The Victors: The Big "Ten"
The Big Ten Conference has twelve members. This circumstance came about when the cheating Cornhuskers of the University of Nebraska ("cheating" is their official Secret Base epithet) joined the conference in July 2011; between 1993 & June 2011 the conference had consisted of eleven members, yet retained the Big Ten name. This was an unprecedented deviation from both reason &, perhaps more importantly in the world of college football, tradition. That's right, sports fans, the Big Ten wasn't always called the Big Ten, especially when it didn't have ten members.

What we know as the Big Ten was founded in 1896 & known informally as the "Western Conference." The Great Lakes might not seem very western to some of you, but in 1896 the American population, especially of football-playing colleges, was heavily concentrated in the Northeast & the Eastern Seaboard; the Western Conference name was as valid at the time as the name of the Northwest Ordinances had been when they were enacted. The Western Conference consisted of seven schools, among them the University of Michigan (thus explaining the otherwise curious lyric "The champions of the West" in Michigan's fight song, "The Victors"). The conference became known as the Big Nine when two more schools were added in 1899. Michigan left the conference in 1908 & was replaced in 1912 by THE _{(Ohio State University)}. The conference did not become known as the Big Ten 'til Michigan returned in 1917, raising the membership to ten. The conference was again renamed the Big Nine after the University of Chicago left in 1946, & did not become again the Big Ten 'til a tenth member, Michigan State, joined in '49. The salient point here is that the Big Ten was not the "Big Ten" when it had a membership other than ten; similarly, it did not retain the earlier name "Big Nine" when its membership exceeded nine. The name reflected the number of the membership; this is right & fitting for a conference composed of supposed institutions of higher learning.

The "Big Ten" name was retained after the addition of the eleventh member, Penn State, for reasons of marketing &, supposedly, tradition. Yet the conference's history clearly shows that its tradition is not blind, stubborn adherence to what we're used to, but accuracy. Rectitude is supposed to be a cornerstone of education & was for many decades at the heart of the once-&-future Big Ten's varying names. What would have been so wrong about renamed the conference the Big Eleven? If that was so onerous & yet the admission of Penn State still so highly prized, the conference could simply have jettisoned one of its two most academically deficient members, Michigan State or THE _{(Ohio State)}. I enjoyed the cleverness of the numeral "11" hidden in the negative space of the Big Ten's logo as much as anyone else, & I have a long-stated aversion to change that is not of my own device, but even I would eventually have acclimated to & indeed embraced the renamed Big Eleven Conference.

The problem now is even worse. The name the "Big Ten" is twice as imprecise as it used to be; eleven is 10% greater than ten, but twelve is 20% greater. ("Ten" is equally inaccurate as a descriptor of eleven as as a descriptor of twelve. My argument is about not inaccuracy, but imprecision. Inaccuracy is similar to but not synonymous with imprecision.) Upon the admission of Nebraska into the conference the Big Ten Should have become the Big Twelve. A complication there is that there is already a conference known as the Big 12, but that is a difficulty easily surmounted. The Big XII was known as the Big Eight until it was hijacked by hateful Texas & added four schools, formerly members of the scandal-ridden Southwest Conference (the Big Eight had eight members & the Big 12 twelve). The Big 12 now has only ten members, having lost Nebraska to the Big Ten & Colorado to the newly renamed Pac-12 (more about whom later). The ten-member Big 12 should become the Big 10 & the twelve-member Big Ten should become the Big Twelve. Confusion would result undoubtedly, but this would rapidly fade & eventually disappear.

The reason the twelve-member Big Ten will stay the Big Ten & the ten-member Big 12 will remain the Big 12? Filthy lucre. Do not misunderstand me, I am a dedicated capitalist & hold that free markets—restrained only to the extent of preventing fraud & enforcing contracts—are a pillar of not only our prosperity, but our political & social freedom. Much as I am loath to quote Oliver Stone, "…greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works." This belief does not require me to celebrate all market transactions, not even those that result in profit to all concerned. Would it be easier to re-brand the Big Ten as the right & proper "Big Twelve" were it not for the existence of the Big Ten Network, a 51/49 ownership split twixt the Big Ten Conference & the News Corporation? Mayhap, but it surely would be no more difficult. Unmistakably, misguided commercial concerns are at the heart of these crass rebukes to forthrightness.

The Big Ten now has twelve members. The Big 12 now has ten members. The Pacific-12 is now home to four schools in states not bordering the Pacific Ocean. The conference realignment fiasco has gotten so far out of hand that the Big Ten, traditionally centered around the Great lakes, & the Pac-12 now share a border, as Nebraska abuts Colorado (which at last report was still landlocked). How seriously can the education of tomorrow's citizens be treated at these universities when the Big Ten & the Big 12 cannot before basic mathematical operations & the Pac-12 doesn't know the first thing about geography? Collegiate athletics is big business, & there is nothing inherently wrong in that; my fear is that collegiate athletics is becoming nothing but a big business, i.e., a big business to the exclusion of all else.

Guest Contribution
A counterpoint to the above is offered by a W. Shakespeare of, if I'm reading this correctly, someplace called Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom. Mr. Shakespeare offers a quotation from his own play, Romeo and Juliet, with which I must confess no familiarity. Ahem, Act II, Scene II, spoken by a damsel named… where is it?… oh, yes, here 'tis… Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

This Week in Motorsport
Captain Malice has gone silent, placing in serious jeopardy the scheme to motor to Wisconsin over the coming weekend to attend the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) race at Road America. The scheme was of the Captain's device: he noticed my lamentations over the Faustian pact the A.L.M.S. has struck with the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network; mentioned that his employer offers tickets, gratis, to a wide range of entertainments; & proposed to requisition a pair of tickets for we two to see all that was on offer at Road America. There is no scheme without Captain Malice. The likely cancellation is a shame, both because I see the Captain more infrequently than either of us would like & because I was looking forward to this as a sort of formal parting of the ways with the A.L.M.S. Alas, sure, but there's no great tragedy in this. My hope now is that nothing sinister lies at the heart of Captain Malice's radio silence.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "Road Movie to Berlin" from Flood (Ska Army)