Amid new Big 12 unrest, Castiglione's message unwavering: Remain calm
Published: 7/19/2011 1:35 AM
Last Modified: 7/19/2011 1:35 AM
One year ago with panic in the Big 12 Conference streets, Joe Castiglione kept his head.
The Oklahoma athletic director actually saw a future for a league that appeared to be fending off poachers from the Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC. He figured the league could survive and even prosper if the right people would just stop the madness and think for a minute.
Castiglione became one of commissioner Dan Beebe's corner men. The Big 12 won a 15th-round decision thanks to guaranteed TV money (and whatever went on between University of Texas shot-callers, Texas politicos and Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott).
Didn't matter the reason, really. Castiglione could feel good in helping save a conference he felt pretty strongly about. He could feel really good last April, when the Big 12 married Fox in a 13-year $1.1 billion football agreement.
Seemed everyone really could live happily ever even without Nebraska and Colorado.
Well... For a year anyhow.
Here he is, 13 months after dodging Big 12 armageddon and Castiglione must keep his wits all over again.
This time, Texas isn't reacting to the trouble, it's stirring it up. The ESPN-backed Longhorn Network, worth 20 years and $300 million, is five weeks from launch. The network's mere presence was disconcerting to the revamped Big 12 ("Oh, so this is how it's gonna be.")
Then the details started leaking out.
ESPN wasn't merely fronting coaches shows and classic replays, it was carrying an actual football game. Then it was carrying a second game, right in the middle of conference season. Then it was putting on high school games.
Huh. Longhorn recruits being slobbered over by Longhorn Network announcers Friday night. Texas Tech viewers sitting through a Longhorn Network telecast of the Red Raiders' game against Texas Saturday.
Yeah, this all stood a great chance of being rubber-stamped by the Big 12's other nine schools. You bet.
Here came Texas A&M AD Bill Byrne: "I can't speak for the NCAA, but I would imagine the governing body will look into the use of a collegiate television network airing games of prospective student-athletes. I understand networks such as FSN and ESPN airing high school sports, but whether or not employees under contract with a university that may have additional contact would seem to be an issue."
Now comes word from the Houston Chronicle that A&M has added a closed-door confab to its regents meeting Thursday. Topic: Not so much the Longhorn Network's potential high school coverage, but the Longhorn Network itself.
There remain those who believe that the only reason the Big 12 stayed together 13 months ago was that A&M refused to follow Texas to the Pac-10. The Aggies, theorists prescribe, would have bolted to the SEC to keep Texas from a posh position in the Pac-14 (or whatever they would have called it).
So we have A&M-to-SEC tremors again? Not necessarily. The Chronicle reports the Aggies remain committed to the Big 12, and that the special regents meeting is for information-gathering, not threat-making.
There is a two-word caveat: "For now."
Monday afternoon, hours before the Chronicle story went up, Castiglione was asked about hard feelings toward ESPN Bevo.
"Honestly, the position is let's see how this unfolds," he answered. "It's easy to rush to judgment, take a certain position and extrapolate what that might mean down the road."
Despite worry that it will happen, the Longhorn Network has not acquired the rights to a second Big 12 Conference game.
And as for high school coverage, the NCAA emailed the Chronicle confirming that the organization is "engaged in a conversation with the entities (ESPN and UT) to better understand their plans and what bylaws come into play."
The message, inferred by Castiglione: Relax. If the conflict of interest is as blatant as it appears to be, the matter will be resolved accordingly.
All right. But what about the hard feelings the issue continues to drudge up? A&M may be the only school willing to go on the record over ESPN Bevo, but the fan bases (and some administrators, you better believe) of the other eight schools are hotter about the network than they are the record temperatures.
Castiglione worked so hard, first to keep a brave face and then to help see the Big 12 through the realignment storm. Any worry that just 13 months later, a new threat looms?
"What we focus on is the things that are within our control," he said.
That was Castiglione's message last year, despite the tumult created by other conferences and within his own. And things seemed to work out.
For a while, at least.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
