Tulsa World - Big 12 dictator Deloss Dodds the only real candidate for commissioner

[Will94]

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Dave Sittler: Big 12 dictator Deloss Dodds the only real candidate for commissioner | Tulsa World

Chuck Neinas takes over as interim Big 12 commissioner on Oct. 3. So Neinas should be able to resign Oct. 4.

Given Neinas' vast head-hunting experience, he shouldn't need more than a day to identify and sign his successor - Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds.

Dodds has been the Big 12's de facto commissioner from the day the league was officially formed on Feb. 25, 1994. Schools have either played by his rules or went elsewhere.

The conference's original 12 members would still be together if the 11 other schools would have agreed on Day One that Dodds could both be the commissioner and keep his day job at UT.

AND

Dodds didn't demand to officially hold both jobs at the outset because he needed to find a new home for the Longhorns after he helped kill off the Southwest Conference. So he did the next best thing by pushing through his hand-picked choice, Steve Hatchell, as the league's first commissioner.

Hatchell and his successors, Kevin Weiberg and Dan Beebe, always got their marching orders direct from the Austin office of Godfather Dodds. Their only mission was to make sure Texas won every important conference vote.

Only a few who covered every step of the Big 12's formation are still around. Those media survivors can attest that the Big 12's three commissioners did their job superbly, because Dodds remains undefeated when it comes to those behind-closed-doors decisions.

AND

Texas and Dodds tossed OU and Boren a consolation bone by letting it look like it was the Sooners' idea to hire Neinas. Again, if you're old enough to remember when the Big 12 was formed, you know Neinas is just Dodds' latest puppet.

The two men go way back to when Neinas was commissioner of the Big Eight Conference and Dodds was Kansas State's AD. Neinas eventually hired Dodds as an assistant Big Eight commissioner in 1977.

That's right, Dodds once actually worked for Neinas. If you think history repeated itself last week with Neinas' hire, you probably believe those cockamamie stories about how OU and OSU made the decision not to join the Pac-12.

 

[osu1991]

More of Sittler's everyday drivel.

Wish Bill Connors was still around, 47 years at the World and a great sports writer.