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Posted by BKoch at 6/5/2008 4:02 PM EDT on Cincinnati.com

UC will lose a strong advocate when Mike Tranghese steps down from his post as Big East commissioner next June. Tranghese believed in the UC football program and pushed it for membership in the Big East when others may have seen only mediocrity rather than potential

“It was very clear that he had confidence in the University of Cincinnati to do the right things to get in the Big East,” former UC athletic director Bob Goin told me today. “He certainly was a supporter of it. It was important to him that the University of Cincinnati become part of the Big East. He stayed in constant contact and I did with him.”

Tranghese, 64, has been the league commissioner since 1990. He was hired as the league's first full-time employee in 1979.

He said during his conference call today that he was leaving because the time is right. The league is strong and its members are enthusiatic about the future. He said he actually tought about leaving four or five years ago, but felt compelled to rebuild the league after Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College left for the ACC.
"When we brought the five new schools they came in with such an appreciation to what it meant to them to be in this league people started to feel good about it," Tranghese said. "I knew we would be good in basketball. You don’t add Louisville and Cincinnati and Marquette and not think that you’re going to get better. But we had to get over the hump in football."
There is no truth, Tranghese said, to rumors that the16-school league is headed for a split between the football schools and the non-football schools.
“There is no talk of this,” Tranghese said. “Our presidents are committed to making this work. There are a lot of compelling reasons for this to continue the way it is. If I didn’t think it would last I would have stayed longer to make sure it
would last.”
I remember sitting with Tranghese at a UC football game a few years ago and asking him if he was concerned about the small crowd at Nippert Stadium. He said he wasn't worried at all and talked about how the seats would fill up after the Bearcats had a few years to compete and recruit in the Big East.

Last year, the Bearcats proved him right and rewarded his faith in the program's potential.