During the 1980s and early 1990s, "whenever anyone talked about the Pac-10 expanding, BYU was always the No. 1 school mentioned," Tuckett said. "But they never invited us to dinner. There was never an invitation. It was always speculative talk. If they were going to do something, we would have been their No. 1 choice, according to the athletic directors. The presidents and (board of regents) at Cal and Stanford made their wishes known about BYU. I'm good friends with (former Pac-10 commissioner) Tom Hansen. He talked very plainly to me, all the time, about how things were and where we stood. It was different then than now, but there was never any invitation. Just interest between coach-to-coach, athletic director-to-athletic director."
Numerous sources who have had dealings with the Pac-10 hierarchy say the league's presidents didn't feel comfortable inviting BYU then, just like they don't now.
Why?
Publicly, Pac-10 officials have said they're not interested in BYU because it is a teaching institution rather than a research institution. Sources have told the Deseret News for years that this is merely a smokescreen. They say if "research" is part of the criteria, there are schools already within the Pac-10 that don't qualify by that standard.
Sources say Pac-10 presidents have blackballed BYU simply because of their biases against the school.
"It's religious prejudice masquerading as academic snobbery," one source has told the Deseret News. "They're trying to find an excuse to avoid the real issue, that they don't want a school that is tied to the LDS Church."
Then there is the issue of Sunday play. The Pac-10 holds a number of conference championships and regular season games on that day — in part to accommodate television — a day on which BYU does not compete as per school policy.
When that topic of Sunday play arose during a presidents' meeting in the 1990s, one president reportedly said, "We'll play on Christian and Jewish holidays. We'll play anytime and we'll offend everybody."
For those reasons, the source has been saying for years, the idea of BYU going to the Pac-10 is "a dead issue. The door is slammed shut."
Said Tuckett, "The Pac-10, like practically all conferences, have gone to Sunday play in basketball and baseball and softball. That would eliminate BYU right there. I don't think we're an attractive enough entity to have them change every schedule around, just to fit us. That's an inconvenience that the conference wouldn't want to cope with anyway."
