What's on John Rooke's mind? Patriots training camp, UConn football and Sox at the deadline
Thinking out loud…while wondering when people ask me stupid questions, is it my legal obligation to provide a sarcastic remark?
∎I don’t know about you, but when UConn re-joined the Big East in 2020, the league felt whole again.
∎Sure, bringing an original member back home checked off some boxes: 1) Rivalries returned 2) national spotlight brightly shines again 3) MSG stays sold out 4) League TV value (likely) increases.
∎Not to mention UConn regained its’ athletic identity, which has always been as a basketball-first athletic program. Or do a combined 16 national titles between the women’s and men’s programs, including the one from this season past, not count for anything?
∎Repeat after me through clenched teeth, Friars. UConn back home in the Big East has been, and still is, good. Especially for the next media rights contract coming up in a couple of years, should they still be here.
∎You may have heard recently about the Pac-12 scuffling for its’ new media rights deal, without USC and UCLA because they’re heading to the Big Ten?
∎Now, pay close attention. What happens on the left coast is about to create a tremor that could be felt across the country…one we will certainly feel on the right coast.
∎That’s because the Big 12 Conference is poised to go ‘coastal’ itself, potentially poaching disgruntled Pac-12 members in search of more $$$ than they can get in a deflated Los Angeles-less league from media partners. And Colorado is ready to make a move.
∎To complete that potential bicoastal arrangement, UConn has been…and still is…a candidate to move away again to join the Big 12 as well.
∎Et tu, Huskies?
∎Rescued from the remnants of the old Big East after the basketball-football break up 10 years ago, UConn flipped and flopped like a fish out of water in the far-flung American Athletic Conference. They’ve since regained their panache – their reason for being – by returning home.
∎But football is the tail that continues to wag the dog, and it is wagging these Huskies. They’ve remained committed to playing, or at least trying to play big-time football.
∎It’s expensive, sure, but the rewards could be sizeable for the school if you’re in the right place at the right time with the right team.
∎UConn would give the Big 12 a Northeastern footprint for television, which we may not care much about. But in football-crazed America south of the Mason-Dixon line, it means a lot of eyeballs will watch. That’s what drives the Big 12 and football media rights.
∎And this – if you could make up a sizeable portion of your athletic debt, which has run well north of $40 million annually over the past five years in Storrs – you’d probably make a run for a little extra dough, too. Maybe as much as $35-40 million or more per year.
∎Even if you run away from the very thing that made you “UConn” in the first place. A basketball identity, and the Big East.
∎So, good luck with that, Huskies. Hope those stifling hot afternoons in Waco, Texas and those windy, icy fall nights in Ames, Iowa bring you plenty of cha-ching.
∎‘Cuz you’ll be dead to us back home. Just sayin’.
∎The 800-pound gorilla in college athletics – NIL money – may finally have some direction. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal is part of a bipartisan political team that has drafted the College Athletes Protection & Compensation Act.
∎The bill would preempt state NIL laws, form a federal group to oversee enforcement of rules and lead investigations, and give athletes lifetime scholarships plus short-term healthcare after graduation.
∎Another bill would require athletes to spend three years at one school before transferring and becoming eligible right away.
∎Which all sounds ok to me… especially the bipartisan part.
∎The anticipation is building for the Friars’ summer trip next month to Spain for three exhibition games beginning Aug. 18. Yes, the extra practice time in advance is a huge boost for Kim English and staff to get started shaping what they’ve brought in…and what the team returns from last season.
∎Which was already an NCAA-caliber team.
∎St. John’s haul and off-season makeover has been impressive. There’s never been any doubt that Rick Pitino can draw players like a bug-zapper can draw flies.
∎Adding former Harvard star and Brooklyn native Chris Ledlum as a late, late transfer from Tennessee is a coup. College hoop can be a cruel business, as his arrival ostensibly pushed out ex-Iona and Louisville forward Quinn Slazinski from a Red Storm scholly and onto West Virginia.
∎Exactly how will the Red Storm mesh come tip-off time? Will there be enough basketballs to go around for the potential scorers on this team?
∎Top 25? Let’s not go nuts here. Still, for a program that hasn’t won an NCAA game in 23 years, and only played in three of them over that time…Pitino already has St. John’s relevant again without playing a game. Money well spent, Father Shanley.
∎Getcha’ popcorn ready. The Big East…IS a beast.
∎Rhode Island’s football conference changed its’ name last week, ICYMI. The Colonial Athletic Association is now the “Coastal Athletic Association,” to better reflect the eastern seaboard movement of the league through expansion and current membership.
∎The Grand Poobah of the CAA (the logo remains the same) is still Joe D’Antonio, in his seventh year as commissioner after serving in compliance with the Big East and Providence College.
∎Joey D – an unabashed Dallas Cowboys fan – is a PC grad from 1990 and a former ‘regular’ caller to our old talk shows on WPRO.
∎Several little birdies have tweeted this way that the football Rams this year may just be playoff bound. It would be the first postseason trip in nearly 40 years.
∎Not sure I know an athlete who wasn’t or hasn’t been “hazed” at some point during his or her collegiate years. I was.
∎Had dues to pay in order to belong, you know. Didn’t make it right. But it was never to the point of what allegedly transpired at Northwestern. If a coach says he or she doesn’t know about any reported hazing going on, it’s quite likely they don’t WANT to know.
∎My buddy “Big E” sez he got gas for just $1.39 today. At the Taco Bell down the street.
∎As the Patriots begin their first weekend of training camp, here are a couple of storylines to follow: 1) Is there enough speed at WR? 2) Can Trent Brown remember how to block? 3) Will the circus keep from pitching tents around Jack Jones?
More: Pats QB Mac Jones looks for a 'fresh start'
∎As for BB’s alleged ‘hot seat?’ Fuhgeddaboutit. Both Robert and Jonathan Kraft have said Belichick has earned his job security, if not his place in history. And I concur.
∎But if this team doesn’t get to the postseason this year, a seat warmer will surely be an added accoutrement to the Patriots’ dashboard.
∎Thanks Patrice. It will be strange without you, to say the least, but it was time.
∎Did you know: Chicago Blackhawks’ owner Rocky Wirtz passed away this week at 70. He made the largest donation – ever – to Providence College women’s athletics last January of $1 million. His daughter Hillary played field hockey for the Friars in the early 2000’s.
∎The Red Sox at the trade deadline: After a two-game sweep of a pretty good Atlanta team, don’t they almost have to buy...something of worth?
∎Not for nuthin’, but hey, Stefan Soloviev? Thanks for the interest in reviving ol’ McCoy Stadium. Where were you five years ago?
∎The world’s greatest footballer, Lionel Messi, now plays in MLS for Miami but a) didn’t get off the bench in the first half and b) no one could find the game on Apple TV to watch him.
∎Nice job of PR there, Major League Soccer. And you wonder why soccer still takes a beating from mainstream America these days.
∎Edward in East Providence will know this already. But we’ve still got a gem in the Hall of Fame tennis tournament in Newport. And the International Tennis Hall of Fame, too. Been there recently?
∎Tony Bennett, It’s Time to Smile. You really did live The Good Life, even if you left your Heart in San Francisco. 96 years, a 70+ year career…is a helluva run. Thank you for the music you left us all.
∎Sports betting site betting-az.com sez golf is the sport Americans want to learn the most, with basketball second and football third.
∎That’s because we already have 12-thousand know-it-alls in the AMP and 68-thousand geniuses at Gillette for every game.
∎I admire Rory McIlroy’s steadfastness. In the face of an avalanche of income, he has said he’d rather retire from golf (or only play in the majors) rather than join the LIV tour.
∎And yet, the organization that runs the British Open (the R&A) has been open to accepting financial investment from Saudi Arabia…should it ever arrive.
∎So Rory? That line in the sand to cross over just got a little bit thinner, didn’t it?
∎Now we’re having money troubles. I was told this week we are running out of coins in America. That’s a big, ol’ sarcasm softball, amiright?
∎ICYWW (in case you were wondering), we’re also running out of common cents, too.
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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: UConn football, Patriots training camp and Red Sox at trade deadline
