ESPN Bakersfield

Corey Costelloe's Blog

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More Conference Realignment, More Chances for CSU Bakersfield

Aug 19, 2010 -- 9:03pm

Well once again we are witnessing a shift in collegiate athletics. Again the powers that be in football and the BCS have dictated a major conference realignment, this time not so much the flashy big-name conferences that have made moves in the past, but the smaller aspiring conference that are pulling all punches to get a share of the limelight, and the money that comes with it.

Fresno State and Nevada decided to join fellow Western Athletic Conference (WAC) member Boise State in the Mountain West Conference, effective in 2012. Meanwhile the loss of three teams to the WAC means the school is left with just six football-playing institutions, and last I checked Louisiana Tech is far from a national power.

So the WAC is lonely, and Commissioner Carl Benson, well he’s just angry. Mad that two universities he thought were dedicated to building the WAC went elsewhere, sorry Carl, but it was all about the money.

While the realignment hits close to home with Fresno State, one of the closest Division I football programs to Bakersfield, this time around it may actually hit here at home. While CSU Bakersfield remains an NCAA Independent, we might finally have the right pieces in motion to find the lonely Roadrunners a home.

See the WAC will not go quietly. Carl Benson isn’t going to surrender his sword and just let his conference disappear. He’s already hinted at looking at some Football Championship Series (FCS, formerly I-AA) schools that might want to make the move up to a Football Bowl Series (FBS) conference.

The two most logical, the two that could help CSUB find a conference, would be Big West members UC Davis and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Although the Big West doesn’t have football, those two schools play their pigskin in the Great West Conference and a move into the WAC would not only be a move up in competition, revenue and notoriety, it would also be geographically friendlier. Defending champion UC Davis would not longer have to make trips to Southern Utah or North and South Dakota just to complete their meager four-game conference schedule, hardly worth the effort. Same story for Cal Poly.

If those two schools leave to join the WAC, theoretically, two spots open in the Big West, leaving seven teams, and a spot for CSU Bakersfield. If only one team leaves, the Big West is reduced to 8 teams, an even number the powers-that-be would be satisfied with, there’s no room for the Roadrunners.

A couple other scenarios involve North Texas from the Sun Belt Conference and Texas State from the Southland Conference. The WAC could extend their reach into Texas, and since they are already in Louisiana, this could make travel a little easier for some schools. If that happens, there’s no help for CSUB. But if the WAC decides on a full-fledged power grab of small football programs, they could go after some of the best in the Big Sky Conference as well, which includes Montana and Montana State.

Although CSUB doesn’t play football, the Big Sky could take them on as a member in every other sport, probably adding fellow Independent Seattle University into the mix as well. Leaving that conference with a more geographically friendly makeup with two schools in California (CSU Bakersfield, Sacramento State), one in Oregon (Portland State), two in Washington (Seattle University and Eastern Washington) along with Northern Arizona, Idaho State, Northern Colorado and Weber State in Utah.

That’s nine total, including seven in football, which isn’t bad for a FCS conference, and the elimination of the most eastern schools, Montana and Montana State. I don’t think anyone will miss those two in the winter.

However this shakes out, it’s a long process, but the ball has started rolling, and hopefully it has enough momentum to reach CSUB, and find us a home.

football, sports, fresno state, csu bakersfield, csub, mountain west, wac, carl benson, espn, bakersfieldView Comments (0)

Time for Tito to Forget Bakersfield

Aug 16, 2010 -- 12:43pm

Tito Ortiz made a guest appearance at Cal State Bakersfield last Saturday night in support of the “Fight for Wrestling” MMA event.

The former UFC fighter and one-time Roadrunner wrestler was there to support a cause, but his intentions were lost, as usual because of his mouth. (View the video of Ortiz's Comments on my Facebook Page)

Ortiz, who never met a microphone he didn’t like, immediately took shots at now-former wrestling coach TJ Kerr. In his autobiography ‘This is Gonna Hurt’ Ortiz wrote about his time in Bakersfield, calling Kerr a coach that played favorites and claiming he made Ortiz wrestle hurt. Ortiz eventually left the program to fight in what was then the upstart UFC.

But even with their differences, the fact that the first thing uttered by Ortiz was “TJ Kerr is no longer here, thank God,” and saying Kerr liked to push people around, and he didn’t let anyone push him around, was unprofessional, childish and immature, but then again what do you expect from a fighter clinging to even the last bit of relevance.

Kerr was in the audience, which made it all the more unfortunate. While many people never saw eye to eye with coach Kerr, you have to respect a man who gave up his job in order to save the program he loved. You can’t argue with his results as well, in 26 seasons Kerr won two PAC 10 titles, five top-ten national finishes, which coaching a couple national champions and 29 Division One All-Americans. Kerr by the way is going to return to the mat next season as a volunteer assistant coach. I think a little respect is in order, even from a disgruntled former athlete.

Tito’s love for Bakersfield was noted in his comments, claiming it was this city that taught him about hard work and how to train. But his sincerity was lost in his audacity, what else is new?

So Tito Ortiz may claim he’s a former Roadrunner, but he represents nothing about the program that we admire. I think I speak for Bakersfield when I ask Tito to forget his time in our city, matter of fact, forget Bakersfield even exists. CSUB got along without him after he quit, it’ll be fine without him now. If there is a “Fight for Wrestling” event next year, I hope Tito is too busy to show up.

espn, espn, wrestling, tito ortiz, bakersfield, sports, mmaView Comments (0)

Brown's Academic Performance Deserves Extension

Aug 06, 2010 -- 1:44pm

The NCAA released its academic progress rate for division one coaches Thursday, the APR basically reviews the graduation and academic performance rates of all division one teams, should teams consistently fall below the numbers deemed appropriate by the NCAA, they could face penalties.

While Cal State Bakersfield did well, there is no other sport that stands out more than men’s basketball. Head Coach Keith Brown, who’s prided himself as a coach that graduates his guys, boasted an APR of 949 for the 2008-2009 year, well above the national average of 940, the number also ranks CSUB in the top 20-30 percent of basketball teams, meaning with 343 division one teams, CSUB is in the top 68 or top-third in graduation rates.

Two out of the last three measured years browns teams have been above average, with the only non-average year coming during CSUB’s first transitional year where Division II players factored in.

The fact that Coach Brown and his players continue to shine academically given the tough schedule and grueling travel they’ve endured over the last several years is nothing short of amazing. What is amazing is that Coach Brown is in the final year of his contract, and has yet to receive an extension.

While college basketball coaches are making news for improprieties, and violations, its hard to imagine CSUB isn’t rewarding a coach who’s not only building a Division I program, but building it the right way.

While the wins have been hard to come by, the Degrees have not. After all, they are student-athletes.

I just hope Cal State Bakersfield rewards a coach for putting the student part first.

sports, basketball, college basketball, ncaa, bakersfield, keith brown, csub, cal state bakersfield, espnView Comments (0)

Not Giving In To Baseball Terrorism

Jul 14, 2010 -- 5:27pm

My apologies beforehand if I seem to take this too far, but it’s something I really feel needs to be said. Of course that’s never a good way to start a blog or a radio show, but I digress.

I’m taking exception to baseball fans that call the All Star Game ‘boring.’ Tuesday night’s Mid-Summer Classic might not have been the beer-league softball 15-14 run fest you might expect out of the best players in the game, I agree it’s hard to get excited about a 3-1 score, but I was.

The pitching lineup for the National League was tremendous, nothing short of a Cy Young ballot with Ubalbo Jimenez on the bump followed by guys like Heath Bell, Josh Johnson, Roy Halladay, Brian Wilson and Jonathan Broxton. I mean an entire lineup of Rod Carew’s and Tony Gwynn’s would have trouble hitting them.

But the frustration for me comes from the fans that are resigned to give up on baseball in this post-steroid era of the pitcher. While everything in baseball is cyclical with the hitters and pitchers taking turns dominating eras, it just so happens that the pitchers are thriving in a time when the hitters were scolded for doing a little too much to help their cause. But using the term ‘boring’ is nothing short of blasphemous.

I can only relate this to one thing, terrorism, that’s right, terrorism. Remember post 9-11 when President Bush implored Americans to go about our daily routines and not change anything because if we did ‘the terrorists win?’ The same rings true in baseball today.

Fans that are willing to say ‘this is boring’ and yearn for the era of steroids and PEDs, are doing nothing but telling steroids ‘ok, you win.’

So forgive me if I’m not running to jump on the terrorism in baseball bandwagon. It was a long emotional process we endured to clean up the game. We built up heroes, just to tear them down, we had records broken that we no longer talk about, and players black listed for even touching substances that were deemed ‘performance enhancing.’

In our baseball-fan witch hunt to track down all PED violators of this sacred game, this is our end result. We selected purity over performance, a game fit for the record books and not the measuring tape. Let’s not allow our moral high ground be flooded by just a few 450-foot long balls on a mid-July night.

‘Boring’ won’t fit into my baseball vocabulary anytime soon. I hope you too will join me in this fight against baseball terrorism.

Long live small ball.

sports, baseball, all star game, steroidsView Comments (0)

Team USA, still #1 er, #15 in my Book

Jun 28, 2010 -- 1:13pm

With the United States exit from World Cup play the grumblings have started about the future of head coach Bob Bradley. USA Soccer president Sunil Gulati says the American team did not meet his expectations at the World Cup and he likely will meet with Bradley after the tournament to discuss the coach's future.

But let’s be real here, was Team USA disappointing? Well maybe for self-served us soccer guy who keeps making the case that we’re so close to taking over the world in soccer, news flash, we’re not, and any sane sports fan knows that. They tied England on a fluke goal, managed to score a couple late against Slovenia before letting Algeria absolutely outplay them until the 91^st minute when Landon Donovan hit one of the most memorable goals in US soccer history, right up their with Andres Escobar’s own goal in the 1994 World Cup against Columbia and the one with the women’s team where that gal took her shirt off and paraded around in a sports bra. Then Ghana came out, hungrier, fresher and basically wrote the ending to a pretty good US Soccer story, just pretty good though, happily ever after it wasn’t. Plenty of ‘pretty good’ movies are in your DVD collection, they all didn’t have to win Academy Awards.

Honestly, team USA was ranked 15^th in the world, 15^th, we lost to Ghana, who was about 12^th,in the knockout round. Now let’s compare that to a sport we do care about, college basketball. In a bracket, Team USA would be a 15 seed, in the dance but not much of a chance to win it all, last season not a single 15 seed advanced out of the first round, losing by an average of 15 points.

The highest seed to win last season was #14 Ohio, who upset Georgetown before losing to Butler… Not a single 15 seed coach is in danger of losing their job, matter of fact, some probably received extensions. UC Santa Barbara was a 15 seed, and they lost, but the Gauchos aren’t saying they were ‘disappointed’ in head coach Bob Williams.

Team USA the 15 seed in the world, not bad, won their pool for the first time in 70 plus years, then lost to a more athletic Ghana team, one step forward, but we’re not winning any cups any time soon.

Bob Bradley, has done fine in my book, he was a 15 seed, he should be cheered for winning that group, not chastised and threatened with his job, because soccer guy thinks we’re better than that

We’re not; we’re like the Morgan States and UC Santa Barbara’s of the world…a 15 seed just happy to be at the big dance.

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USC Pays Up, Now Its Reggie's Turn

Jun 10, 2010 -- 2:58pm

‘FIGHT ON!’ Make that ‘Fight On Hold.’ USC football was hammered with a two-year postseason ban by the NCAA for athletic violations dating back to 2004 and 2005 when Reggie Bush and his family allegedly received improper benefits from a perspective agent.

USC was also hit with a loss of 30 scholarships, some fines, four years probation and they must forfeit their wins and possibly their national titles during the questionable time frame when Bush was considered to be ineligible by the NCAA.

Then there’s the question of Bush’s 2005 Heisman Trophy, now left in the hands of the gentlemen at the Heisman Trophy Trust who told ESPN they would review the matter once the NCAA ruled on Bush. Winning a Heisman by the way requires “the recipient must be in compliance with the bylaws defining an NCAA student.” Bush clearly now, was not.

If the NCAA can ‘un-play’ the 2004 USC season, then the Heisman Trust can ‘un-award’ the bronze trophy to Bush.

It’s only fair, a new generation of Trojans are paying the price for Bush’s misdeeds, they’re the ones ineligible for bowl season, and they were in junior high when Reggie’s family was living rent free in a home owned by an pro agent.

There’s nothing the NCAA can do to Reggie Bush right now to make him pay for breaking the rules, but making him send the Heisman back to New York Fed-Ex style, would at least make some of us feel like the true bad guys are getting their come-up-ins.

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