Former UH President Kenneth Mortiner feels that the WAC should have sued the schools that formed the MWC in 1998

HSA Note: 'Mortimer, as chair of the WAC Board of Directors in 1998, pushed for the conference to take the so-called "breakaway eight" (Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming) to court for the manner in which they jumped ship and the damage that resulted. The WAC, then as now, is more than a league; it is also a corporation registered in Colorado in which members are parties in a partnership and bound by laws."


About how he felt that the WAC should have sued the 8 schools that formed the MWC in 1998, Kenneth Mortimer said:
In 1998, "I believed that we had sufficient documentation that they were in violation of the law and I think it was a felony. The argument would have been that (they) conspired to do harm to the other institutions and that conspiracy is a violation of federal statutes." (HSA)


HSA Note: "Believing that the deserting members illegally went about their departure and formation of the Mountain West, in the process damaging the WAC, the WAC hired a law firm to pursue legal action. But in the 11th hour, because not enough of the remaining schools had the stomach for a suit, in part due to political and cost considerations, nothing was filed."


About how the rest of the WAC did not agree about the lawsuit, Mortimer said:
"I always thought that we should have (gone ahead). (But) my colleagues did not agree." (HSA)


HSA Note: "The WAC eventually saw the errors -- and resulting costs -- of that decision when the TV contract it had negotiated with ESPN went to the upstart MWC instead. The WAC has yet to make up the millions it lost in that one. Now, with the departure of Fresno State and Nevada on top of Boise State, the WAC might be lucky to salvage more than a quarter of the current $4.5 million annual ESPN deal. Had the WAC persisted in its suit -- and prevailed -- in the last go-around you wonder if this latest mutiny would have gone down as it did."


About his advice to the remaining WAC teams, Mortimer said:
"All I know about (the current breakaway) is what I read in the papers. But my advice to them now would be: consult your lawyers and back your commissioner." (HSA)


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