The University of Connecticut joined the Big East today. We’re home. It’s a beautiful, glorious day for celebration. But if you’re a national sportswriter, this might seem like a time to do some #content on the state of UConn athletics. I am here to suggest: Maybe don’t.
“But Meghan, writing about sports is what I do! This is a big sports story! Why shouldn’t I write about it?”
Because you will, inevitably, get it entirely wrong.
Look, it’s not totally your fault. All the things you know about college athletics simply do not apply to UConn. Everywhere else, football is king. In Connecticut, football doesn’t move the needle. UConn is, was, and always will be a basketball school. So all your truisms about how college athletics programs succeed (aka football) are simply irrelevant when talking about UConn. We tried that and it failed miserably. Now we’re going to dance with the one that brung us, and it is, without question, exactly the right call.
Football has been an albatross around the neck of our beloved athletics program, and moving to the Big East, while totally counter to all the commonly held wisdom of college athletics, is absolutely the right move for UConn and will result in more money in UConn’s coffers. It’s a better basketball conference, with rivals we know and love to hate. They even have some women’s basketball teams, and have no intention of hiding our program behind a paywall — something national writers seem to not understand is a thing we care about. A lot. Our fans are thrilled. Now I know the national writers love to talk about how the AAC is a good football conference. It is. No one is arguing that. We just don’t care. At all.
UConn fans will always – ALWAYS – care more about playing a mediocre Syracuse or Boston College team in football than about playing a very good Houston or UCF. And that will always be the case. I was there when UConn played an undefeated Houston with a bowl invite on the line at home at the Rent. The place was half empty, and that was before we all realized Bob Diaco was banana crackers. National writers need to get with the idea that an Indy schedule will be far more appealing to UConn fans than an AAC schedule. What you see as a sign that UConn has given up on football is actually UConn positioning the football program in a way that far more fans will find more palatable.
And if you’re tempted to write about UConn dropping to FCS, just don’t. This has been debunked multiple times by multiple people, including UConn’s own AD, who explained why that is literally not possible. So don’t do it. No. Bad sportswriter.
And don’t get me started on the budget nonsense. UConn’s subsidy looks insane. Just absolutely bonkers. It’s also mostly fiction. UConn pays rent to the State to play at XL and the Rent. Then the State gives UConn money. UConn Athletics “pays” the university for the athletes’ scholarships. Then the university gives money back to the athletics department. It’s all a big shell game and none of those numbers actually mean anything at all.
I could give you a treatise on why this is the way it is, but the plain fact is that national writers will never understand the long, Byzantine political history that has UConn playing basketball in Hartford and football in East Hartford. It’s weird and dumb and doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is our reality, and when you don’t understand it, you really can’t write about it. You sure as hell can’t write unbiased pieces on why UConn has cut sports (to a number still exceeding the number sponsored by many P5 schools) while also being a booster of one of those cut sports. But I digress.
The important thing to take away is that if you think you can parachute in to write a story about UConn sports, you are sorely, sorely mistaken. UConn fans are batshit crazy, and they know more about this than you do. They will flock into your mentions and tell you each and every detail that you got wrong. In triplicate.
They’ll yell at you for writing UCONN or the illiterate Huskie or the sexist Lady Huskies. (Still mad at you WaPo about the absolutely horrific U-Conn. Honestly what is wrong with you people?) And they’ll be right! Because if you haven’t spent the last seven years (or the decades before it) neck deep in UConn sports, then you are entirely out of your depth, and we will let you know it.
So today, of all days, just keep the takes to yourself. We’re going to celebrate and be joyous, and the last thing any of us needs or wants is a half-baked column from someone who hasn’t done the homework. So please, today, keep it to yourselves.
