College sports: Moving right along

By BRUCE LOWITT

With a swipe of a pen that would make a Sharpie-wielding Donald Trump proud, college sports has rewritten the map, with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame moving from Indiana to Ireland and St. Peter’s University leaving Jersey City for Vatican City.

“I didn’t expect quite as many changes and I certainly didn’t expect them to happen this quickly,” Big Ten Conference Commissioner Kevin Warren said after stealing UCLA and Southern Cal from the Pacific-12, which triggered the avalanche of announced moves.

The former Pacific-12 (which once upon a time was the Pacific-8 and then the Pacific-10) is also losing Washington and Washington State, moving to the District of Columbia to become part of the new Congressional Conference; Oregon and Oregon State, moving to Oregon, Md., and Oregon, Pa., respectively; Arizona and Arizona State, joining Miami in the new Retirement Community Conference; Colorado, rejoining the Big 12 (“Why the hell we left in the first place is beyond me,” Athletic Director Rick George bitched); Utah, moving to Nauvoo, Ill., where the Mormons had settled before being chased out and winding up in Salt Lake City; and Stanford, joining the Ivy League.

That leaves the newly named Pacific-One Conference with California-Berkeley. Pac-1 commissioner George Kliavkoff told reporters he is “actively seeking to lure new members, namely Seattle Pacific University, Azusa Pacific University, Pacific Lutheran University and Pacific Union College, as well as Pacific Islands University in Guam, South Pacific University in Fiji, Pacific Adventist University in New Guinea, and Asia Pacific University in Tokyo.

“Maybe I can get Pacific Airlines to sponsor us and fly our teams to games,” he added, not realizing it’s Vietnam-based and flies only domestically.

Kliavkoff, previously president of entertainment and sports at MGM Resorts International and with no experience in college sports before his hiring two months ago, also distributed his resume to reporters “just in case you know about anything opening up in, y’know, something I actually know about.”

In another move apparently triggered by the Big Ten’s expansion, the American, Mid-American, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern and Sun Belt conferences merged into what was at first called the BFC (Biggest Freaking Conference).

It was later renamed the LIV Conference, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, which already was in the sportswashing business with its LIV golf tour to cleanse its worldwide negative image.

The conference consists of 61 schools “but in an attempt to maintain long-standing rivalries,” Commissioner Mohammad bin Abdulmalik Al-Asheikh said, “the grand and glorious LIVC will be divided into 15 four-school divisions, and South Florida will be a floater, moving from division to division each year and not eligible for the postseason because, um, a lot of those people live down there,” not realizing USF is in Tampa.

When the LIVC commissioner’s comments were reported by international news agencies, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid convened an emergency session of the Knesset, which voted to allocate $15-billion to purchase Yeshiva University, Hebrew Theological College, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the City College of New York, University of Florida, Baruch College, New York University and Brooklyn College.

It also voted to sign quarterbacks Josh Rosen and Jay Fiedler, offensive linemen Michael Dunn and Ali Marpet and other active or recently retired Jewish NFL players – plus several dozen other NFL stars willing to convert to Judaism – and grant them scholarships to play for the schools in their new SFC (Sinai Football Conference), which will challenge the LIVC.

Former Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy, commissioner of the SFC, said when informed of the LIVC commissioner’s comments about South Florida: “Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen!” (“He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.”)