Capital Outlook Viewpoint

MEAC wrong to encroach on Florida Classic

It is sad that Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Commissioner Dennis Thomas would be part of an effort that could have severe adverse consequences for two of his own conference members.

By agreeing to move the MEAC-SWAC Challenge, the annual season-opening football game between the reigning champions of the MEAC and the Southwestern Athletic Conference, to Orlando, Thomas is virtually thumbing his nose at Florida A&M University and Bethune-Cookman University.

Orlando is the site of the Florida Classic, the season-ending rivalry between FAMU and B-CU, Florida’s only historically black football playing institutions and, (one would think) more important, the state’s only two MEAC member institutions.

The MEAC-SWAC Challenge is being moved to Orlando from Birmingham, Ala., where its staging represented no such encroachment into member institutions’ territory.

The presidents of FAMU and B-CU protested loudly before Thomas finalized the move, and were forced to issue a public condemnation of the move after Thomas was quoted in the Tallahassee Democrat saying FAMU and B-CU supported the Challenge and would participate in it (when either won the MEAC championship).

That was blatantly untrue, and when called on it, Thomas said he misunderstood, incredibly attributing the lie to a “source.”

Source? Thomas should be ashamed of himself. What about the institutions’ presidents? They are the best source, and here, in part, is what they had to say and what they would have told Thomas if he had asked:

“As we have made clear in earlier statements, we do not support any historically black college or university athletic event in Orlando. We believe such a contest would negatively impact the annual Florida Classic. In addition to being a much-loved tradition for our alumni, the Florida Classic is a critical revenue source for both B-CU and FAMU. It is our strong belief that scheduling a football event in Orlando prior to the Florida Classic will erode its brand and put this critical funding source at risk,” said Presidents James H. Ammons of FAMU and Trudie Kibbe Reed of B-CU last week in a joint statement.

They are absolutely right. The institutions have worked too long and hard to make the Florida Classic America’s most successful black college football classic to sit idly by as interlopers move in and try to capitalize on all that hard work and success.

Walt Disney, which owns ABC-TV and the ESPN family of networks, has pulled out as a Florida Classic sponsor and thrown its support behind the MEAC-SWAC Challenge, saying it wants to bring more out-of-state business to Orlando. That’s a reasonable decision for Disney. The welfare of FAMU and B-CU is of little concern to their conglomerate. But Thomas should have much more sensitivity toward his MEAC member institutions, at least as much as Tom Joyner.

It is no coincidence that the MEAC-SWAC Challenge is scheduled on the same weekend of Joyner’s hugely popular and massive “Family Reunion,” also in Orlando.

Joyner, host of the nationally syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” is arguably America’s greatest individual supporter of historically black colleges and universities.

Disney is one of Joyner’s sponsors as well, but while Joyner promotes the annual Family Reunion incessantly on his four-hour daily show, the only mention of the MEAC-SWAC Challenge is through paid commercials.

That’s not surprising to anyone who knows how much Joyner, a Tuskegee grad, loves HBCUs. He will have nothing to do with pitting HBCUs against one another when it comes to their history, traditions and financial and general welfare.

All the MEAC presidents should demand no less from their commissioner.

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