Legendary UCLA Chancellor Charles Young Blasts Pac-10 Expansion

Former UCLA Chancellor Chuck Young, who played an instrumental role in building an athletic powerhouse in Westwood, and then another one in Gainesville, as the President of University of Florida, has publicly come out and blasted the ongoing Pac-10 expansion process. 

Chancellor Young essentially advanced the major arguments we have outlined in BN in recent months criticizing the hasty and not so well thought out expansion efforts under Larry Scott. Per Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Examiner, Chancellor Young has been "sending e-mails to the chancellors and presidents of Pac-10 schools, urging them to block the expansion."  His objections range from "academic grounds" to preserve tradition of our conference. He is receptive to Colorado, but he is certainly not crazy about Utah (channeling BN):

Part of it is based on academic grounds. Among major conferences, the Pac-10 is the best academically, largely because of Stanford, Cal and UCLA. "Colorado is on a par with Oregon," he said. "Utah isn't even in the picture."

He is also worried about compromising natural yearly matchups involving California schools:

"You have two schools in Washington, two in Oregon, two in northern California, two in southern California, two in Arizona, so you can have a complete round robin in football. I don't see any way the other schools can be brought in without affecting the rivalries between the southern and northern California schools, for instance."

Well those are concerns we specifically discussed on BN this summer.

There is no doubt UCLA officials will now closely pay attention to what Chancellor Young has to say. He is a legendary figure around Westwood for his accomplishments in both in the world of academics and athletics. It is a sure fire bet that officials from California Pac-10 schools are going to pay very close attention to Chancellor Young, given the track record of success he piled up at UCLA and at Florida.

It's a little ironic that I am writing this quick post sitting somewhere around Pearl Street in Boulder, CO. I can't wait till UCLA comes into town and gbruin leads the effort in organizing perhaps the first roadtrip gathering for BN. Yet as excited as I am about CU joining Pac-10, still not pleased about how the Buffs and the Utes were added in the conference without thinking through the revenue distribution model in new alignments.

It is good to see such high profile opposition and expression of concern of the ongoing expansion. Still wished Chancellor Young had spoken up publicly on this months ago when the conference chatter was heated up this summer.  Still better late than never.  For UCLA's case, in the upcoming months, our officials must ensure that our school doesn't get hosed in the name of equitable revenue distribution in the new Pac-10.

Chancellor Young's efforts might be a little late to "block" expansion. However, his comments should add a lot of weight to the concerns among UCLA community to ensure that no more hasty decisions in the name of conference expansion impacts our revenue intake. Let's hope UCLA officials are going to do everything possible to ensure Larry Scott doesn't screw Bruins in the name of Pac-10 expansion.

GO BRUINS.