If the following sounds like I’m bagging on ex-Pac 10 commissioner Tom Hansen- well. . . . I am. For almost 30 years Hansen administered the Pac 10, he sure as hell didn’t lead it. The 200-some-odd national championships that schools under the Pac 10 banner garnered were actually accomplished DESPITE his position. He helped to devise the BCS as we know it and so in hindsight- he actually helped to trivialize the Pac 10, as far as football is concerned. Basketball. . . .that’s another deal altogether.

What upsets me most is that he was such an isolationist commissioner, hardly engaging the NCAA or other conference commissioners for national/regional symposiums regarding compliance, academics, or coaching/leadership conferences. Our conference AD’s take the lead from their commissioner, and Tom Hansen was as hands-off as one can be.

Enter Larry Scott. (thank you God). I hope Larry Scott has the wherewithal to engage our conference’s school presidents and AD’s to participate more willingly and to seek national board or NCAA-related positions as members on committees or leadership councils. We can only formulate change from within, as I perceive throughout the blogosphere that we here in the Pac 12 appear to be whiners and complainers. (much like the SEC and ACC in the ’80’s). I don’t mind the perception, for now- because other conferences can kiss our asses as far as competition is concerned.

We ARE THE CONFERENCE OF CHAMPIONS. No two ways about it. With Colorado and Utah- we’re in a good position moving forward in obtaining a few more quality universities to come under our fold.

Larry Scott has got to get more of our conference people inside the NCAA, that’s all there is to it. Soon, I can see Larry Scott ousting Emmert. That guy (Emmert) is as plastic as they come and he is in no way “West Coast-centric”- as one might think he would be considering his previous employment at UDub. Emmert cares for none of us, he doesn’t care about equality, he laughs at fair and just enforcement, and he scoffs at any notion for the NCAA needing full-fledged reform. He’s just the right person for Don Beebe, Mike Slive, and Jim Delany. The fact that Tom Hansen was in bed with these fellows is a definite shame for all fans of the Pac 10.

Emmert gave Larry Scott some lip service…because deep down, he knows Scott is right. But that means nada. The NCAA is all about agenda, not administering justice. The NCAA COI answers to no one, and they certainly don’t answer answer to a newcomer like Larry Scott. I seroius doubt the power core of the NCAA would shed a tear if the entire Pac-12 seceded from the NCAA as long as they maintained their corrupt hold over the rest of college sports. As for Emmert, I don’t know if he has any power over the COI, and I wouldn’t trust him to do the right thing even if he did.

Fact is, Terrell Pryor was taking benefits from his ‘mentor’ before he ever set foot on tOSU’s campus…a mentor who was intrumental in tOSU’s recruitment of Pryor (check the phone records). Once he arrived, he played numerous rounds of free golf with a memoabilia salesman who had sideline passes to tOSU’s games, sold his signature for 10s of thousands of dollars, stole all kinds of equipment from the tOSU athletic department, and had access to any car on the lot of a salesman who was in frequent contact with tOSU’s compliance department. It has been established that someone from tOSU compliance department or coaching staff was informed about the golf, the memeorabilia and tattoos, and Pryor’s driving misadventures during the course of Pryor’s playing carreer. Yet (like Bush) he didn’t miss a down of playing time despite unieqivocal eligibilty issues. Pryor was the highest profile recruit of the decade. According to Paul Dee and the COI, he should have received the highest profile compliance. Nobody would argue that that occurred, except the NCAA who will predictably determine that tOSU’s compliance department is just dandy…and elect to punish Tressell instead. And there is nothing that Larry Scott can do about it.