OldBison75
10-20-2011, 03:52 PM
I read this blog and really believe that this guy, who I know well, has the right slant on the whole situation. He has been covering the Aggies for over 20 years and is one of the great sports reporters in the college media--he tells it like it is.
Posted by robert cessna at 10/20/2011 11:20 AM CDT on Aggie Sports
Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey always will let you know where she stands, and not surprisingly she has no plans to play the Aggies after they join the SEC.
Mulkey said everything that Texas AD DeLoss Dodds probably wanted to say when he told A&M AD Bill Byrne that the Longhorns’ football schedule is full through 2018.
“My feeling is this,” Mulkey said Wednesday during the Big 12’s media day in Kansas City. “If a man wants to divorce me and says our relationship has no value to him, and then he asks me if he can sleep with me, the answer is ‘No!’”
Mulkey believes that it is in her best interest and Baylor’s not to play A&M. Aggies might not want to admit it, but she has a point.
A&M is headed to the SEC, the best football conference in America. A&M will get more money, more exposure, etc. In other words, happy days isince A&M got what it wanted.
Dodds politely said that the Longhorns don’t want to play the Aggies in football, while Mulkey was much more to the point.
A&M officials had to see this coming. Texas and Baylor don’t want to give A&M a marquee matchup in the state that will help the Aggies in recruiting.
So my guess is that A&M will be selling recruits on playing in the great SEC, while Baylor women’s basketball and UT football will be telling recruits they’ll play more games in the great state of Texas if they stay in the Big 12.
It will be interesting. We’ve never seen recruiting like this where powerful instate rivals are recruiting to different power conferences. And if Baylor and Texas think that philosophy works, they may never play A&M exception in the postseason.
Many have and will say what about the fans who want to see A&M-UT football and A&M-Baylor women’s basketball?
Well, they were sure things in the BIg 12, but A&M’s move changed that. As Dodds said, "We areen't the ones leaving."
I read a few recent quotes from former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer who spearheaded the league adding Arkansas and South Carolina two decades ago. He said to remember that things will be different, as was the case back then. That will mean better for some, worse for others.
Will I like going to The Swamp and Death Valley for football? And will I enjoy seeing the A&M women’s hoops team play Tennessee again? Sure.
But I also will miss the A&M women’s basketball team playing Baylor. And it will be strange not covering an A&M-UT football game. I’ve covered every A&M-UT football game since 1975 except when I missed for the death of my father and the birth of my oldest daughter. It’s a tradition like no other.
College sports is so much about rivalries. I know in 20 years A&M-Alabama probably will be a great rivalry and I expect A&M-LSU and A&M-Arkansas to be intense from the get-go. The Aggies will enjoy them and others, but they’ll also lose others that many will lament.
It’s about change, some good, some not so good.
In Mulkey’s case, she always was worth the price of admission for lots of reasons. She is a great coach, a great ambassador for the game. And I’ll miss her frankness which she displayed Wednesday. She chastised me and other writers for our all-tournament ballots last season. I could only smile. She cares. And she’ll look you eye-to-eye when she’s telling you what she doesn't like — or does like.
She helped make the Big 12 the best women’s basketball conference. She turned down A&M and went and built a power in Waco. Yet, that just showed how far behind A&M was. The Aggies in turn hired Gary Blair and he built the Big 12’s worst program into a national champion. The most kudos of course go to Blair, and AD Bill Byrne and all the Aggies that made it happen, but Mulkey and OU head coach Sherri Coale and others played their part, carrying on what UT’s Judy Conradt and Texas Tech’s Marsha Sharpe started.
You’re only as good as your conference, right?
Mulkey used a divorce to talk about Baylor playing A&M since that’s what A&M president R. Bowen Loftin had used.
And who gets hurt in divorces? The children, i.e. the fans.
Posted by robert cessna at 10/20/2011 11:20 AM CDT on Aggie Sports
Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey always will let you know where she stands, and not surprisingly she has no plans to play the Aggies after they join the SEC.
Mulkey said everything that Texas AD DeLoss Dodds probably wanted to say when he told A&M AD Bill Byrne that the Longhorns’ football schedule is full through 2018.
“My feeling is this,” Mulkey said Wednesday during the Big 12’s media day in Kansas City. “If a man wants to divorce me and says our relationship has no value to him, and then he asks me if he can sleep with me, the answer is ‘No!’”
Mulkey believes that it is in her best interest and Baylor’s not to play A&M. Aggies might not want to admit it, but she has a point.
A&M is headed to the SEC, the best football conference in America. A&M will get more money, more exposure, etc. In other words, happy days isince A&M got what it wanted.
Dodds politely said that the Longhorns don’t want to play the Aggies in football, while Mulkey was much more to the point.
A&M officials had to see this coming. Texas and Baylor don’t want to give A&M a marquee matchup in the state that will help the Aggies in recruiting.
So my guess is that A&M will be selling recruits on playing in the great SEC, while Baylor women’s basketball and UT football will be telling recruits they’ll play more games in the great state of Texas if they stay in the Big 12.
It will be interesting. We’ve never seen recruiting like this where powerful instate rivals are recruiting to different power conferences. And if Baylor and Texas think that philosophy works, they may never play A&M exception in the postseason.
Many have and will say what about the fans who want to see A&M-UT football and A&M-Baylor women’s basketball?
Well, they were sure things in the BIg 12, but A&M’s move changed that. As Dodds said, "We areen't the ones leaving."
I read a few recent quotes from former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer who spearheaded the league adding Arkansas and South Carolina two decades ago. He said to remember that things will be different, as was the case back then. That will mean better for some, worse for others.
Will I like going to The Swamp and Death Valley for football? And will I enjoy seeing the A&M women’s hoops team play Tennessee again? Sure.
But I also will miss the A&M women’s basketball team playing Baylor. And it will be strange not covering an A&M-UT football game. I’ve covered every A&M-UT football game since 1975 except when I missed for the death of my father and the birth of my oldest daughter. It’s a tradition like no other.
College sports is so much about rivalries. I know in 20 years A&M-Alabama probably will be a great rivalry and I expect A&M-LSU and A&M-Arkansas to be intense from the get-go. The Aggies will enjoy them and others, but they’ll also lose others that many will lament.
It’s about change, some good, some not so good.
In Mulkey’s case, she always was worth the price of admission for lots of reasons. She is a great coach, a great ambassador for the game. And I’ll miss her frankness which she displayed Wednesday. She chastised me and other writers for our all-tournament ballots last season. I could only smile. She cares. And she’ll look you eye-to-eye when she’s telling you what she doesn't like — or does like.
She helped make the Big 12 the best women’s basketball conference. She turned down A&M and went and built a power in Waco. Yet, that just showed how far behind A&M was. The Aggies in turn hired Gary Blair and he built the Big 12’s worst program into a national champion. The most kudos of course go to Blair, and AD Bill Byrne and all the Aggies that made it happen, but Mulkey and OU head coach Sherri Coale and others played their part, carrying on what UT’s Judy Conradt and Texas Tech’s Marsha Sharpe started.
You’re only as good as your conference, right?
Mulkey used a divorce to talk about Baylor playing A&M since that’s what A&M president R. Bowen Loftin had used.
And who gets hurt in divorces? The children, i.e. the fans.