March 5, 1999
By JIM O'CONNELL
AP Basketball Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The seven men who formed the Big East 20 years ago and
changed the landscape of college basketball forever were honored Friday by the
conference they created.
The athletic directors from Providence, Georgetown, Syracuse, St. John's,
Seton Hall, Boston College and Connecticut announced on May 31, 1979, that
they
would form a Division I conference. League play began that November, starting
one of the most amazing two-decade runs in sports history.
The only coach of that original group is Dave Gavitt, who had led
Providence
to the 1974 Final Four and had been selected to lead the 1980 U.S. Olympic
team. He was chosen as the Big East's first commissioner, and held that post
for the league's first decade as it became one of the power players in college
basketball.
"We were so fortunate in so many ways at the outset," said Gavitt, now
the
chairman of the board of the Basketball Hall of Fame. "We put together a solid
foundation with a good plan, but we were fortunate to have four coaches who
were going to be at their schools for a long time in John Thompson, Looie
Carnesecca, Jimmy Boeheim and Rollie Massimino, and having them stay in place
was very significant."
Those coaches were very visible as the league grew, but the men honored
Friday night - Gavitt, Jack Kaiser of St. John's, Jake Crouthamel of Syracuse,
the late Bill Flynn of Boston College, John Toner of Connecticut, Frank Rienzo
of Georgetown and Richie Regan of Seton Hall - made things work behind the
scenes. Crouthamel is the only one in the same position he was then.
The new league readily adopted a new entity as a partner of sorts.
"That ESPN came along as we did was very fortunate for us, and how we
worked together benefited both tremendously," Gavitt said.
Villanova joined the league in 1980 and Pittsburgh came along in 1982.
The league's high mark was 1985, when Georgetown and St. John's spent
most
of the season as the nation's No. 1 and 2 teams and they were joined in the
Final Four by eventual national champion Villanova in the Final Four. That's
still the only time one league has had three teams in the national semifinals.
As football became an integral part of things, Miami was added in 1992
and
membership reached 13 schools when Notre Dame, Rutgers and West Virginia
joined
in 1996.
"I don't envy anybody in a conference when you have gone to more than 10
because you've made it very difficult for yourself because you've become less
of a conference and more of an association," Gavitt said. "There are teams in
this league with major college football commitments and you can't ignore that.
"Thirteen is a very awkward number, and whether 14 is better or 16 is
better I don't know. I do think that what it is now isn't what it should be."
Gavitt was asked what one thing since that original meeting he has found
most remarkable.
"The thing that's always amazed me more than anything else is that
when we
formed the league one of the goals we thought we could accomplish was to stop
the drain of Eastern players going elsewhere," he said. "We stopped that
pretty quickly but I never imagined, and it's the power of television, that
our
schools would start attracting kids from the West Coast or New Orleans.
"I don't think any of us ever foresaw that our schools would become truly
national in their recruiting."
