St. Joseph's DiJulia offers perspective on realignment

In need of some college realignment perspective - a little realignment alignment - the obvious local go-to spot is Hawk Hill, at the desk of Don DiJulia, St. Joseph's athletic director for 28 of the last 35 years, and once commissioner of a conference that no longer exists.

DiJulia has seen the landscape change "a lot of times, in a lot of years. This is another cycle, just another evolution of change."

Answering his phone, DiJulia immediately launched into a history lesson: "When this happened in '76 and '78 when Pitt and West Virginia and Villanova pulled out of the ECAC basketball structure and pulled away from the old Eddie Einhorn television contract and formed the Eastern Eight and signed the first big [Eastern conference] basketball television deal, those who were left said, 'Holy cow.' "

A big difference now?

"It's more magnified and it seems like it's all the more crazy because there are more outlets, more people repeating it," said DiJulia, who served for most of the '80s as commissioner of the long-gone East Coast Conference and then the still-going Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

Of course, the Metro Atlantic didn't look for teams near the Pacific. The East Coast Conference never used the St. Lawrence Seaway to extend its reach.

DiJulia resumed his history lesson, talking about how coaches and administrators at Providence, Georgetown, and St. John's saw the loss of those important Eastern schools in the late '70s and decided to form their own Eastern league.

"Certainly those schools didn't invent ESPN," DiJulia said. "Coincidently, at the same time, this cable thing was founded. They couldn't get on the network because the Eastern Eight had it. So here's a new cable entity who couldn't get all the football they wanted, and had this basketball right there."

On the football side of the ledger, DiJulia offers a reminder that a 1984 antitrust lawsuit suit brought by Oklahoma and Georgia changed the landscape. Those schools filed suit against the NCAA saying it was violating antitrust laws by negotiating TV deals that limited the number of times schools could appear on television. At the time, teams could appear only six times in two seasons. The Supreme Court ruled for the schools. The landscape surely would have evolved without the suit, but it changed on a dime.

"This gave rise to those who could go get their own going into the free marketplace to get their own," DiJulia said. "There's always a first domino. Oklahoma and Georgia was the first domino. The Southwest Conference went away. That was a religion. Are you kidding me?"

DiJulia doesn't buy the idea that nobody is in charge.

"Executives in the TV industry," DiJulia said when asked who is calling the most shots. He imagines a conversation between a television exec and the Big East: "You get to Texas, man, you're in good shape. There's no other reason they would get together. It wasn't divine intervention, I don't believe. That validates there are no boundaries. If TV says your value goes up if you do X, you do it."

He was referring to Texas Christian joining the Big East. Or almost joining the league. TCU reconsidered once the Big Twelve tendered an offer this year. Now Houston and SMU are part of the mix for the Big East.

He cited Boston College to the ACC as another example. "I think outside input played a factor," DiJulia said of the ACC's doing a flyover from Maryland to Boston in stretching the borders of its conference.

Beyond the geography, DiJulia said the landscape has changed for good.

"Eight [schools in a league] goes to 10, 10 goes to 12, now to 12, 14," DiJulia said. "There's not a number that's too big if there's television exposure and money that correlates to that number."

DiJulia doesn't express bitterness at any of this. He said the Atlantic Ten television network was ahead of its time, a forerunner of the present Big Ten Network. He also talks about some of the forks in the road, the might-have-beens.

"We tried to be a I-A football league, we couldn't get there, before the Big East [football conference] was formed," DiJulia said, reminding how the Atlantic Ten not too long ago had Penn State, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Rutgers for nonfootball sports. Now, the four are in three leagues, and could be in four leagues if West Virginia goes to the Big Twelve.

DiJulia obviously knows the trickle-down could hit his own campus, if Temple were to leave, or Xavier and Dayton ever left.

"There is a level of concern, no question about it," DiJulia said. "Any time there's dominoes that could affect your school or conference."

He said his league, like most others, has come up with plans and backup plans. (The A-10 reportedly is interested in some Colonial schools, just as the Colonial is interested in some A-10 schools). DiJulia remembers all the dominoes, going back over time, how that Eastern Eight formed in the '70s evolved into his own league, the A-10. St. Joe's and Temple went in as Villanova went out in the early '80s. The only remaining Eastern Eight originals are Duquesne, Massachusetts, and George Washington.

"Everybody needs to be nimble," DiJulia said. "Sports is a great audible. You need to be able to act and react."