. I was to be in State College later that afternoon. And I was exhausted. I remember I lay down for about an hour or so at the Nittany Lion Inn.”

When he arrived at PSU’s graduate school auditorium, he found it packed to the gills. Hundreds were in attendance, including PSU president Jordan, athletic director Tarman, Paterno, other coaches and faculty:

"They were all hanging from the rafters. Then, I officially announced the news to Penn State.

“And it was as if it was the second coming. They were delighted.”

Stanley Ikenberry

Stan Ikenberry was called briefly back to interim duty as Illinois president in 2010.
In retrospect, is he glad he fought the fight? He had, after all, been a VP at Penn State for a decade:

"That gave me a special perspective. I don’t think I had any conscious bias. I never felt obliged by that connection to somehow deliver for Penn State. But I did know them extremely well because I’d been there for 10 years. And I just thought it was a good fit.

"And I think it has turned out to be a good fit. I think the verdict is still out on this second round that brought the Big Ten from 11 to 14. I think that’s still a work in progress. Those decisions were made at a different time by different people.

"But the Penn State addition turned out to be a very good economic decision for the universities involved. It absolutely was not made on financial grounds. It was made on academic grounds.

“Once we concluded it was a good cultural, academic and athletic fit, that was what really mattered. The financial implications were that we simply didn’t want to create a financial negative. And we were convinced it wouldn’t be. But we didn’t have anything to suggest it would be as positive as it turned out to be.”

Indeed, Penn State and the Big Ten have been a windfall marriage for both. The school has opened up an entire region and revenue stream to the league. And the league and its associations – college deans, scientific researchers, business and student affairs officers and the like who all crosspollinate regularly – have raised the profile of the school.

Now, imagine the ramifications if Ikenberry and Shalala’s 11th-hour wrangling had not succeeded. When I wrote my original story on this topic in 1994, Tarman a few days later pulled me aside at a Penn State basketball game and told me then-ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan had called him the day after the original invitation announcement in 1989 and exclaimed: “Why didn’t you tell us you wanted in a conference? We’d have had you in in a heartbeat!” I called Corrigan in 2013 for a story and he confirmed that’s exactly what happened, that he’d have “made it his business” to persuade the ACC presidents to invite Penn State. Ikenberry is convinced they would be in the ACC now:

“I believe that would have happened. Penn State would not have been left out in the cold very long. They would’ve gone someplace, yes. Very likely the ACC.”

Which would have had profound implications on the subsequent conference hopping of the next two decades. Would the ACC have subsequently invited Florida State or Miami? Probably. But Pittsburgh and Boston College. Much less likely. Maybe Syracuse. Would Maryland have left for the Big Ten? Inconceivable. Would Rutgers be in the Big Ten? Hard to fathom how.

As for what Penn State membership in the ACC would mean today, 30 years later, well, you can fill in your own blanks.
 
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Penn State is gonna take a big financial hit to join the ACC? How do we square that circle?

ACC is locked into a worse contract than the one that Texas is rushing to escape from the Big 12. And that bad ACC contract runs through 2036. No reason for ESPN to reopen that.

There's too many smaller programs/private schools to feed in the ACC.

If you want more ACC schools in the Big Ten, that's a likely outcome, so you could get schools like UVa/Va Tech/UNC/Ga Tech/Clemson/FSU/Miami considered here in the next round of Big Ten expansion.
 
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Couple of things

1. They can play less than 12 regular season games (based on current schedule), but not more than that. But doubt that any school would want to give up any kind of revenue opportunity. Bottom line - just ask tell the kids to play more games, not less. In my lifetime, we have gone from 10 to 12 games, no reason not to tell them to play 13 regular season games.

2. The last time PSU played Utah State, Eric Hipple was their quarterback. (This is the unimportant trivia that I know).
Agree about the revenue aspect of the 12th game. (I did mention that, I'm just thinking of a different approach to scheduling that 12th game.)

Utah State 1977 at home - homecoming, iirc. Hipple at QB, and they had a RB named Parros or Parris who played in the NFL for a while, I think. They were a decent team for a few years in that late 70s stretch.
Rainy day, we ran the ball about 100 times with Matt Suhey and others just pounding and pounding, and won a tough game by 16-7, meaning that many folks who had a betting interest in that game were fuming. Sidler at NG in what was essentially a 5 man front was unstoppable that game, completely overwhelming the poor Aggie Center and Guards. Of course, that D Line with Millen and Clark and Lally and (who at the other DE?!?!) were pretty unstoppable all season long.
 
Agree about the revenue aspect of the 12th game. (I did mention that, I'm just thinking of a different approach to scheduling that 12th game.)

Utah State 1977 at home - homecoming, iirc. Hipple at QB, and they had a RB named Parros or Parris who played in the NFL for a while, I think. They were a decent team for a few years in that late 70s stretch.
Rainy day, we ran the ball about 100 times with Matt Suhey and others just pounding and pounding, and won a tough game by 16-7, meaning that many folks who had a betting interest in that game were fuming. Sidler at NG in what was essentially a 5 man front was unstoppable that game, completely overwhelming the poor Aggie Center and Guards. Of course, that D Line with Millen and Clark and Lally and (who at the other DE?!?!) were pretty unstoppable all season long.
I can picture the other DE but can't seem to name him.
 

why not?
It’s expansion season again and thinking about our old friend Bo, and how the BIG welcomed Penn State with open arms. Right now, Penn State/Notre Dame to ACC may be the only move that could make Texas/Oklahoma look like the consolation prize.
I have to say this every time this topic comes up.

As a proud ACC graduate, I feel confident in telling you: PSU DOES NOT WANT to be in the ACC and neither should its fans/alumni.

It is a second tier conference for football, it doesn't have hockey and its wrestling is (fart noises).
 
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Div. 1 hockey is growing, so PSU probably needs to be affiliated with the B1G one way or the other there. But if the highly unlikely were to happen and we would leave the B1G, they may say too bad for you, Lions. So we would likely be off to the conf with UMass and others in the northeast, which ain't shabby. All highly speculative with no support for the hypothetical.

Hockey is adding a few Div. 1 teams each of the next few seasons, I think. And other B1G schools are considering it, too, like Illinois (maybe I read that here on BWI?) As one who really enjoys PSU hockey, and all of hockey more and more as a result of PSU's involvement, I'm all for it.
 
Div. 1 hockey is growing, so PSU probably needs to be affiliated with the B1G one way or the other there. But if the highly unlikely were to happen and we would leave the B1G, they may say too bad for you, Lions. So we would likely be off to the conf with UMass and others in the northeast, which ain't shabby. All highly speculative with no support for the hypothetical.
Hockey is adding a few Div. 1 teams each of the next few seasons, I think. And other B1G schools are considering it, too, like Illinois (maybe I read that here on BWI?) As one who really enjoys PSU hockey, and all of hockey more and more as a result of PSU's involvement, I'm all for it.

Agreed. It's not all about football. Hockey would find a place elsewhere. I wish I could get up for a game, but with two youth players it's darn near impossible to find an open weekend date from September through March. My one son was on the ice today with a future Nittany Lion. Great kid. Surely we'll see a couple Penn Staters get drafted this weekend.
 
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Div. 1 hockey is growing
It’s evolving right now more than it’s growing. Alabama Huntsville suspended its program for at least the next year. Robert Morris shut down its men’s and women’s programs and it’s iffy if they will be back. And both Alaska schools are in trouble as well.

Long Island played its first season this past winter. St. Thomas is starting up a program this fall if all goes as planned. Lindenwood is trying to start a Men’s program. So is Augustana.

So presently it’s one step forward another step back. Hopefully post covid things start moving forward again.
 
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Penn State is gonna take a big financial hit to join the ACC? How do we square that circle?

ACC is locked into a worse contract than the one that Texas is rushing to escape from the Big 12. And that bad ACC contract runs through 2036. No reason for ESPN to reopen that.

There's too many smaller programs/private schools to feed in the ACC.

If you want more ACC schools in the Big Ten, that's a likely outcome, so you could get schools like UVa/Va Tech/UNC/Ga Tech/Clemson/FSU/Miami considered here in the next round of Big Ten expansion.
Take Clemson away today and the ACC is nothing more than a BB conference. First it was Miami, then FSU, now Clemson. It’s a one horse football conference.

Don’t be shocked if there are defectors in both SEC and ACC. There is big, big time bucks in the B1G. The Federal research money that goes to the B1G and political clout it’s states have is unbelievable. So much more than in the SEC. It could become a CFB Civil War, north vs. south.
 
Penn State is gonna take a big financial hit to join the ACC? How do we square that circle?

ACC is locked into a worse contract than the one that Texas is rushing to escape from the Big 12. And that bad ACC contract runs through 2036. No reason for ESPN to reopen that.

There's too many smaller programs/private schools to feed in the ACC.

If you want more ACC schools in the Big Ten, that's a likely outcome, so you could get schools like UVa/Va Tech/UNC/Ga Tech/Clemson/FSU/Miami considered here in the next round of Big Ten expansion.
You got this right.
If the Big Ten snags Kansas now...
GaTech, UVA, UNC, Duke, Clemson....to go to 20.
And then...BC, FSU, Miami, VaTech to go to 24.

Sorry Pitt (not sorry), Louisiville, NCSt, Wake, Notre Dame (ha! suckers!), and Syracuse.
 
I have to say this every time this topic comes up.

As a proud ACC graduate, I feel confident in telling you: PSU DOES NOT WANT to be in the ACC and neither should its fans/alumni.

It is a second tier conference for football, it doesn't have hockey and its wrestling is (fart noises).
Top notch obviously in Basketball and a Football schedule that would include, ND, Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, Pitt etc.. sign me up.. I get it's all about the $ and PSU probably isn't going anywhere, but I would think the ACC would look to go big and not only add PSU, but a WVU, which is solid in both Football and Basketball, but add a UCF which could be a giant in a few yrs if in a big boy conference. MD might even go back as well if PSU were to be lured away.
 
I think PSU has way more in common with eastern schools and the ACC in general. But from a financial perspective the B10 is more lucrative than the ACC, especially from the top down. Also, don’t forget the penalties for walking away from a conference, they’re significant.
 
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PSU should just keep pushing the B1G to add more Eastern schools. It creates something closer to the conference that PSU always wanted to join in the first place, and there is really no great argument against it. But the B1G's natural inclination is to expand into the Plains, so there will be some tension.
 

How Penn State nearly ended up in ACC: Of Knight and Bo and which Big Ten schools voted “no” in 1990​

By David Jones | djones@pennlive.com
Updated Sep 14, 2020; Posted Sep 12, 2020

It was all coming apart. And Stan Ikenberry felt powerless to stop the disassembling of his plan to bring Penn State into the Big Ten.

Thirty years ago this summer, on a Saturday night in June, the president of the University of Illinois sat in his hotel room in Iowa City and pondered how it all seemed to be going wrong. Only a few months before, It seemed as if there’d been total consensus among his presidential brethren that adding Penn State to the conference was a great idea.

The notion had been germinated by a call from PSU president Bryce Jordan who then sent his business manager Steve Garban, his athletic director Jim Tarman and his football coach Joe Paterno as emissaries. They made a full presentation to Ikenberry at a covert meeting at the UI president’s home in Urbana, Ill. He then soon after communicated their league membership proposal at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Big Ten presidents and chancellors in Chicago. By all accounts, it was very well received.

Though it would be the Big Ten’s first change in membership in over four decades, all agreed it made sense.

And the presidents' little club called the Council of Ten were free to wield the power they’d recently acquired for themselves. Bent on riding herd over what they saw as athletic departments out of control, they had incorporated and assumed something resembling dictatorial power over the conference.

Flush with newfound clout and resolve, the presidents' unilateral announcement on Dec. 14, 1989, made on a conference call by their young ambitious commissioner Jim Delany, was premature. Many coaches and athletic directors had not only not been consulted by their presidents, they’d not even been informed.

“We left that meeting in Chicago all in agreement that it should happen,” remembered Ikenberry recently. “It was only after the news broke publicly that the divisions began to occur.”

One particular figurehead in transition had been on that call and was nothing short of flabbergasted. Bo Schembechler had been called off the football practice field prepping for his final game as coach before sliding into the AD role at Michigan. His reaction to Delany after a few seconds of stunned silence: “You gotta be sh—ting me!”

Bo Schembechler

Michigan coach Bo Schembechler reacted to Jim Delany's conference-call announcement of Penn State's Big Ten invitation with expletive-loaded astonishment.
And so began a period for Ikenberry where his plan began to unravel the moment it became public. For the next six months, the 10 presidents went before their coaches, ADs, faculty reps and boards of trustees and faded the heat. For some, that kitchen was too hot.

By that night of June 2 as Ikenberry mulled what the next day could bring with a vote on Penn State’s membership, he was pessimistic:

“When the presidents went home, that’s when they talked to their athletic directors and all hell broke loose. Instead of having 10 votes in favor, I had a split-vote scenario where the best case was, I had six or seven votes and maybe I only had five.”

In fact, he had just discovered that day in a straw poll at the home of Iowa president Sandy Boyd that it was 5-to-5. The yeas: Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue and Wisconsin. The nays: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Minnesota and Northwestern.

Just the past December, all 10 had seemed onboard. What happened?

For the first time published anywhere, this is the complete story of how Penn State only by the narrowest of margins gained Big Ten membership that summer. And how easily it could now be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference instead.

It’s about how the egos of a couple of coaches with suddenly diminished power almost derailed an invitation that had already been announced. It’s a story of back-channel negotiation by a single woman of action among nine men to secure the critical final yes vote.

It’s told by the heads of three universities who were there in the middle of the action – one advocate who planned the mission (Illinois' Ikenberry), a second who opposed it on principle (Indiana’s Tom Ehrlich), and a third who punched it through against all odds (Wisconsin’s Donna Shalala).

All three remain active, vibrant and sharp of wit as ever in their late 70s and 80s. Ikenberry, 85, is a regent emeritus at Illinois who only 10 years ago returned to serve again as interim president. Ehrlich, 86, is a professor at Stanford. Shalala, 79, is a U.S. Congresswoman in south Florida.

I originally spoke with Ikenberry about the arduous ordeal of Penn State’s Big Ten membership in 1994. As the chair of what is now called the Council of Presidents and Chancellors, he told me then that the vote was not unanimous, as the Big Ten had previously announced, but was in fact by the slimmest of viable margins – 7-3. What he didn’t tell me then was exactly who voted “no” in the end. He left it to me to fill in the blanks.

This time, all three former presidents confirmed them. I spoke with Ikenberry for this story on Aug. 31 and he was the first to divulge them:

“I think it’s OK to confirm now that the negative votes were Michigan and Indiana, where you had two power coaches, one in football, one in basketball, and were uncontrollable by their presidents. And, for whatever reasons I never quite understood, Michigan State, was the third.”

Previously, I had surmised that Minnesota president Nils Hasselmo had submitted the third “no” vote. And he was indeed a “nay” when the original straw poll was taken on Saturday evening at Boyd’s home during the beginning of the Council of Ten’s regularly scheduled spring meetings on June 2-3 in Iowa City. Along with four other presidents.

Ikenberry was so discouraged that he called PSU president Jordan to tell him the deal very well might not get done:

"The debate had gone on for quite some time. We had met before in a living room in the Iowa president’s house and discussed this issue at quite some length and could not reach consensus.

“The next morning when I got up, I immediately called Bryce Jordan to tell him we were going back into session to work on this further. But I wanted him to know that I was not at all sure that I was going to be able to get the seven votes that we needed.”

The final vote was to be Sunday at an administrative conference room on the Iowa campus. Ikenberry recalled his frustration:

“It was a complete insurrection. And what complicated it further was, I didn’t need just a majority [6-4], I needed a supermajority [7-3]. I needed the seven votes. So, one or two negative votes could be very influential. Those turned out to be Indiana and Michigan and the two of them brought Michigan State along.”

All three were clearly firm no votes on Sunday morning. Ikenberry believed that Michigan football coach and soon-to-be AD Bo Schembechler and Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight, both larger-than-life and notoriously outspoken, were his ultimate antagonists.

Knight in particular had disparaged the PSU invitation days after the December 1989 announcement with the comment to a reporter: “I’ve been to Penn State. Penn State is a god---- camping trip. There’s nothing for 100 miles.”

“They were both absolutely in character,” said Ikenberry “They were used to controlling everything that touched them. And the fact that the presidents went off and did something and announced it without clearing it with them first I think really did tick them off.”

Bob Knight

Indiana coach Bob Knight referred to Penn State as "a god---- camping trip" when he heard about its invitation to the Big Ten. IU president Thomas Ehrlich later voted "no" on PSU's admittance to the league.
More important, Ikenberry thought the egotistic coaches bossed around their respective presidents, Michigan’s Jim Duderstadt and Indiana’s Ehrlich:

"Tom Ehrlich was a very refined, easygoing kind of a guy, but absolutely did not have control over Bobby Knight. I’m not certain why Knight inserted himself into this to begin with, but Ehrlich was not able to control him and never attempted to. So, Indiana went negative simply because Ehrlich wasn’t able to face up to him.

"Duderstadt was the same way. He was an engineer, a big guy, congenial person. But obviously not able to control Schembechler.

“And [then-MSU president] John DiBiaggio, who I knew extremely well, was simply out-to-lunch on this particular issue, for reasons I never really understood. I don’t know whether it was his football coach [George Perles] or his trustees. I always thought the latter. He was a great guy, a great human being. But he was not a fighter, not someone inclined to take this on as a struggle.”

MSU’s DiBiaggio died earlier this year at 87. Michigan’s Duderstadt declined comment for this story through former U-of-M associate AD Bruce Madej, though he confirmed his “no” vote.

But Indiana’s Ehrlich had plenty to say. During a Thursday phone conversation from his home in Palo Alto, Calif., I read Ikenberry’s quote about him not being able to control Knight and this was his response:

“Well, that’s just not accurate. I mean, I respect Stan very much. But Bob Knight and I had a big blowout the first year I was there.”

That confrontation regarded, among other issues, two in particular – Knight taking his basketball team off the floor during an exhibition game against the Soviet national team in November 1987, then a comment he made to NBC interviewer Connie Chung in May 1988 about fatalistic handling of stress: “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

Ehrlich publicly reprimanded Knight and condemned his behavior in both instances, judging the debacle with the Russians a “great embarrassment” and the comment to Chung: “in very poor taste. Period. That’s all I really want to say.” But Ehrlich did not suspend or discipline Knight in a tangible way.

Thomas Ehrich

Indiana president Thomas Ehrlich, now a professor at Stanford, was one of three Big Ten presidents who voted "no" on Penn State's Big Ten confirmation in June 1990.
Still, Ehrlich contends his public disparagement of the coach was enough to set him off:

"He was furious, most of all because he’d been snookered by a woman. But he was also mad at me because I spoke out very harshly about what he said and that it [didn’t represent] Indiana.

"So, we had a big set-to, because he had a job offer at New Mexico and ultimately didn’t take it. But for what I call ‘the seven days in May,’ it was a very yeasty time.

"But after that, for the next six years, Knight behaved himself while I was president. So, the notion that I [voted ‘no’ on Penn State] because Knight told me to is just not true. Jim Duderstadt and I did talk. But [the ‘no’ vote] wasn’t because I knuckled under to Knight.

"Knight was a bully and a loudmouth, no doubt about that. But that’s just not why I did that or other things.

“I voted ‘no’ because I felt that our teams traveling to Penn State was just too long a trip. I listened to the benefits as far as money from TV. But I thought the primary thing was supporting our intercollegiate athletes. And to schlep to State College, well, it’s not easy to get there.”

In 1990, the runway at the State College airport had not yet been expanded to accept major jet airliners, which meant that large charter flights could not land there. Instead, connections had to be made with smaller planes through nearby cities such as Pittsburgh or Cleveland, lengthening the time of road trips.

"I felt that was just taking too much campus time, academic time, away from our players.

“Penn State is a very good university. It’s a prominent university. Academically, it’s very strong. It’s just to hell and gone.”

So, Indiana, Michigan and Michigan State looked intractable.

But they weren’t the only trouble for Ikenberry. Minnesota president Hasselmo was getting considerable negative blowback from his athletic director Rick Bay who had been very publicly dead-set against PSU’s membership. And Northwestern president Arnold Weber had absorbed fears from many on his board of trustees that PSU’s inclusion could well mean NU’s banishment.

Shalala, a good friend of Weber’s, understood his sentiments perhaps better than any of the others. Wisconsin was just two hours up the road in Madison. During an Aug. 31 phone conversation, she related Northwestern’s trepidation:

“In many ways, even though they had decent sports, they did not then have competitive football. And he was afraid we were going to throw them out and just have nothing but public universities. Northwestern was the only private university.”

Ikenberry resolved to dig in and give the initiative one last push in the Sunday session:

"I saw Penn State as a really good fit academically, athletically and culturally with the Big Ten. That being said, once I raised this prospect with my colleagues and having had a unanimous agreement that it was the right thing to do, then having several of them jump ship once they got a little bit of heat, frankly, it was just a kind of struggle of power.

“I wasn’t going to back off simply because I had three or four or five presidents who were weak-kneed for whatever combination of reasons.”

Shalala was his most important ally. She strongly believed in bringing Penn State aboard. And critically, she had no real resistance from her board of trustees, her new AD Pat Richter or her new football coach Barry Alvarez:

"My board, while they weren’t enthusiastic, they left [the decision] to me.

"Barry and Pat were there by then. They were fine with it. Remember, Barry was a Pennsylvania guy.

"But we were trying to move the Big Ten into the big time and Penn State was a big-time institution. And Barry was not nervous about ever playing Penn State or about the competition of the future.

“So, my people were fine. But we had a very nervous group once they went back and talked to their boards. I was shocked that Michigan State pulled out. They have elected boards in Michigan. One of the reasons I didn’t take the Michigan job was, they have elected political boards.”

Donna Shalala

Former Wisconsin chancellor Donna Shalala, now a Democratic congresswoman from Florida, was the negotiator in getting the critical 7th "yea" vote for Penn State from Northwestern president Arnold Weber.
Shalala said Alvarez knew about the PSU invitation when the initial invitation was announced. Some presidents and chancellors informed select people on their boards or athletic departments and some didn’t. Schembechler was blindsided. So was Knight.

What ensued between December 1989 and June 1990 was something close to chaos. Sound familiar?

But unlike rookie commissioner Kevin Warren today with the Big Ten’s cancellation of fall sports, the Big Ten’s rookie commish in 1990 by all accounts managed to help build, if not a consensus, then at least a grudging acceptance of PSU’s eventual confirmation. As Shalala put it:

"Delany handled it pretty well. He’s a pro. And Stan. There were a bunch of us who were grown-ups. This was important. This was the beginning of the consolidation movement and we had to respond to the future.

“It had been a very parochial Big Ten. And by bringing in Delany, we knew we were moving into the big time.”

Delany has retreated from public life since his official retirement on June 30 and has declined all interview requests. He could not be reached for comment on this story. But Shalala said he recognized the big-picture significance of Penn State’s membership from the beginning:

“He was a guy who anticipated the future. And he was going to be a player in college athletics and we knew that when we hired him. It put us on the cutting edge. And Penn State was an important piece of that.”

Why?

“Because it broadened us from the narrow Midwest. I actually wanted to talk to Nebraska at the same time. Barry had played at Nebraska. But we could only do one at a time.”

During those six months, how would she describe Delany’s role in the process?

“I think he did keep it together. But I think those of us who really wanted to do it – the problem was, I never did trust the Michigan people. Once the University of Michigan said no, we were going to have to maneuver to get it done, to get the votes.”

So, Ikenberry and Shalala girded for the challenge of flipping Minnesota’s Hasselmo and Northwestern’s Weber on Sunday before the vote. Ikenberry handled Hasselmo and Shalala took on Weber. That they got it done is a study in finesse negotiation.

Ikenberry framed his persuasion toward the Minnesota president, who died in January 2019, in hypotheticals. He knew Hasselmo was being pressured by his AD Bay, to vote “no,” but that his own sentiments were malleable:

"It was clear to me that, if he were the deciding vote, Nils Hasselmo, who was a very good friend and just a wonderful guy, would vote ‘yes’. If he were the only outstanding vote.

“But he wasn’t going to vote ‘yes’ if the thing wasn’t going to pass anyway. He wasn’t walking the plank just for symbolism.”

Ikenberry received assurance from Hasselmo just before Sunday’s session that he’d fall into the yeas if Weber did. And so, as Ikenberry distilled it:

“Arnie Weber was the key.”

It didn’t hurt that Weber was not only an Illinois graduate but something of a free spirit as university presidents go. An economics major at UI, as an avocation he edited a long-forgotten risqué humor magazine called Shaft created by none other than soon-to-be Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. Weber died just three weeks ago on Aug. 20, a month shy of his 91st birthday.

Ikenberry knew Weber’s issue with PSU: “Northwestern was paranoid because they thought Penn State was being brought in to the Big Ten in order to kick them out. Arnie’s trustees I’m sure were telling him: ‘Don’t mess with this. It’s not going to be good for us.’”

Arnold Weber

Once assured Penn State would not be replacing his school in the Big Ten, Northwestern president Arnold Weber flipped his decision from "nay" to "yea" just before the final vote.
Ikenberry sensed the vote to be all but locked at 6-4 unless something dramatic happened.

"The thing that changed it on Sunday morning was this: We had worked for about two hours from about 8 until close to 10. We took a break. And I was about to throw in the towel.

"Donna said: ‘Let’s not vote on this yet. Let’s adjourn. Let’s take a break for 15 minutes and then come back and vote.’

“And during that 15 minutes she got Arnie Weber and me together. We’re off to the side while everybody’s having a cup of coffee and chatting. Donna said: ‘Arnie, I know you’ve got a hard time with this. But if you will vote yes on this, I will precede it with a motion that says the Big Ten will not reconsider its structure, including adding or removing members from the Big Ten Conference for a number of years.’”

Shalala, who would become Secretary of Health and Human Services in Bill Clinton’s cabinet just three years later (1993-2001), then president of the University of Miami (2001-15), was already adept at politics. She recalled her persuasion of Weber:

"We cut a deal. We would guarantee [Northwestern] that we would not allow another school in after Penn State – for I don’t remember exactly how many years.

"But Arnie was a good friend of mine. We had to assure him that we would not take another school in. He was worried about Notre Dame, too.

“Tell you the truth, no one was thinking about throwing Northwestern out. We simply wanted to add Penn State to get the Eastern media market. And because Penn State looked like us. It was a big public [university] with lots of sports, nationally competitive.”

And because of the expansion into Eastern television markets, the Big Ten became a more valuable product to cable suppliers and networks.

“And Arnie bought the deal. It was like old-fashioned politics. We walked out, we negotiated the deal, we went back in and we voted.”

Ikenberry was first amazed, then elated:

"Arnie had this kind of low mumble-grumble voice. And he mumbled out something that resembled an affirmative grunt.

“I confirmed with Nils Hasselmo that if he were a ‘yes,’ we could pass this thing. And he had no problem and confirmed it.”

Ikenberry’s reaction?

“I felt like it was an absolute miracle. I knew I had it.”

So, Donna Shalala made Penn State’s Big Ten membership happen?

"Oh, she absolutely did.

"We walked back into the conference room. I think there was some inkling from our colleagues that the landscape had changed. There was a smile on my face, for one thing, where there hadn’t been before.

"We reconvened. And Donna made her motion to not consider [the expansion] issue for another three years. And then she also presented the motion to permit Penn State into the Big Ten and proceed with a study on that over the next year. That was approved, 7-3. Michigan, Michigan State and Indiana were the 'no’s.

"It all went very quickly. I think we were all done in probably 15 to 20 minutes. We said: This is going to be a controversial decision. We can’t announce this today. We need to have time and talk to our athletic directors and coaches. And some needed to talk to their trustees.

“We agreed we’d announce it on Wednesday.”

Not possible. By Sunday night, several major outlets had been leaked the story.

“First thing Monday morning, I got a call from Sports Illustrated,” recalled Ikenberry. “The horse was out of the barn. It just blew out.”

Ikenberry was to make a formal presentation to Penn State on Thursday:

“I was scheduled to be in New York that morning. I was to be in State College later that afternoon. And I was exhausted. I remember I lay down for about an hour or so at the Nittany Lion Inn.”

When he arrived at PSU’s graduate school auditorium, he found it packed to the gills. Hundreds were in attendance, including PSU president Jordan, athletic director Tarman, Paterno, other coaches and faculty:

"They were all hanging from the rafters. Then, I officially announced the news to Penn State.

“And it was as if it was the second coming. They were delighted.”

Stanley Ikenberry

Stan Ikenberry was called briefly back to interim duty as Illinois president in 2010.
In retrospect, is he glad he fought the fight? He had, after all, been a VP at Penn State for a decade:

"That gave me a special perspective. I don’t think I had any conscious bias. I never felt obliged by that connection to somehow deliver for Penn State. But I did know them extremely well because I’d been there for 10 years. And I just thought it was a good fit.

"And I think it has turned out to be a good fit. I think the verdict is still out on this second round that brought the Big Ten from 11 to 14. I think that’s still a work in progress. Those decisions were made at a different time by different people.

"But the Penn State addition turned out to be a very good economic decision for the universities involved. It absolutely was not made on financial grounds. It was made on academic grounds.

“Once we concluded it was a good cultural, academic and athletic fit, that was what really mattered. The financial implications were that we simply didn’t want to create a financial negative. And we were convinced it wouldn’t be. But we didn’t have anything to suggest it would be as positive as it turned out to be.”

Indeed, Penn State and the Big Ten have been a windfall marriage for both. The school has opened up an entire region and revenue stream to the league. And the league and its associations – college deans, scientific researchers, business and student affairs officers and the like who all crosspollinate regularly – have raised the profile of the school.

Now, imagine the ramifications if Ikenberry and Shalala’s 11th-hour wrangling had not succeeded. When I wrote my original story on this topic in 1994, Tarman a few days later pulled me aside at a Penn State basketball game and told me then-ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan had called him the day after the original invitation announcement in 1989 and exclaimed: “Why didn’t you tell us you wanted in a conference? We’d have had you in in a heartbeat!” I called Corrigan in 2013 for a story and he confirmed that’s exactly what happened, that he’d have “made it his business” to persuade the ACC presidents to invite Penn State. Ikenberry is convinced they would be in the ACC now:

“I believe that would have happened. Penn State would not have been left out in the cold very long. They would’ve gone someplace, yes. Very likely the ACC.”

Which would have had profound implications on the subsequent conference hopping of the next two decades. Would the ACC have subsequently invited Florida State or Miami? Probably. But Pittsburgh and Boston College. Much less likely. Maybe Syracuse. Would Maryland have left for the Big Ten? Inconceivable. Would Rutgers be in the Big Ten? Hard to fathom how.

As for what Penn State membership in the ACC would mean today, 30 years later, well, you can fill in your own blanks.

So schembechler ran the place. He also enabled a sexual abuser. F*ck michigan.

And knight ran the place. He also was a bullying, obnoxious prick. F*ck indiana.
 
Sorry, hockey will not be a determining factor.
it does seem that FB and possibly MBB drive the direction. ice hockey is an expensive sport, which is why programs have failed. It took a major donor to get PSU program up. PSU has some other programs that work well in the BIG - WVB and wrestling to name a few. agree that hockey would be non-factor if PSU moved. PSU would find a hockey free standing conference - i.e. Notre Dame seems to be able to do this.
 

why not?
It’s expansion season again and thinking about our old friend Bo, and how the BIG welcomed Penn State with open arms. Right now, Penn State/Notre Dame to ACC may be the only move that could make Texas/Oklahoma look like the consolation prize.
Going to the ACC is about as exciting as joining the MAC sorry BC, Pitt, Syracuse, VT you had your chance 35 years ago.
 
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