Pac-10 -- R.I.P.

Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado. Those are the schools that supposedly are about to be admitted to the Pac-10 conference.

My feelings, and the feelings of other alumni or fans of existing Pac-10 teams, obviously mean nothing. This decision is all about Big Bucks for Big Athletics. The academic quality of the schools being considered (often cited as a highly prized asset of teams in both the Pac-10 and the Big Ten, although an asset whose reality often seems somewhat dubious), the geographic proximity of the schools, the student culture of the schools, and the history of traditional rivalries -- all mean nothing to those making the decisions.

The two Arizona schools were the first break in the Pacific Coast tradition, although Arizona at least adjoins California. None of the new schools is located in a state that adjoins a Pacific coast state, although, of course, Arizona does touch Colorado at a dimensionless point. The traditions and customs of the Texas and Oklahoma schools and their student bodies -- although no doubt precious to themselves -- seem bizarre and foreign to students on the coast. The idea of a rivalry -- outside a bowl game -- with a school that yells "Hook 'em, horns" or one that rolls a prairie schooner out onto the field, is enough to make a Pac-10 alumnus cry.

Colorado at least shares academic and culturally liberal features with the existing conference members. Colorado would be an acceptable addition to the Pac-10 if it weren't on the other side of the Rockies. Texas is an academically reputable school, but lives in a different world culturally. (By which I don't mean that UT is uncultured musically, artistically, etc. -- simply that I find the mass culture of its student body incomprehensible.) The other schools? Probably fine regional schools, but out here -- in our neck of the woods -- they're nothing more than names of football teams whose scores we find listed in the sports section.

Resistance is futile. What the athletic departments want, they'll get. But they're trading a cohesive athletic conference that boasts -- under one name or another -- a long history and tradition for an uncomfortable combine of teams that share nothing but big athletic budgets and a lust for bigger ones. What next? Penn State moving to the Ivy League? If there were any other logical place to go, I'd be willing to see my alma mater bid its historic conference adieu.

This alumnus isn't happy.