MIKE HUTTON COMMENTARY: Horizon move puts Valparaiso back on the map--The Post-Tribune
June 11, 2006
Valparaiso University’s move to the Horizon League is the most compelling news to come out of Crusader Land since VU made it to the Sweet 16 in 1998.
Give VU athletic director Mark LaBarbera credit for facilitating the long-overdue move to a conference where there are plenty of natural rivalries.
LaBarbera makes a point of saying that VU, to his knowledge, had never been invited to the conference. Hence, the reason they switched addresses now, not five years ago.
My question to his predecessors is why hadn’t anyone ever asked, especially because we know that the Horizon’s interest in VU has been simmering for a while?
The answer is more complicated than the one VU laid out publically. Sure, it’s much healthier for the student-athletes. They won’t miss as much class time. Travel expenses will be reduced and games will be more interesting.
But all those things were true five years ago, too.
What took so long?
The short answer is VU started losing. It’s a strange paradox, but the worse VU played, the more it became candidate for a better conference.
VU president Alan Harre and former athletic director Bill Steinbrecher were deeply committed to the Mid-Con, even if the fan base couldn’t understand how or why they were supposed to get excited about games against Southern Utah and Centenary. Their affinity for the conference was based on loyalty. They kept it afloat in the early 1990s when teams bailed on them. It was a good and necessary port for them then, when they didn’t have a home.
They also had a stronger tie that bound them together. Jon Steinbrecher, Bill Steinbrecher’s son, was Mid-Con Commissioner until 2003.
It didn’t matter how good the younger Steinbrecher was at delicately balancing the needs of schools that were so spread out.
The perception existed that Steinbrecher and Steinbrecher went together like VU and the Mid-Con. The hardest call of all would be for dad to bail on his son — especially when VU was the bedrock of the Mid-Con.
If that relationship existed today, it certainly would’ve made VU’s exit from the Mid-Con more complicated.
The larger issue is VU can no longer count on the almost automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. From 1995 to 2004, they earned eight bids.
They weren’t close to dancing the last two years.
Their recruiting edge was evaporating every day. There was going to be a time in the future where they couldn’t guarantee a high school senior a trip to the NCAA. That was part of their pitch to kids.
The landscape of the league changed. Oral Roberts and IUPUI improved. VU slipped. That made the timing for a move perfect.
Anytime there was rumbling about making a change in the past, the case for staying put was as easy as saying N-C-A-A. Which translated in dollars. In 2002, Bill Steinbrecher said that a trip to tournament was worth roughly $100,000 to the school. They can save more than that with reduced travel expenses.
Now the hard part begins. Valpo has to find a way to be competitive in a better arena.
But they’re doing the right thing. They’re trying.
Contact Mike Hutton at 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com.
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