On paper, Val Ackerman is a perfect fit as the new commissioner of the new Big East.
She presided over the launch of the WNBA, so she has steered and nurtured a fledgling enterprise.
She was a basketball player at Virginia, where she was one of the first female athletes to get a full scholarship, and new Big East is a basketball centric league.
And she was the first female president of USA Basketball, which was shaped by the late, great Dave Gavitt, who also was the first president of the Big East.
She is paper perfect, a bridge between the founding days of Gavitt and the future days of reshaping and rebranding the new Big East.
This new Big East made it quite clear yesterday how it sees itself in the often blemished landscape of college sports. It wants to be seen as a shining example of what it believes a college conference should be — one committed to athletic success and academic excellence.
What did the late Joe Paterno call this? “The Grand Experiment.”
That doesn’t mean that Ackerman, 53, doesn’t know what the sports entertainment business is all about. She is smart, shrewd and well respected – conservative in style but not above being professionally conniving.
Ask the former city fathers of Hartford their opinion of Ackerman and you better have a couple of sedatives on hand.
In 2003, as president of the WNBA, Ackerman kept stringing along the insurance capital of America, which also is hotbed of women’s basketball because of the success of the UConn Huskies.
She baited her hook with this tantalizing morsel: What would Hartford be willing to do to land a WNBA franchise? Ackerman needed to find a home for the Orlando Miracle, which had been cut loose by the Orlando Magic.
She all but promised Hartford – which in 1997 lost the Hartford Whalers – the Miracle. Yet all along she also was negotiating with the Mohegan Sun casino to move the franchise there.
Hartford was the pigeon in the poker game. Ackerman played a perfect hand.
Every time Hartford upped its offer, she went back to the casino and doubled down. Brilliant.
Now let’s look at the new Big East.
For years it cried foul as the ACC and Big Ten and Big 12 plucked its members. Finally, the group of seven Catholic schools had had enough. It left Connecticut, Cincinnati and South Florida twisting in the wind.
Then the Big East raided the Atlantic 10 and the Missouri Valley Conference, taking Butler, Creighton and Xavier to form a 10-team basketball-centric league. Do unto others as others did unto to you.
And at the very same time the Catholic Seven were walking out the door, it also was negotiating a lucrative TV deal with FoxSports. Remember the remarks that ultimately led to former Ohio State president Gorden Gee resigning?
“The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they’re holy hell on the rest of the week.”
Ackerman is the perfect fit for the new Big East. Her profile is that of an intellectual with basketball business acumen. But there’s more to her and to aspirations of the new Big East to be a big-time player in college sports.
The two just might be holy hell.