After being given authority Monday by Oklahoma regents to seek another conference for the Sooners’ sports teams, university president David Boren made it clear that he has some issues with the Big 12. Among them:
On Baylor’s threatened legal action against Texas A&M that has held up the Aggies’ planned move to the Southeastern Conference:
“I don’t think you build trust and I don’t think you build stability in a conference by the threat of litigation,” Boren said. “If it takes the threat of litigation to keep a conference together, that’s not the right way to proceed … I frankly do not think that it helps the cause of conference stability when any university threatens lawsuits, in order to try and maintain it.”
On regrets that the league is at a crossroads again so soon after almost coming apart in 2010:
“I have tremendous regret that that’s happened,” Boren said. “I would simply say it is not a strong vote of confidence in the conference office that this has happened in such a short period of time.”
On the league’s lack of stability and perceptions that Texas wields too big of a voice in Big 12 matters:
“Stability is based upon trust. It’s also based on partnership,” Boren said. “It also means the conferences that last are conferences in which the members are considered equal, in which they have mutual respect for each other and every voice is listened to. I think that’s extremely important … We all ought to value each other, every member of our conference. None of us should seek to play a stronger leadership role than anyone else.”
On possibly winding up in a different league than Texas:
“We have different perspectives,” Boren said. “We’re listening with respect to each other, at this point in time. It’s too early to tell whether we’ll make a common decision or not … But we’re not going to cede our sovereignty in this question to anybody else, to any university in any other state. We’re going to do what we think is best for the University of Oklahoma.”
On whether the Longhorn Network adds to Big 12 instability:
“Whether it’s conference networks or individual university networks, they need to be operated in a way that we don’t violate any of the basic rules that should apply to all universities,” Boren said. “For example, we don’t operate networks in a way that would give a recruiting advantage … to one university over another ... We’re for a level playing field.”
On Oklahoma’s goals:
“Whatever conference we join, or whatever conference we stay in … the University of Oklahoma has no ambition to dominate any conference,” Boren said. “We simply have the ambition of being a member, an equal member, of any conference, playing by the same rules, by having a level playing field for all the members of that conference and developing a high level of trust in each other. That’s our goal. That’s what we’re after.”
On having reached a final decision regarding realignment at this point: “I want to make it very clear that this is not a Texas A&M-like situation, where, when the regents voted to give authority to the president, everyone was aware of the fact they were giving authority under the direction of the president to take action to move to the SEC,” Boren said. “That’s not the situation here. The regents have not given me authority and direction to proceed to make a particular decision. This is not an announcement by the University of Oklahoma that we’re leaving to go to the Pac-12. This is not an announcement by the University of Oklahoma that we are taking off the table the option of moving to the Pac-12 ... We’re going to carefully examine both of those course of action very, very carefully and then we’re going to make our decision on what’s best for the University of Oklahoma and then we’ll decisively take that action.”
_ Jimmy Burch
Pool the cash, & split it evenly. Keep the conference in the central time zone. Scattering the schools to the 4 winds seems silly.
Posted by: dagrump | September 20, 2011 at 06:25 AM