First, let’s put faculty recommendations in the proper perspective:

Notre Dame’s 25-4 senate vote favoring consideration of Big Ten membership has roughly the same weight as the Urbana-Champaign student-faculty senate’s vote recommending the dissolution of Chief Illiniwek. Zippo.

The key word here is “advisory.”

Powers-that-be (board of trustees and administration) aren’t likely to heed faculty advice while torrents of “don’t do it” outcries pour down from ticket buyers and major contributors.

For several months, it was the feeling here that Notre Dame would become the 12th member of the Big Ten Conference. This was based on the assumption that, even if ND alumni overwhelmingly prefer Irish football to remain independent, other factors might sway the decision:

– Notre Dame automatically would become a member of the Committee for Institutional Cooperation, an exclusive academic consortium of universities (Big Ten plus the University of Chicago) that would offer a small Catholic university in northern Indiana the benefits of collaboration with the leading research and postgraduate schools in the Midwest.

– Men’s and women’s nonrevenue sports could engage “natural rivals” in Indiana and Michigan and would save thousands of dollars by not having to cross Ohio on every trip to visit Big East foes in such unlikely sites as Georgetown, Miami and West Virginia.

– ND basketball surely would reap geographic benefits and more income from competition with nearby rivals.

– The ND study group going to Penn State will find Joe Paterno and the Nittany Lions pleased with their decision to join the conference.

Whoops! Back to reality

Two tips brought me back to reality.

First, the South Bend media are discovering through calls, letters and personal interviews that feverishly proud ND alumni, who are spread from coast to coast, view Notre Dame as a “national school” and are increasing strong vocal resistance to the idea of their football team joining a “regional conference.” Folks in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles want to see Irish gridders on a regular basis.

Second, ND administrators are seeking ways to collaborate with other schools such as Boston College, thus in some fashion “replacing” the CIC.

Actually, the CIC is in a class by itself and is considered a major benefit by Penn State. Urbana’s Roger Clark, consortium director, said:

“The closest organization to ours is the University of California with its 10 campuses. I’ve talked to the Pac-10 and the ACC about getting something started, and the Ivy League has something similar, but not to this degree. We have 150 groups ongoing, of which about 60 are really productive.”

Features of the CIC are joint purchasing, a special student exchange program, faculty interaction and the Virtual Electronic Library that provides desktop access to books and serials owned by CIC libraries.

We’re talking football here

For Notre Dame, with its modest postgraduate program, the CIC would be an enormous boost. But, remember, King Football is the compelling force in this discussion, not how the ND faculty and its academic programs might be viewed in the next century.

We’re talking football bucks from NBC-TV ... eagerly awaited football trips to the corners of the nation ... the opportunity to reap a financial bonanza in a major bowl and not having to share the millions (ND was invited to the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange or Sugar bowls for nine straight years before falling short the last three years).

So in February, when the board of trustees convenes in London to ponder Big Ten membership, the faculty’s 25-4 advisory vote will be a distant memory as the Rev. Edward A. Malloy and his 10 officers recommend their position to the board of trustees.

Malloy & Co. count most, and they’ll be carrying the hopes and thoughts of the most dedicated and giving supporters anywhere ... throngs who passionately don’t want Notre Dame to give up its football independence any more than throngs of Illini fans want the UI to retire Chief Illiniwek.

Tradition is a monster here. Football tradition. Even Murray Sperber, Hoosierland’s renowned author, notes Notre Dame would be “sacrificing traditional emphasis to compete in the graduate sphere (in the CIC).” And insiders wonder about the possible impact on ND’s Catholic identity.

These are huge walls to overcome.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette.