Sports Extra - Blogs - Ross Parmley come on down

OU | OSU | TU | ORU | HIGH SCHOOLS | THUNDER | COLLEGE FOOTBALL | COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NFL | OUTDOORS | GOLF | PROS | ALL

@TWSportsExtra

HOMEPAGES

SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS

FOR THE RECORD

Scores, statistics and standings for local and national sports.

LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

Search the World's archives

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US

Editors
Michael Peters
Sports Editor
Patrick Prince
Asst. Sports Editor
Columnists
John Klein
Sr. Columnist
John E. Hoover
Columnist
Writers
Eric Bailey
OU sports, Big 12 sports
Guerin Emig
OU sports
Jimmie Tramel
OSU sports, ORU sports
Kelly Hines
OSU sports
Bill Haisten
TU sports, Thunder
Barry Lewis
High Schools, Drillers
Mike Brown
High Schools, Shock
Kelly Bostian
Outdoors

BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

Buy a published photo by clicking the "Order this Picture" link on the photo. For a full-color page reprint, call 732-8198 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday or order online.

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA

Learn more about the site.

Ross Parmley, come on down
Published: 2/8/2012 7:12 PM
Last Modified: 2/9/2012 10:23 PM

If you weren't sure why Tulsa rapidly moved up its timeline to hire an athletic director, now you know.

Wednesday's official announcement that Memphis will leave Conference USA to join the Big East in 2013 was a more well-guarded secret than some realignment news. But it likely didn't catch Tulsa by surprise.

Parmley went from interim to full-time last month. After Bubba Cunningham left for North Carolina late last year, the university said it would wait to hire a new president before hiring a new AD.

The college landscape, however, is changing much too rapidly for Tulsa to be without full-time athletic department leadership for nearly a year.

Parmley, on the job for less than a month, is now on the hot seat. With the announced departures of Central Florida, SMU, Houston and now Memphis from C-USA, the league will have eight teams when the 2013-14 school year starts.

By then, the league will likely be a 16-team mash-up of the remaining schools in C-USA and the Mountain West.

But how desirable is a league spread over five time zones with occasional visits to Fresno, Hawaii and Wyoming? And how devastating will it be for Tulsa football recruiting to lose a yearly trip to Houston and a biennial visit to Dallas?

These are the questions that now face Parmley. There are no easy answers and no really good alternatives.

But Parmley must come up with something. The future of Tulsa's athletic department depends on it.

Reader Comments

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

The Editor's Desk

Tulsa World Sports Editor Michael Peters has nearly 20 years of daily newspaper experience. A 1993 graduate of Texas A&M, he worked at papers in Bryan-College Station, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, and Galveston, Texas, before joining the Houston Chronicle as High School Sports Editor in 2008. While in Houston, he coordinated coverage of the 2008 Texas Class 5A state football championships and the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four.

Follow Michael Peters on Twitter

Subscribe to this blog

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :