Columnist Dean Juipe: Some regrets as UNLV cuts ties with WAC

ANYTIME HE was asked, Charlie Cavagnaro routinely said he thought the Western Athletic Conference was too big and too unwieldy for its own good. Fact is, he was surprisingly glib about it.

And while the UNLV athletic director expressed these concerns and suggested something, someday, would have to be done to alleviate the congestion in the 16-team, five-time-zone league, there never really was a hint of the drastic solution that came down Tuesday.

In a well-kept secret that surprised seemingly everyone, UNLV was among eight schools to suddenly withdraw from the WAC in favor of forming their own as-yet-unnamed league next year. It was a blockbuster move and a devastating one for the WAC, which arguably lost its top eight athletic schools in one afternoon.

Not that the new eight-team league won't be interesting and more practical from a travel and expense standpoint, but the demise of the WAC really seems unfortunate in many ways.

The WAC had -- everything is past tense now -- a cool image. It had quality athletics in a rugged, wild West setting.

It was a class league with a first-class commissioner, Karl Benson, and top-flight support personnel.

It was the league UNLV wanted and needed to join and there was widespread approval within Las Vegas when the Rebels were added to the WAC lineup in 1996. UNLV had outgrown its usefulness for the Big West Conference and the WAC appeared to be a perfect fit even with its crowded conditions.

Budgetary considerations aside, UNLV and its fans homogenized with the WAC. All the league championships were decided here and Las Vegas appeared to enjoy its position as the league's hub.

It was as if UNLV and the WAC were becoming synonymous.

Given all those considerations and misgivings, this would have been a better remedy: The eight malcontents -- which include the WAC's charter members -- should have pressured their eight brethren to withdraw from the league, thereby leaving the WAC name and reputation intact. As it is, none of the remaining WAC schools was a charter member of the league.

The WAC as it is today, or as it will be come June 30, 1999, has been reduced to leftovers. It will appear very common and unappealing, much like the Big West Conference in its post-UNLV existence. (It isn't farfetched to believe the WAC and the Big West may yet merge to soothe their mutual feelings of inadequacy.)

Say this for the eight secessionists: They're bonded by geography and strong athletics. These eight schools were the cream of the WAC's athletic crop.

Now they're out on their own, yet they made sure they had the bases covered before they severed the umbilical cord. They've retained the major markets, the football bowl sites and the finest programs in the most influential sports.

They also managed to free themselves from all those darned Texas teams -- SMU, TCU and Rice -- that infiltrated the WAC when the Southwest Conference succumbed.

But this split comes with some regrets. The WAC was the envy of UNLV's eye for many years, making this a divorce of convenience replete with mixed emotions.

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