Among its last basketball acts, the Pac-12 has sadly discontinued its annual Hall of Honor induction ceremony at the Pac-12 Tournament.
Say it ain’t so. There won’t be one last chance for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to honor Jennie Finch, for Stanford to bring back John McEnroe or, goodness sakes, for Bill Walton to be inducted alongside fellow UCLA Bruins John Wooden and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The last Pac-12 Tournament will be, in many ways, a tear-jerker.
Whether intentional or not, Walton became the front man, a one-man PR committee to drop “Conference of Champions’’ into seemingly every sentence of every Pac-12 basketball broadcast the last 15 seasons.
How in the world did UCLA choose to induct 1990s basketball standouts Tyus Edney and Ed O’Bannon and wait too long to properly honor Walton?
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The annual Hall of Honor celebration at the Pac-12 Tournament, 2002-23, became visual evidence that Walton did not exaggerate.
Since the Hall of Honor began in 2002, the conference has used the Pac-12 Tournament to celebrate its fabled sports figures. Big names? How about Olympic gold medalists Rafer Johnson, Dlck Fosbury, Matt Biondi, Jackie Joiner-Kersee and Bill Toomey?
Stanford introduced its immortal basketball star, Hank Lusetti, who invented the one-handed jump shot. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ fans cheered as unhittable softball pitcher Susie Parra stood at mid-court. ASU rightly honored perhaps the greatest two-star athlete in school history, Curley Culp, and USC delivered Cheryl Miller to Las Vegas to hear the old familiar cheers.
Now it’s gone. No time for Gronk or Terry Francona or any of the league’s 13 Heisman Trophy winners to be honored at center court in front of 15,000 fans at the T-Mobile Arena. Terry Baker? Jim Plunkett? We missed you.
Blame it on Larry Scott or George Kliavkoff or the money-hungry administrators at UCLA and USC, or all of them.
The implosion of the Pac-12 is an unseemly product of the times in college sports. The end of the league’s Hall of Honor, and subsequently the men’s basketball tournament, were two of the latter-day triumphs of the oft-clunky Pac-12 administration.
How the men’s basketball tournament overcame its inharmonious early years is an against-all-odds story.
When commissioner Tom Hansen pushed to create the Pac-10 Tournament in 1987, it was met with resistance. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ coach Lute Olson, the league’s most influential figure, stated many times that it was a bad idea, diluting the regular season, meaningless.
Except for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and Oregon State, Pac-10 basketball in the 1980s was at a historic low. Why make it worse by staging a postseason tournament that will feature empty seats?
Finally, when Hansen said each school would be paid about $75,000, win or lose, the inaugural tournament was held at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. Attendance the first two night sessions: 4,851 and 5,424.
Instead of $75,000, each school was paid about $40,000.
The second Pac-10 Tournament was to be played in Tacoma, Washington, of all places. Olson and his fellow coaches, though still not in agreement on the need for a tournament, brightened when the league spoke of a $100,000 payout to each school.
Alas, the Tacoma sponsors went bust and withdrew. The last option was to move the tournament to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, to the Madhouse at McKale, even though Washington coach Andy Russo said “we all feel it’s unfair to be playing at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.’’
But the numbers worked.
Expenses? The best seats went for $15. On-campus traffic issues? A bus shuttle from the El Con Mall to McKale was 60 cents. Crowd support? Even the non-UA, low-level qualifying rounds drew 12,635 and 13,436. That was more than the 1987 championship game, UCLA vs. Washington, 9,117.
Every school was paid close to $80,000, which led rejuvenated conference leaders to move the 1989 tournament to the NBA’s fabled Los Angeles Forum. Alas, it was quickly rediscovered that the greater SoCal area wasn’t a college hoops haven. Attendance plunged. One session drew just 4,830 at the home of Magic Johnson.
Year 4 was worse. ASU agreed to save the tournament. It sent 100,000 color brochures to its constituency, asking for a financial commitment. Only 17 responded. Yes, 17. The first two rounds drew crowds 4,567 and 4,380.
The tournament folded. Next.
It would take 12 years for “next.’’
In 2002, the conference moved into LA’s downtown Staples Center, delivered a robust ESPN/ABC TV contract and drew 18,997 for the title game, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ vs. USC.
The Hall of Honor was created. It was an appropriate celebration of the league's grand sports lineage. When the expanded conference wisely moved to the Las Vegas Strip 12 years later, first to the MGM Grand and then to T-Mobile Arena, money flowed. Each school was paid almost $400,000. It couldn’t match the madness of the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City or the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago, but McKale North was born and everyone, even the accountants, were smiling.
The Hall of Honor rocked. In its first years in Las Vegas, the classes included ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s Luke Walton and Fred Snowden. In 2019, a stellar class featured ASU’s legendary football coach, Frank Kush and Cal’s four-time Olympic gold medal swimmer Natalie Coughlin.
It had the feel of a big-time event because it was a big-time event. Times were good. An ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥-Oregon game drew a record crowd of 18,927. The Las Vegas Strip was Spring Break Central.
Now the 12 teams that gather at T-Mobile Arena one last time have plans next March to travel to conference tournaments in Kansas City, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C. Yuk, yuk and yuk.
Bill Walton, we'll miss you.
Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at GHansenAZStar@gmail.com. On X(Twitter): @ghansen711