I've tried to justify Nebraska moving into the Big Ten in every way imaginable. Maybe it makes sense more than Texas? Maybe they could forge a great rivalry with neighboring Iowa? Maybe they will now be able to recruit for basketball and the athletic prowess of UNL will turn that into NCAA Tournament success? Maybe we need another red colored team?
But all of those attempts to justify Nebraska's entry into the Big Ten I now know were simply my way of trying to ignore the basic reality at play here:
The Big Ten Conference has sold its soul for football.
With Monday's news of Nebraska losing membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), it is now clear that the conference of legends and leaders is no longer the conference of scholars.
In addition to, and perhaps even more than, being known for excellence on the playing field, the conference that included the University of Chicago among its founding members was known for its commitment to academic excellence. This commitment was manifest in the well-publicized fact that all 11 Big Ten institutions were among the 62 prestigious institutions holding AAU membership.
In comes Nebraska. UNL was, and is, a leading public institution. They were, until Monday, an AAU member and continue to be seen as one of the great land grant institutions that dot the American heartland.
In fact, Nebraska's membership in the AAU was crucial in the Big Ten's extension of an invitation to join the conference beginning with the 2011 football season. At the time, Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman said, ""I doubt that our application would've been accepted had we not been a member of the organization.""
But this seeming insistence on maintaining the high level of academic standards was simply a façade put on by the conference to maintain a good image through a controversial change.
After all, they knew all along that this bombshell was on the horizon. Perlman noted, ""We have known we were at risk of this for 10 years,"" and I find it hard to believe that Big Ten officials didn't have knowledge of this risk themselves.
Yet they continue to support Nebraska's entry into the conference. The conference released a statement today that seemed to fly directly in the face of all that ""academic excellence"" talk, especially when that talk noted the AAU membership of all 11 Big Ten institutions.
""Nebraska is a substantial academic institution. It was when its application to join the Big Ten Conference was unanimously approved by the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors and it is today,"" he said. ""The Big Ten Conference does not have control over other organizations' actions.""
Maybe they don't have control over the AAU and maybe the lost membership doesn't change Nebraska's academic standing. But it does seem interesting that the conference suddenly doesn't care about the very AAU that had been the source of so much pride for the Big Ten over the years.
But so what?
As harsh as it sounds, the Big Ten Conference is selling its soul for a football championship game.
The conference has decided to sacrifice the collective academic reputation of all eleven member institutions in the hopes of squeezing out a few million (or tens of millions) more in television rights dollars.
Is the conference's storied academic tradition a worthwhile price to pay for the addition of a single football game? No.
I agree that the addition of a conference championship game is an exciting new development for Big Ten football, but the sacrifices being made to bring Nebraska into the mix are just too great.
Now, I don't mean to have this come out as a rant on Nebraska. They worked hard to stave off structural disadvantages that left them hard pressed to avoid losing membership when the budget cuts came calling and UNL remains a premier academic institution.
But it is not a Big Ten school.
Our conference has always been about more than the power run game and tough half-court defense. It's about an academic heritage that stems from the likes of UC, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois—elite schools both on and especially off the playing field.
College football is a threat to the survival of amateur sports on American university campuses. Moves like this display an unwillingness to protect critical institutional principles when the big bucks are at stake.
Oct. 1 might be fun as Nebraska's first visit to Camp Randall will no doubt be an exciting game. But it would be much better had it been a non-conference affair and not the Big Ten conference opener. Athletic match or not, Nebraska does not fit in the Big Ten Conference.
With Nebraska out of the AAU, it's crystal clear that the motto ""Legends and Leaders"" no longer applies to the classroom.
Is Nebraska still a respected institution without its AAU designation? E-mail Max at max.sternberg@yahoo.com.
