Steve Weisfeldt writes:
[Mike Machnik writes:]
>>And HE has said before that their ideal number of teams
>>would be 12 and they hope to reach that within several years.
>>Intentionally accepting one team in place of another would not help
>>that cause.
>
>What would HE do to make their membership 12 teams?  Does the expansion of
>HE imply the demise or shrinking of another league?
 
First, I should say that while officials of HE have said that they'd
like to see "12 teams", I have not heard that the league has a specific
policy that they are shooting for exactly 12.  I wanted to clear that
up.
 
HE has never said that they have a desire to steal schools away from
another DivI league.  Whenever I have asked, I have always been told that
they would not actively recruit schools to leave one league and join HE,
but if a school should express an interest in joining, they would
certainly evaluate the situation, case by case.
 
Whenever expansion has been discussed publicly, it has usually
centered on the hope that some DivI schools that currently field teams
playing mostly DivII/III teams, would eventually be able to upgrade
and join HE.  Three schools mentioned the last time I posed this
question were UConn, Villanova, and Holy Cross.  Certainly there are
many reasons why these schools and others may never upgrade, but these
were given as possibilities that might work, if the schools decided
they wished to field teams on the level of the "full-time" DivI teams.
 
Another possibility lies with DivI schools that field either club
teams or no team at all.  UMass was one such school just one year
ago.
 
So I guess the answer to your question is maybe. :-)  I expect that
each school that expresses interest would be evaluated on its own
merits.
 
Re-reading this message, I am struck by how much it sounds like I have
become the new White House press secretary.
---                                                                    ---
Mike Machnik                                             [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                     *HMM* 11/13/93