
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott says all student-athletes returning to campus will be required to take tests for COVID-19, as well as antibody tests.
At the Pac-12 championship football game Friday, commissionerÌýLarry ScottÌýtold reporters the league “should be viewed as a media company and not compared to traditional major conferences.â€
Regrettably, it’s almost as if there’s nothing collegial about college sports any more.
Upon reading an Oregon newspaper’s provocative four-part series on the lavish spending and dictatorial behavior of Scott, it became clear the Pac-12 has become Moneyball, a game of excess.
Scott has seized so much power that he has blown up what used to be a chummy model that generated goodwill and lifetime relationships.
The Oregonian’s John Canzano reported the Pac-12 spends $6.9 million per year to rent a lavish downtown San Francisco space; by comparison, the SEC pays $318,000 in rent for its Birmingham, Alabama, offices.
Canzano described how the Pac-12 high command spent $3.1 million in expenses last year. The Big Ten spent $542,000. He quoted former Washington State athletic directorÌýBill MoosÌýsaying “Larry likes extravagance; he runs the Pac-12 like the commissioner of Major League Baseball.â€
Canzano reported that at a financial discussion with Pac-12 athletic directors in 2014, Scott interrupted a dialogue with former Utah athletic directorÌýChris HillÌýand told him and the other ADs that “you’re lucky for what you get.â€
Predictably, Scott was greeted by a cascade of boos when presented the Pac-12 championship trophy to Washington football coachÌýChris PetersenÌýÌýon Friday night. And the happy Huskies fans had just watched their team win a berth in the Rose Bowl.
Is that what the presidents and chancellors of the Pac-12 really want? For its commissioner to be a bigger story than the year’s most meaningful football game? For a commissioner to have a reputation as the most disliked person in the league?
Scott travels by private jet, with a driver, flanked by PR people, driven by an ego that surely leads the NCAA in “look how smart I am†chatter.
Here’s an example of the excess: Scott created a “Pacific Rim initiative†in which he sends a Pac-12 basketball team to China each November, disrupting their preparation for the regular season.
So far, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has resisted Scott’s “invitation.â€
Maybe that game would work in August or September, but few coaches want to spend a week traveling in November. It is difficult to find a nonconference team willing to play in that game. But the game goes on, even without a nonconference foe.
Scott has ordered ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State to play Colorado in China in 2019. What a waste of time and money.
Scott is paid $4.8 million per year compared to SEC commissionerÌýGreg Sankey’s $1.9 million. He has a contract that runs through 2022. It doesn’t seem likely his bosses — the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors who sanction this excess — will interrupt their day-to-day academic affairs to figure out a way to pay Scott more than $20 million to go away.
How times have changed.
In 2010, longtime Western Athletic Conference commissionerÌýJoe KearneyÌýwas dying of cancer. Kearney moved to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in 1994 after serving 14 years atop the WAC.
I met Kearney for lunch one day and as we were talking, he got a call from former BYU athletic directorÌýGlen Tuckett, who had just learned of Kearney’s illness.
“Glen is flying to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ tomorrow to spend a few days with me,†Kearney said, his voice cracking. “We have such a strong friendship.â€
Imagine something like that happening with the current commissioner and a Pac-12 AD of 2018. No way.
Either way, the league needs to restore its image. As Canzano wrote at the conclusion of his four-part series “the erosion of the Pac-12 brand — and trust — are at a breaking point.â€