As the new person in charge of the Pac-12 Conference, commissioner Teresa Gould reports for her first day on the job Friday with a clear sense of what she must do next.
Her once-proud league will shrink from 12 to only two members later this year — Washington State and Oregon State.
But then what?
What exactly is her mission as the commissioner of a two-team league?
Gould noted there are hundreds of student-athletes remaining at the two leftover Pac-12 schools — and that this is also a very turbulent time in college sports.
“All I could think about was they need a leader that is prepared to fight for them, a leader that’s prepared to fight on their behalf,” Gould said during an online news conference Thursday. “And I want to be that leader.“
So many uncertainties in the Pac-12 still remain after the latest wave of college football realignment essentially left these two schools shipwrecked in the Pacific Northwest.
But Gould, a former deputy commissioner of the Pac-12, was hired to take charge for several reasons. Among other reasons, she had “great ideas for the future where she would like to take our conference in sort of this rebuilding mode we find ourselves in,” Washington State President Kirk Schulz said Thursday.
What is the future of the Pac-12?
Even though it will have only two teams this year, the Pac-12 will still exist as the Pac-12 brand. It won’t be called the Pac-2, at least not officially.
“Starting July 1, as we continue as a two-member conference, we are the Pac-12 Conference, and we’re gonna continue to be the Pac-12 conference,” said Gould, who becomes the first female commissioner of a Power 5 conference. “That brand means something nationally. It means something in our footprint on the West Coast. It means something to our fan base. So we will continue to own the name, the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/pac-12-commissioner-discusses-whats-225355074.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2024-02-29 22:53:55
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