The Big East. Dana O'Neil.

 

The Big East.   Dana O’Neil

Inside the most entertaining and influential conference in College Basketball History.

 

If you were an adolescent in the early 1980’s and a college basketball fan growing up in the north it was easy, if not inevitable, to be enamored or even consumed with Big East basketball.   The author, Dana O’Neil, shares some fascinating, humorous and insightful stories about some of the most noteworthy figures that helped form and shape the conference at inception and into its heyday.

Now The Big East is not a chronological history of the conference.   However, O’Neil shares with the reader in how it all began.  The first commissioner, Dave Gavitt, is featured prominently throughout the book.   Readers are informed of his upbringing, background, playing days and early delve into college basketball coaching.  His greatest accomplishment, though, was how he attracted some of the bigger name schools amid the northeastern seaboard to join a fledgling conference in the late 1970’s.

Of course, in enticing the schools to join the newly formed Big East, which was not necessarily the obvious name selection, they came with big name coaches.   Head coaches with even larger egos and size, literally.  The chapters tell stories, often humorous and even incredulous, about the antics, idiosyncrasies, pettiness and outright competitiveness connected to the coaching forefathers.    Readers will learn about the backgrounds and history of the coaches, schools and rationale for the conference selection process.   

Adding to intrigue is how the coaches interacted with one another during the annual meetings off the court and the multiple match ups on the court.   They did not always get along with each other. Naturally over a forty-year period there are going to be some games to be remembered as well.    The author lets the reader either relive or get acquainted with some of the standout contests in the rich history of the Big East and frankly all of NCAA basketball.  

The book contains a very manageable two hundred and twenty-five pages.   With four decades of material this book could have been a thousand pages without telling the whole story.    One wonders if more could have been included to discuss either some of the later coming coaches, players or seasons.   Perhaps that could be a sequel for this author or another to carry the torch in the not-so-distant future. 

As it stands, this is a pretty good trip down memory lane for the venerable readers but also a great history lesson for the newer fans of the conference.    In many ways the coaches were larger than life and often cast shadows over the conference as a whole.   However, that was what made following the teams, watching the games, and reading about the seasons so much fun.   

You might like this book if you are fan of just about any Big East basketball program.

You might like this book if you enjoy reading about former Big East basketball players.  

You might like this book if you want to read stories about early Big East basketball coaches.

You might like this book if you are a college basketball fan from any era.

You might like this book if you enjoy reading about the origins of athletic conferences.

You might like this book if you like reading about the connection between conferences, television and ESPN.

Read more about the author on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DanaONeilWriter