Follow Up: PAC-10 Commish Building Steam

It seams we are not the only ones who are calling out Tom Hansen, Pac-10 commissioner, for his weak defense of the Pac-10 as the Oklahoma brouhaha carried on for days.  After we highlighted the commish in our commentary, news broke that Oklahoma was seriously considering cancelling its game at Washington for the 2008 season if the Pac-10 did not bow to their demands that we use non-Pac-10 officials at the game.  We are shocked to see how far this has gone and how Tom Hansen is once again nowhere to be found.  And now the chorus of those who are calling on Tom Hansen to do something or step down is growing.  Or, as Derek Johnson of Dawgman.com put it:

It’s time for Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen to stand firm for his conference. 

Read Derek Johnson’s excellent commentary for insight on the OU-UO aftermath.  The Pac-10 conference is the most decorated conference in college athletics by far, and you wouldn’t know it from the way we get treated in the press and by other programs and conferences.  We need a stronger commissioner to not only defend our interests, but to promote them as well.  Unless Tom is willing to step out in front on the issues we outlined (e.g. better television contracts, BCS bowl appearances, defending the conference) it’s time for him to step aside so that someone else can.  He’s had 23 years on the job.  We should thank him for his dedication but he should know more than anyone that the conference and its institutions are more important than the commissioner, than the individual.  In these times we need a media savvy leader.  He should recognize he is not that person.

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