Maryland to Big Ten: ‘It’s money versus tradition’

On the third Saturday in November, more than 100 of the University of Maryland’s most generous donors and ardent supporters were invited to the president’s newly constructed, multimillion-dollar home. The breakfast tailgate party preceded that afternoon’s game against nationally ranked Florida State. But as the guests nibbled on finger foods and wandered through the new home, the school’s top leaders — mainstays at such an event — were nowhere in sight.

Six of those officials — President Wallace D. Loh, his spokesman and his chief of staff; Athletic Director Kevin Anderson and one of his deputies; and the vice president for university relations — gathered around the kitchen table in Loh’s private residence. They were negotiating a deal they knew would, at first blush, anger and upset many devoted Terrapins fans, including many who were just down the hall.

Video

The Post Sports Live crew offers ACC and Big Ten perspectives on the University of Maryland’s decision to accept the offer to join the Big Ten conference starting in 2014.

Video

Students are shocked after university President Dr. Wallace D. Loh announced Monday that the Terrapins will join the Big Ten in 2014. After nearly 60 years, Maryland will leave the Atlantic Coast Conference , a conference it helped establish.

Through a speakerphone at the center of the table came the voice of Jim Delany, the longtime commissioner of the Big Ten Conference. During on-again, off-again negotiations over the previous seven weeks, Delany had wooed Maryland with promises of millions more dollars than the school was earning by belonging to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

By this point, the move seemed to Loh like a “no-brainer.” The athletic department has struggled to attract fans, resulting in deficit problems so severe that, earlier in the year, Loh cut seven varsity sports, a decision he then called one of the most painful of his career. The new revenue could potentially turn around the department’s finances, and therefore its future.

And as jarring as a move from the ACC might be for Maryland, changing conferences had become the norm in college athletics. For the past decade, the regional rivalries that traditionally defined the parameters of and passion for college athletics have been shifting.

In order for Maryland to be part of the shift, Loh knew he would have to convince the school’s influential donors and devoted fans. After all, Maryland helped found the ACC in the 1950s. Along with deep-rooted tradition, it could cost U-Md. as much as $52 million to the leave the league. Loh was already dodging phone calls from the ACC commissioner.

“It’s money versus tradition,” Loh said in an interview. “Everybody knows there would be an outcry and we would have to deal with that. And, do we want to go through that outcry?”

Sitting in the kitchen that Saturday morning, less than two hours before kickoff, Loh decided it was worth the risk. He told Delany they had a deal.

A shifting landscape

In 2003, the ACC convinced three members of the Big East to leave and join its ranks, a move that shook up the landscape of college athletics. Alliances founded on geographic proximity and bolstered by competitive history were cast as relics secondary to television market share. Following the ACC’s bold stroke, other moves were not just probable, but inevitable.

“For years and years and years, this area was somewhat dormant,” Delany said in an interview at his Park Ridge, Ill., office, home to conference headquarters. “The tectonic plates underneath intercollegiate athletics are very warm, as evidenced by all the changes that have happened in the major conferences over the past decade.”