How the Big 12 came back to life
The Big 12 was dead. Gone. No pulse.
The funerals were planned in Lubbock and Austin on Tuesday. And again in Norman and Stillwater on Wednesday. Texas A&M would show its last respects later in the week, when it pushed off for Birmingham, Ala., to pop corks with SEC commissioner Mike Slive.
The Big 12 was so dead. The surviving family – Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor – did things you only promise to a dead person. Things you probably don’t ever expect to have to pay – like promising the $35 million to $40 million in buyout penalties from Nebraska and Colorado to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.
(Everyone wants to know how those three get to $20 million guaranteed in the new Big 12-Lite? That’s how.)
But let’s go back and revisit how a corpse not only regains a heartbeat but goes out and wins a 400-meter race in record time four days after receiving a toe tag.
orangebloods.com
6/15/10
