Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: UConn-Big 12 momentum grows with Colorado move, big break for Husky knuckleballer
As the summer of Big 12 expansion moves on, all is quiet on neither the Eastern nor Western front.
Here’s what we know:
One shoe dropped at the end of this week, when the Big 12 presidents voted to extend an invitation to Colorado and that schools regents voted to accept, so there is one replacement for the departing schools, Texas and Oklahoma.
Obviously, the conference won’t stay at 13. Will the next shoe be Arizona? Or UConn? And will those be the last shoes? Things are developing pretty quickly, and while nothing is inevitable or imminent, there is a lot of activity on both sides and folks at UConn are sensing growing optimism on the part of the hierarchy.
Colorado, which had been in the conference during its Big Six, Big Eight and Big 12 eras, from 1947 until jumping to the Pac 12 in 2011, was the No.1 target for commissioner Brett Yormark and the conference’s presidents. On this there was unanimity, apparently.
Now that Yormark has done the job everyone wanted, one theory goes, he may be able to hold sway on what he wants next. The consensus out there is that Yormark is enamored of a coast-to-coast footprint, and of building the conference’s basketball profile high enough for a break-out TV deal if its own. UConn, the national champs on the men’s side and long running dynasty on the women’s side, holds a key for all that.
“I’m bullish on basketball,” Yormark told reporters at Big 12 Media Days earlier in July. “Everyone looks at it through the singular lens of what it means to the media deal. I look at it that way, too, but I also look at what basketball can do to create value in other parts of our enterprise.”
Member schools have reported to be skeptical, especially if other Pac 12 schools, namely Arizona, are willing to jump.
Dom Amore: If Big 12 calls, UConn will have to choose between Big East love and Power Five money
If Arizona, which is still waiting to see what kind of TV deal the Pac 12 makes, follows the Buffaloes, then that’s 14 and could be it for the time being, at least for the summer of 2023. If Yormark and the Big 12 want to go to 16, UConn, along with other potential Pac 12 defectors, would be in play.
If the Pac 12 holds on to Arizona and all the schools it still has, UConn probably gets the Power 5 call it has coveted for so long. UConn’s football history would be a hard sell in the Big 12, but not impossible, Yormark evidently believes.
“As (expansion) relates to a school that’s a non-Power Five, if they create value and they align well with our goals and objectives, it’s a conversation we’ll consider having,” Yormark said, also during Big 12 Media Days.
The pros for UConn in leaving the Big East would be the chance to rake in $30-plus million per year in a power five TV deal (though it may be a few years before they would get the full share), vs. about $3 million it gets now. It would also move its football program from independent into a luxury home, without hurting basketball, as the old AAC affiliation did.
The cons: the loss of old rivalries and the conference tournament in Madison Square Garden, a much greater travel burden and the $30 million exit fee. But Yormark envisions major basketball events at the Garden if UConn is in the conference. There are fans, notably Sen. Chris Murphy, who have called for UConn to stay put, but, um, did we mention the $30 million plus? (Privately, more than one UConn coach as expressed incredulity over Murphy’s stance.)
As has been noted, UConn is not in the position it was in a few years ago. If no invitation comes, UConn is fine in the Big East, its basketball fairly secure for the next few years, but if this opportunity comes, UConn will have to say “yes.”
There’s no timetable on any of this, Yormark has said, but, hey, these things tend to happen during the summer and there is momentum. When something was in the air, Jim Calhoun would sometimes tell a reporter, “don’t take tomorrow off.”
More for your Sunday Read.
Knuckling over
One of those only-in-baseball stories came together this week for Devin Kirby, who had two effective seasons as a reliever at UConn (8-1, 4.04 ERA, 73 strikeouts in 75 1/3 innings. Kirby, a righthander, throws an unhittable knuckleball, but because it’s also uncatchable, he threw mostly fastballs and sliders for the Huskies.
This summer, with the Healdsburg Prune Packers of the California Colleague League, he’s been throwing his trick pitch and, with his UConn coaches putting the word out, the Twins went out to see how his knuckleball danced. Their pitching coach, Pete Maki, from Nonnewaug High in Woodbury and later a coach at the University of New Haven, was intrigued. Not many of them left in in pro ball, just Matt Waldron of the Padres in MLB this season.
On Thursday, the Twins, who already had three UConn kids in their system (Pat Winkel, Kyler Fedko, Anthony Prato), signed Kirby. With a low-90s fastball and slider as well as the knuckler, he have a rather interesting minor league journey – if the Twins can find a catcher who can handle him. As Bob Uecker says, “wait til it stops rolling, then pick it up.”
Sunday short takes
* Wethersfield’s George Kokinis, a long-time NFL executive with the Ravens, and George Kostelis of Cromwell, a men’s soccer assistant coach at Central Connecticut, were inducted into the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association Hall of Fame this week. The AHEPA is the largest Greek-American fraternal organization in the country.
* Bernie Williams is back in Ridgefield next weekend, Aug. 5, for his seventh annual concert and celebrity softball game at Ridgefield Playhouse. Williams, the Yankees’ star centerfielder during the 1990s championships and recording artist since his playing days, will be making a presentation in connection with his work for interstitial lung disease (ILD), the disease that took his father’s life in 2001.
* So Bill Belichick says the new, mammoth scoreboard at Gillette Stadium could affect wind patterns and kickers, perhaps like the big bay doors at the Meadowlands stadium. That’s as “ball coach” as it gets, and not a bad way to get into opposing kickers’ heads.
* The UConn men’s victory tour of the Northeast made its last stop, maybe, at East Rutherford on Thursday, with Dan Hurley and the staff visiting Giants training camp to see how Brian Daboll does things. … Hurley will be the keynote speaker at the Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Hartford Help and Hope Breakfast at the Hartford Golf Club on Nov. 17.
*The Connecticut-based HT40 Foundation is staging an event that will bring a number of NHL stars to Stamford’s Terry Connors Rink on Thursday evening 6-8:30 p.m. to help raise awareness for youth mental illness. Trevor Zegras, Spencer Knight, Chris Kreider, Adam Fox, Marty St. Louis and Matt Moulson are among those expect at Shoulder Check, hosted by Dave Maloney.
* Wouldn’t it be kind of neat if Joe Girardi resurfaced as head baseball coach at his alma mater, Northwestern?
*Saint Joseph AD Amanda Devitt, who had presided over remarkable growth in the West Hartford campus, was named the Great Northeast Athletic Conference executive of the year.
Summer Reading
Lots of good books to take to the beach before this fly-by summer is over, but first let’s recommend Trisha Bailey’s “Unbroken.The Triumphant Story of a Woman’s Journey.” Bailey is the UConn track and field alum from Weaver High who rose to success as an entrepreneur. a self-made billionaire, and philanthropist, among her endeavors is funding the new center at UConn. Hurley has ordered the book for his staff and players.
Last word
Connecticut High School Coaches are launching a new summer all-star football showcase in June 2024. A team from Connecticut will play New York All-Stars, site to be determined in New York State, and a return engagement somewhere in Connecticut in ’25. Thumbs up for that idea. State football players haven’t had such an opportunity since 2019.
