The Boston Globe is reporting that Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, the man in charge of the coference since 1990, will announce his retirement later today. One of only two people to ever be in charge of the conference, it'll be some huge shoes to fill next June when he officially steps down. By no means would I say Mike Tranghese is comparable to Bud Selig in terms of reputation, the two commissioners share one thing in common. Both were in charge when sweeping changes occured in their respective leagues and both of their legacies will be greatly defined, for better or worse, by them. While Selig will always be linked to splitting of MLB into six divisions from four, the creation of the Wild Card and Interleague play, Tranghese will always be the Big East Commish who took the tight-knit basketball conference and turned it into a 16-team juggernaut while also building up the football conference, watching it crumble and almost die and then rebuilding it with an influx of risky propositions that paid off.
Tranghese seems to think the timing in right because, well, everything's perfect:
"Right now everything is working fairly well,'' said Tranghese, who says he still wants to work, but at a different pace. "In football, there doesn't seem to be any movement towards a ninth school and everyone is happy with the level of basketball. We've never been stronger.''Strange, since we know some coaches have gone on record saying they want a ninth football school and others have complained about the uneven scheduling in basketball, but whatever you say Mike.
Hopefully, and if you'll allow me to go conspiracy theory on you for a second, this really is just a guy wanting to do something different with his life and not, say, him seeing the writing on the wall that the conference's days are numbered and he doesn't want to be the guy holding the strings when it all comes crashing down.
No word yet on any replacement or how this might affect any plans in the makings such as the Big East lacrosse conference. Still, the most pressing question has to be...where will we hold future Octonion meetings?