A&M’s Prez Speaks As Baylor’s Prez Uses Any Means Necessary

September 7th, 2011 12:04 PM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Schools: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Tags: Bowen Loftin, College Station, SEC, Southeastern Conference

Just a quick catch-up on what’s happening on the Texas A&M/Baylor/SEC front today:

This morning, AggieYell.com — the Rivals site covering Texas A&M — reported that a source had told the website that Baylor was “going to move on” without taking legal action against the SEC.

Cheers went up in College Station.

But then Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News tweeted the following:

“Big 12 school source said reports today that Baylor has agreed not to sue SEC are inaccurate. ‘Completely false,’ the source said.”

And with that, groans could be heard in College Station.

Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin has since released the following statement:

“We are certainly pleased with the action taken last night by the presidents and chancellors of the Southeastern Conference to unanimously accept Texas A&M as the league’s 13th member. However, this acceptance is conditional, and we are disappointed in the threats made by one of the Big 12 member institutions to coerce Texas A&M into staying in Big 12 Conference. These actions go against the commitment that was made by this university and the Big 12 on Sept. 2. We are working diligently to resolve any and all issues as outlined by the SEC.”

Remember how we’ve been saying for weeks that things won’t be final until they are final? That anything could happen? That all those reports of a “done deal” won’t mean anything until the deal is — ya know — actually done? Wel this is exactly the kind of nonsense we’ve been expecting.

And should it really come as a shock that Baylor president Kenneth Starr — unable to proactively draw any interest from other leagues in his university — has decided to take a “by any means necessary” approach? After all, when he was unable to find any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Bill Clinton in the Whitewater mess, he instead trotted out a semen-stained dress. Like Clinton or dislike Clinton, Starr showed 15 years ago that he would go to any lengths to achieve his goal. So a lawsuit coming from this guy — in an attempt to impede an entire system on the verge of evolving — shouldn’t surprise a soul.

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25 comments

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gregpomeroy

I wish we'd forget about conference expansion altogether.

john

if this stops tamu from coming over i will watch every baylor fball game i can from now on.
will be there biggest fan

ShannyDeridan

lol

i'm with you 100%

GO BEARS!!

blankedslate

Starr was hired to investigate a suicide and Whitewater. The affair incident came up much later since they couldn't find anything relating to the original parameters of the special prosecutor.

johnmrsec

All...

I should have never invoked Starr's past. I should have known that die-hard Republicans and die-hard Democrats -- who love their parties more than their country -- would see only the name Bill Clinton and miss the entire point of our statement.

Starr was hired to look into Whitewater. When he found nothing there, he returned with a semen-stained dress. The investigation went in a totally different direction, Clinton lied about Lewinsky, and he was taken before Congress for that.

I wrote nothing in support of Clinton. Neither did I bash him. I intentionally did neither.

My point -- quite obvious, I thought -- was to point out that Starr would do whatever it takes to accomplish his goals.

If anyone else comes here and accuses me of being pro- or anti-Clinton, it only reveals their biases, not mine.

John

tradeassociation

Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State are going to the Big East.
Missouri will go to the Big East while they wait on the Big 10, and have the SEC as a last resort.
Texas A&M is going to the SEC.
Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State are going to the Pac-12.
Baylor is going to the Sun Belt or the WAC. No, seriously. The Mountain West doesn't want them, or will only take them if they also get at least one or two of the Big 12 schools that are headed to the Big East. The Big East doesn't want them either, and even if they did, TCU would block them. And the other former SWC schools will block Baylor's entrance into Conference USA just like they did last year.

So, put that into context when you ask "why is Baylor the only school suing." Simple: they are the only school that needs to. If the other schools were facing Baylor's plight, they'd sue also. As I stated in a comment in the post below, I don't agree with what Baylor is doing. But don't sit there for a minute and claim that other schools wouldn't do the same if they were in Baylor's situation. Iowa State, for instance, doesn't have to sue because being in the Big East may turn out to be a better deal than being in the Big 12 anyway. Kansas thinks so, which is why they were talking to the Big East before Texas A&M began talking to the SEC!

So I ask you ... if the school that you led as its president was looking at dropping from the Big 12 to the Sun Belt, what would your response, your avenue of recourse, be? I am no Kenneth Starr fan either, but it is easy to be high and mighty when you don't have his responsibilities. Pretty much anyone else placed in the position to lead and represent Baylor's interests - not your interests, the SEC's interests, A&M's interests, but Baylor's interests - would do exactly the same thing, and if they wouldn't then that would be negligence, dereliction of duty, on their part.

P.S.
Congress gave Starr the permission to investigate the sexual harassment claims against Bill Clinton, and Clinton agreed to it. It was only after Starr came up with evidence that Clinton and the Democrats did not know existed that they cried foul, and then all of a sudden began to dislike the independent prosecutor law that they themselves wrote in a manner designed to be abused so they could use it to go after Nixon and later tried - and failed - to use against Reagan and Bush. Quit recycling 20 year old DNC talking points.

Truth Serum

Oh Please John. Putting a political slant on this now huh? A word to the wise. You are going to turn off a lot of your readers if you insist on espousing political talking points. Ken Starr was after Clinton because Bill Clinton lied under oath. Ken Starr was appointed by Congress as a special prosecutor. He didn't just attack Clinton because he wanted to. He was doing what he was appointed to do. Maybe telling lies under oath doesn't mean anything to you, but it does to me, and many more like me. Now I'll simply wait for you to issue some profanity laced tirade belittleing me or poking fun at my statement.

ShannyDeridan

this IS a political thing

did A&M not have to get approval from the state legislature to even move forward with all of this?

Would OU & Okie State be joined at the hip if it were NOT for politicians in Oklahoma forcing OU to bring Okie State wherever they go so little brother doesn't get left behind?

These are State schools (mostly) and that means politics is involved, PERIOD

although trying to link this to Monica Lewinski is a bit of a stretch, but that was obviously a joke

jbmcgregor

Nope. A&M did not, and does not need approval from the state legislature to move to the SEC. To date, this has been a pretty apolitical process in Texas.

NES2011

ShannyDeridan - You are completely misinformed and flat out wrong about A&M needing to receive approval or seeking permission from the Texas Legislature to move to the SEC. As jbmcgregor correctly points out, the Texas legislative session ended on May 30, 2011 and does not convene again until 2013. Nonetheless, the legislature has indicated it will not involve itself in the matter of A&M's conference move.

From an Aug 31st article in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal:
The chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, said he doesn’t intend to meddle in the university’s [Texas A&M's] decision. “My sense is that this will play itself out in an orderly fashion, and there won’t be a need for a public hearing."

Branch’s counterpart in the Senate, Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, agrees with him. “I am very confident that A&M made this decision thinking that it was in the school’s best interest. I do not intend to call a hearing.” [End citation.]

Ignoring these obvious (and easily accessible) facts just sheds additional light on your inability to produce any kind of credible, persuasive argument throughout this entire thread.

jbmcgregor

It would be really hard for the Texas Legislature to grant anyone permission for anything when they are not in session (and will not be in session again until 2013). I suspect you are referring to a public hearing called by the chairman of the House Committee of Public Education in early August. This hearing was subsequently cancelled. If inclined, the Legislature could get invovled, but they have shown no inclination to date.

ShannyDeridan

really, b/c around Aug 12th they did meet with the Legislature to ask for permission of the school president to seek out potential scenarios concerning conference re-alignment

I would link several articles for you that state the very same thing, but they would get deleted by the Mods b/c you can't link to other sites on this message board

so- google Texas A&M legislature SEC expansion or something to that effect, and you'll find that STEP 1 of this process was getting permission from legislature to even be allowed to explore any options

johnmrsec

Truth Serum...

I wondered what person would claim I was defending Clinton. What a shock that person is you.

I said clearly, like Clinton or not, that Starr proved that he would go as far as he had to go -- even outside the realm of the initial investigation -- to accomplish his goal. That sure seems to be what he's doing here, too.

And you better check your history books. Clinton lied under oath about what Starr had dug up, not the other way around. Starr was hired to investigate Whitewater, he stumbled across Lewinsky and Clinton lied under oath about it.

But my comment had nothing to do with politics and was intentionally non-committal regarding Clinton and his deeds. It was all about Starr's willingness to accomplish his goals by any means necessary. If you read something else into that... it says a lot more about you than it does me.

And I don't recall after issuing a profanity-laced tirade. (But I'd love to.)

John

MIZ_SEC

Baylor is just embarrassing right now. They look like the crazy girlfriend that is threatening to kill herself if her boyfriend doesn't come back.

tradeassociation

What is more embarrassing to Baylor? Filing a lawsuit now? Or being forced to smile while making an "it is with great pleasure that we inform you of our decision to join the Sun Belt Conference!" a few months from now? Oh, and the embarrassment that will occur when their very good football and men's and women's basketball coaches leave and virtually all the athletes transfer soon after? Gee ... there is embarrassment and there is CATASTROPHE. Which do you prefer?

The Baylor people have more things to worry about than what a bunch of people who aren't fans of the school - and likely never will be - think of them right now.

ShannyDeridan

i think being embarrassed is something they are quite used to at Baylor

potential embarrassment wont be a factor in keeping them from trying to bring down this deal

MIZ_SEC

What is the point though? Baylor just delaying the inevitable, while looking terrible in the public eye. In addition, if you buy the rumor that Slive is pissed and is calling Presidents around the nation to black ball Baylor from major or semi-major conferences, this petty decision may have done irreparable harm to the university.

This charade will not stop A&M from going to the SEC.

tradeassociation

I don't buy the rumor that Slive is trying to black ball Baylor. Why?
1. Why would Slive do that in response to something that he knows EVERY OTHER COLLEGE PRESIDENT WOULD DO if they were in the same boat? Again, were Slive the president of a university, CEO of a company, you name it ... he'd do the same and everyone knows it, including the people that he is calling.
2. It is unnecessary. Baylor already has no place to go. The Pac-10, MWC, C-USA, ACC, Big 10, SEC and Big East all told Baylor no last year, and told them again this year. So any threats against Baylor are empty because they have no leverage ... Baylor already has nothing to lose. Some of the Baylor fans are already weighing the viability of independence. Honestly, it really is just that bad. So why would Slive go out and make himself the bad guy when he already knows that Baylor is in a death grip?

Again, I don't like it either. But I do admit that if it were my university in Baylor's shoes, I would want them to fight too. A lot of people getting angry at Baylor falsely believe that Baylor can simply go to the MWC or C-USA. They can't. Baylor isn't going to go out there and publicly admit this, of course - at least not at this stage - but it is true.

ShannyDeridan

well, they dont exactly have much to lose

they know the next boyfriend they get wont be nearly as attractive as the one they have right now (see Conference USA or WAC)

lmhagood

God, I hate Baylor. It is absolutely ridiculous that a small private university with a subpar football team can hold this up. Now does everyone see what an absolute mess football is in Texas? Ken Star is the scum of the earth - lower than low. This is just one of the many many reasons A&M wants out. We would much rather battle it out on the football field (and take our punches like a man, win or loose), then deal with all of this underhanded, back room dealing that's been going on in our state. I am sick of it!

ShannyDeridan

so after watching the way Texas schools handle things, A&M, Baylor, Texas, etc...

its brings up the question:

WHY IN GODS NAME ARE WE GETTING INVOLVED WITH ANY OF THESE SCHOOLS?

Their overinflated self worth, arrogance, and belief that all things Texas are more important than the rest of the world makes me think all the TV Market money on the planet doesn't make getting into bed with a Texas school worth it

you think A&M joins the SEC and politely goes along with the rest of the schools on conference decisions? Or do you think they'll act like Texans and try to bully and strong arm their way out of every conflict that crosses their path b/c of the texas complex that makes you superior to everyone else (even if you are a joke to the rest of the world like A&M or Baylor)

I think they should just reconfigure the SouthWest Conference and let the Texas schools continue to live in their own bubble so the rest of us dont have to constantly worry and put up with their nonsense

MIZ_SEC

I think this is clearly why A&M is wanting to go to the SEC and leave these wackjobs behind to fight it out in Texas.

ShannyDeridan

is A&M any different though?

wasn't this all sparked by being tired of being in Texas' shadow?

How will they take it when the SEC views them as an "outsider" compared to the schools who have been in the SEC for half a century?

They are willing to throw all rivalries and history under the bus in favor of self interest, so I have major doubts they will be a great addition to the conference in terms of stability. If things dont go how they want in a few years, do they try to bail for greener pastures again? Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did

lmhagood

First of all, I currently live in Texas, and am from Texas but have lived all over the world over the last 10 years. I do not, nor have ever, felt "superior" for being from Texas, but I do love my state, just like I'm sure you love where you are from.

Moving on...at this point, all A&M is trying to do is better their school by making a positive move to a very strong conference where things off the field are more on a level playing field so they can concentrate on doing their best ON THE FIELD. Period. SEC will be tough, no doubt about it, but we would rather go through the hits we'll get there then deal with anymore of the BIG 12 mess. If you read anything OTHER THAN ESPN, you will see that A&M is NOT like the other Texas schools, and understand our true reasons for leaving. But go ahead and try to lump us all in together if it makes you feel better.

--Michelle

ShannyDeridan

i'm reading this site aren't I... is this ESPN ?

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