Texas’ Chris Del Conte visits Fort Worth, but TCU can’t have it both ways | Opinion
Once one of the most popular people in all of Fort Worth who was welcome long after he moved to Austin, Chris Del Conte is no longer held in the same regard.
Many of those doors that were open to the Texas athletic director he will now find closed, and some phone calls to old friends around these parts are more apt to go straight to voicemail.
There are plenty of TCU employees, fans, boosters and influential alums who are not just hurt, but feel betrayed by the school’s former athletic director.
They all understood why he left TCU in December of 2017 to become the athletic director at the University of Texas.
There is only disappointment, and anger, when Del Conte was part of the collective resolve between Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 for the SEC.
For TCU to lose that relationship with Texas twice in less than 30 years is difficult.
For a lot of people this is going to take a long time to get over. And some may simply choose not to do so.
“To watch the person that elevated TCU to a national brand do everything in his power to stomp on it hurts,” wrote Melissa Triebwasser, who runs the fan site, FrogOWar.
She expressed what a lot of TCU people have been feeling in her column.
The anger and hurt is understandable, but you can’t have it both ways with Del Conte. His responsibilities for TCU ended the day he resigned, and he owed the school nothing thereafter.
TCU is not in the Big 12 without him. So much of what you see today within the athletic department exists because of his leadership and ability to raise money for a variety of projects, most notably the football and basketball facility renovations.
This was amutually beneficial professional relationship, and now he’s just doing at Texas what he did at TCU.
That’s the job.
Del Conte passed on talking about this subject. He will be with Texas when it plays at TCU on Saturday, which could potentially be the last time the Longhorns visit Fort Worth as conference members.
“Chris needed to do what he felt was in the best interest of Texas, just like I would do what’s best for TCU,” said Jeremiah Donati, TCU’s athletic director, via a text.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to think he, or anyone, would make these kinds of decisions worrying about the impact on someone else you’re not affiliated with anymore.”
Interpret that however you want.
Donati acknowledged that he knows his response doesn’t answer it all perfectly.
No one at TCU was closer to Del Conte than Donati.
Donati’s father, the late Dr. Richard Donati, helped launch Del Conte’s career as a graduate assistant at Washington State.
Del Conte hired Donati at TCU, and essentially groomed him to be his successor.
Over the last few years TCU athletic officials and fans have quietly expressed concerns over college football’s next major re-alignment, and where the small private school would fit.
When Del Conte left Fort Worth for Austin, the hope was that their friend, former colleague or boss would take care of TCU because of his relationships with them, and specifically Donati.
That if college sports went through another makeover, Del Conte would make sure TCU was always OK.
It was a charming, albeit misguided, aspiration.
Del Conte is paid more than $1 million a year by the University of Texas to take care of the University of Texas.
Del Conte may put in a good word with an ESPN executive type, or a Pac-12 official, but that’s about it.
TCU will have to take care of TCU.
When Texas and Oklahoma announced they will leave the Big 12 for the SEC it left the eight remaining conference partners in a scary spot.
There are no guarantees that the additions of BYU, Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston will keep the Big 12 as a Power 5 member, and maintain its status in the College Football Playoff.
If you are TCU, or any of these other Big 12 schools, the departures of OU and UT stink.
And, this is the current state of college athletics. This is a (big) cash business, and both “rivals” partnered to make more money for themselves.
In Fort Worth, the most prominent face of that transaction is their friend, former colleague or ex-boss.
It is why, at least for the time being, so many of the doors that were once open for Chris Del Conte may now be closed, or why his phone calls to old friends are apt to go straight to voicemail.
