(05-17-2014 09:12 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(05-17-2014 07:28 PM)JoeJag Wrote:  

(05-17-2014 01:29 PM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  Benson is an idiot. He is the only Commish that constantly says stupid stuff to the media, is a bad negotiator, is obssessed with expanding conferences despite what membership wants, and failed the WAC and led them to their demise. He's doing the same now with talking to UMass despite the most important member (Arkansas State) not wanting to expand.

He'll piss off Arkansas State, they'll leave, and the SBC will unravel just like the WAC. You'd almost think he is a Trojan Horse stooge placed by the P5 to ruin the G5 one conference at a time.

Interesting comment you maid about Ark. State leaving the SBC if Benson "p.o.s" them. Where do you suggest they go? I'm sure they aren't that dumb. Anyway I can't see UMASS getting the invite.

Back in the 50's we were in the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference. We got short shrift and were the stepchild. The conference kept scheduling us to travel because we were "so far away from everyone else" yet we had to travel to them and it was the same distance. The conference simply paid no attention to the Athletic Director so the President of the University physically went to Little Rock and they basically told him ASU didn't matter, he didn't matter, and that we had no place to go.

We were gone right then.

The AIC died later on. The teams that were in it are scattered from the Southland to NAIA. But only one is in FBS. The stepchild that didn't matter.

There was an added element in there. This was back when neither the NAIA nor NCAA had scholarship limits, each conference set their own limits.

AState was advocating that the AIC increase its scholarship limits in football and was a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

The fate of the university changed when Dr. Reng became president in 1951.

We went to the NCAA and became an independent and a decade later formed the Southland. A decade later when the NCAA restructured into I, II, III there was division within the league about where to go. Abilene and Trinity lost the fight and we went Division I. Dr. Reng retired after being president for 25 years as AState completed it's first Division I football season by going 11-0 in the second season of our current stadium which he had envisioned as a structure capable of being easily expanded to accommodate future growth.

A little over a decade later there was a push to add more move up schools in Texas and Louisiana and we left to form the American South, under Dr. Smith who had been Dr. Reng's #2 man and had twice been passed over as president. He also led the move to FBS and the move to expand the stadium.

We've had a handful of stinkers as president but we've had some greats. Dr. Kays served 23 years (not counting two stints as interim), Dr. Reng 25 years, Dr. Smith 8 years (not counting another stint as interim), Dr. Wyatt was a mixed bag over his five years. Dr. Welch in my opinion is cut from the same cloth as Dr. Kays and Dr. Reng, passionate about athletics as an element of building the school and not bound by convention or tradition in getting things done.