you get the sense that he guided a lot of the decisions

by Jay ⌂, San Diego, Thursday, June 28, 2012, 12:37 (4291 days ago) @ Deshi Basara
edited by Jay, Friday, June 29, 2012, 06:42

and was key in building consensus. We know the two silverbacks in the room hate each other (Slive and Delany), and the rest of the guys are pretty much out for themselves. Swarbrick dissembles a bit when he says he wasn't worried about ND results (of course he was!) but the pitch that we need to do what's best for the sport is something he can deliver with credibility. Given Neinas' comments about his counsel, and the fact that the rest of them pushed Swarbrick to the podium for all the major announcements in the process, you can bet he was absolutely critical to hammering out this agreement. And voila, the end result works for ND, too.

A lot of the themes he discusses have his fingerprints on them as the originator: reclaiming January 1, the emphasis on strength of schedule, making the first Monday Championship Monday, bidding out the champion game to cities, heck, even utilizing Ari Fleischer as the communications director.

I shudder to think what Kevin White would have made of this process. If you think about it, we probably wouldn't have been in the room at all, having accepted Big 10 membership two years ago.


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