Full Court Press
Back to the WAC?
Consider the (lack of) sourceFRESNO Bee columnist John Canzano couldn't have imagined that last Sunday's piece would cause such a commotion 2,500 miles away in Hawaii.
In it, he quoted an unidentified source who said that Hawaii, Fresno State, Texas-El Paso and Boise State are pursuing possible membership in the Mountain West Conference and that expansion would be discussed this April at its annual meetings in San Diego.
This was a new take on an old rumor that has Hawaii and Fresno State as the likely candidates to be extended invitations should the eight-team conference decide expansion is a reality. The problem is, reality is in 2006, not a year from now as reported in several local media outlets this week.
First of all, Canzano is a columnist and is allowed to speculate all he wants on the possible expansion of the Mountain West and the teams being considered should it take place. But when that turned up as front-page news and the top item on one of the local television stations, that's a different matter entirely.
Bobby Curran also ran with it Monday on his radio show, which isn't so bad, considering the format. But everybody who believes this is about to happen should take a chill pill. It's not.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal decided to see if there was any validity to the story by asking Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson if the reports in the Fresno Bee and the Honolulu Advertiser had any validity. According to Thompson, they do not.
"We meet in April in San Diego, and it's not even on the agenda," Thompson told the Review-Journal on Tuesday, flatly denying the two published reports.
THOMPSON TOLD THE Star-Bulletin the same thing last winter when speculation arose from former Brigham Young head coach LaVell Edwards that the football coaches wanted to add a ninth team to help in scheduling and that Hawaii was the perfect fit.
Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson said it was a possibility that it would be discussed informally, but didn't put too much credence that expansion would take place in the near future. He was right.
The Mountain West passed a two-year moratorium on expansion at its meetings last summer and that moratorium would likely remain in place through 2006 when the current deal with ESPN ran out.
This is not to say Thompson could say this publicly, while the Mountain West did a casual poll to see how much interest there was among teams in the west. Look at the WAC split several years ago, when only a few presidents and athletic directors knew they were going to form their own league.
We've heard these rumors before, but all indications are Hawaii isn't headed anywhere soon. Speculation should only go so far. This time, it may have gone too far.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.
Email Paul: parnett@starbulletin.com.