PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE

Wednesday, May 27, 1998

Eight schools want to leave WAC; Texas schools not among them

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Eight universities announced their intention Tuesday to leave the Western Athletic Conference, leaving the nation's largest Division I league in tatters.

The four Texas WAC schools -- Texas-El Paso, Southern Methodist, Rice and Texas Christian -- are not among the defections.

Those leaving are Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State and Wyoming.

The breakup would leave the Texas schools in an eight-team league with San Jose State, Fresno State, Hawaii and Tulsa.

In a news release, the defecting schools said they intend to form a new conference and will ask to have it recognized immediately by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

A University of Utah news release said the schools "made their decision after concluding that the present 16-team conference has been unable to achieve its intended goals, and that the challenges faced by the conference are insurmountable."

The release said that the principal problems cited by the defecting schools include "a lack of any natural affinity" among the conference member teams, a breakdown in traditional rivalries, hefty travel expenses and the "inability of the present conference to achieve greater national recognition and TV revenues."

The release said the decision to leave the conference "was reached relucantly."

Lee Bartlett, assistant to the president of communications for BYU, confirmed the conference breakup.

Bartlett stressed this was not a movement solely pushed by one or two schools, but all eight together.

"It's very much a joint decision among these eight schools and the product of a lot of effort to find answers to questions that proved to be insurmountable."

Those questions involved "schedules, pairings, building and protecting rivalries.

"Any way you slice it, there was never an answer that was satisfactory to all the members.

"There was a lack of affinity when you have schools so widely spread. They all may be wonderful schools, but its been more difficult than anticipated" to make the 16-team WAC work.

The conference became the largest college league in the nation in 1996, when it expanded to 16 teams. TCU, SMU and Rice -- former Southwest Conference schools -- were among the latest additions.

The teams were organized into a pair of eight-team divisions, which ended some traditional rivalries of the 36-year-old conference.