Thursday, Dec. 5, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
COME SATURDAY, there are going to be a lot of Nervous Nellies prowling about Sam Boyd Stadium.
If you see someone pacing back and forth while Brigham Young and Wyoming fling footballs all over the place, it's a good bet that that someone is employed as an athletic director at a Western Athletic Conference school.
You've heard in the past of the million-dollar free throw in the NCAA basketball tournament? Well, make way for the $6 million PAT. That's what is riding on the outcome of the WAC's championship game for the 16 member schools.
Six million is the difference between a spot in the $8 million Fiesta Bowl and the $2 million Holiday Bowl or Cotton Bowl. Should BYU win, it will be cause for celebration in athletic business offices throughout the WAC. Each school would receive a $400,000 windfall, and that kind of found money can do a lot of things for programs wallowing in a sea of red ink.
But if Wyoming wins, there are going to be a lot of ADs feeling like they just went bust at the blackjack table. It will mean canceling those reservations at the gourmet restaurants and settling for a $3.95 prime rib special in the coffee shop.
That doesn't sit well with UNLV's Charles Cavagnaro. He doesn't like the tenuous position he and his WAC colleagues are being placed in by the bowl alliance.
The fact there is no guaranteed spot in the alliance for the WAC bugs the hell out of Cavagnaro. He wonders what the future holds unless something is done to rein in the monopoly that has been established by the Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Atlantic Coast and Southeastern Conferences and provide some equity for the entire NCAA membership.
"It's very frustrating," Cavagnaro said. "There are some serious concerns facing intercollegiate athletics and this game Saturday is a big part of it.
"This is a $6 million ballgame. That's a lot of pressure to put on a school like BYU because if they don't win and don't get in the alliance, everybody in the WAC's going to feel it."
Unlike the NCAA hoops tourney, where the revenue is distributed throughout the membership, the alliance doesn't share the profits with anyone outside. In other words, the have-nots do not get to become haves.
"Nowhere else do you have an unbalanced playing field like you have in Division I-A football," Cavagnaro said. "You don't see the top eight golf teams having their own championship, do you? Everyone who competes in every other sport has a chance to win the national championship except football.
"At UNLV, we have to take a long look at this and where it's heading," Cavagnaro said. "If the WAC gets shut out of the alliance and there's no way to compete for the national championship, it puts our institution and the other WAC schools at a great disadvantage."
Cavagnaro believes the best way to restore some equity in the process is not through legal avenues, but by legislative means at the NCAA convention in January.
But as the NCAA restructures itself, it has created what Cavagnaro calls "a vacuum" within the leadership. Meanwhile, a select few conference commissioners are calling the shots and shaping the future of football for their own self-interests.
If the NCAA can put its restructuring on hold for a year and address the inequity of the bowl alliance, it might save the day for conferences like the WAC and schools like UNLV. Right now, the only way the WAC gets in is through one of the two at-large bids which are doled out at the whim of the alliance.
BYU could win Saturday, be 13-1 and find itself on the outside looking in while 9-2 Colorado meets 9-2 Penn State on New Year's Day in Tempe. The public pressure that has been brought to bear on BYU's behalf may not be enough because it couldn't stem the tide of greed within the alliance.
Let's say Colorado gets in instead of BYU. That gives the Big 12 two big paydays -- Nebraska and the Buffaloes. That's an extra $6 million to the Big 12. And who's to say next year it won't be the SEC enjoying a double dip with Florida and say, Tennessee or Alabama? Or the Big Ten with Ohio State and Michigan and/or Penn State?
Nowhere else in the NCAA do the rich get richer through the tournament process. If Kentucky's basketball team can win title after title, it does so by getting through the gantlet of the 64-team field, and you can't begrudge a school that. The thing is, everyone gets a shot at knocking off Kentucky every year, provided they're good enough to get into the tourney.
Such is not the case in big-time football. When nearly half of the 111 Division I-A schools aren't even given a shot at the brass ring, it smacks of medieval economics, not to mention 20th century conspiracy.
The lords will run the football manor while the pigskin serfs toil from September to November with no prospect of a sunny day in January. And unless the NCAA decides to put an end to the Dark Ages by taking control of the alliance and put it in line with its other championships, the WAC and its members will be on the wrong side of the drawbridge leading to the castle filled with gold.
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