Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Tuesday, June 8, 1999

Commitment is key
for the new WAC

WHITHER goest the Western Athletic Conference? Will it simply wither away or will it survive after being left in a weakened state with the defection of eight schools who formed their own league?

Certainly, the future of University of Hawaii athletics will depend of the stability and continuance of the eight-team WAC that begins play this coming season.

There's no such thing as a league of your own in college football, unless you're Notre Dame. Being an independent isn't a viable option.

Hawaii's geographic isolation makes it imperative that an athletic life-support system be in place even if maintaining that lifeline across the Pacific proves expensive.

No one knows that more than UH president Kenneth Mortimer, who's attending the WAC presidents' three-day meeting at the Silverado Country Club in Napa, Calif.

Simply put, the survival of the WAC means the continued existence of a Division-I athletic program for the Rainbows.

So a Big C-word that has been stressed among the presidents huddling in hallways, luncheons and get-togethers: Commitment.

IT'S what Mortimer has been seeking from his presidential colleagues.

"A commitment to the future is needed for WAC stability," said Mortimer, who would like to implement some rules to ensure that, such as a penalty for early withdrawal.

"We must come out of this with a commitment to being a stronger conference," Fresno State president John Welty told the Fresno Bee.

Which comes as good news to Mortimer, since Fresno State is a viable contender on the Mountain West Conference's short expansion list.

Mortimer expects some decision to be reached on expansion, one of the important items on the agenda since the WAC needs to correct its geographic imbalance.

Besides Hawaii, Fresno State and San Jose State are the only other schools truly out West in the Western Athletic Conference.

The others are Tulsa and the four Texas schools - Southern Methodist, Rice, Texas Christian and UTEP, the one really abandoned orphan, having been a WAC member the longest of the remaining teams.

Adding one new member from the West - Nevada-Reno seems the most likely choice - would help to correct the imbalance, besides enabling an equitable home-and-home series in football and basketball, the two major income sports.

It's unlikely that the WAC would add more than two schools. Bigger - as in 16 teams - wasn't better, as the WAC presidents painfully learned first hand.

IF anything, it was the addition of Tulsa and the three former Southwest Conference schools that helped to trigger the break-up of the 16-team WAC after only three years.

Traveling to Hawaii was one thing. Going to Texas and Tulsa created an additional financial burden for the WAC's original hardcore of BYU, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado State, who worried about their traditional rivalries as well.

Someday, the Texas schools might find traveling to Hawaii a financial onus, especially if the WAC can't land a decent TV package.

So, a stable WAC has to be Mortimer's first priority. And he's optimistic.

"The mood among the presidents is ... we're going to get on with the WAC," Mortimer said. "It's paramount that we come out of the meetings with some sense of the conference's future."

Here's a toast to the WAC presidents if they can successfully keep the WAC intact in the years to come. But don't uncork my bottle of merlot yet.