RT,
In many situations the reasonable approach you have taken and the conclusions you come to would be spot on... but... in this one, the conclusions you've drawn just don't fit the situation particularly well. As you know, in life there are times when what looks to be reasonable upon a first observation is found to be very unreasonable with a fuller understanding.
I hope that I can give you a better understanding and a flavor of the experience so that you can make a better informed decision/opinion on this topic. I'm not saying that your understanding of those times is unreasonable given that you weren't here to experience them, but I am saying that you have built your opinion without sufficient understanding of those times and of those events. No one can reasonably expect you to GROK the issue but one can expect you to have a better, more flavored understanding if someone is willing to talk to you about those days and you are willing to be open minded to what you see, hear, read.
Sentiments 'Let's act like adults and get the series started again.' have frustrated some of those who lived through those times because your words suggest to us that you haven't sufficiently understood the depth and breathe of the flood of bile that came out of Knoxville at the time and how that spread across WCBBdom. We also believe that you are missing the more basic understanding that the accusations were not made out of a sense that justice or in an effort to keep the sport as clean as could be expected, but out of the more base motives of spite, entitlement & resentment. The accusations were not just beyond baseless, they were an of mean spirited hissy fits and appallingly immature tantrums. Otherwise responsible adults acted like nasty little 7th graders...
The insanely constructed accusations from their school and the nearly endless flow of follow up accusations from PHS's proxies and her fan base were not made in a sincere effort to find truth; they were personal... very personal.... attempts to destroy reputations and careers. There was very little actual high-minded speech coming out of Knoxville back in those days.
It was not all that much fun to be a fan of WCBB or of the Huskys in those days... The boards were aflame with attack and counterattack. The pregame-game time-postgame media coverage couldn't resist spending insipid conversation after insipid conversation on this nonsense. WCBB as a whole was a lot less fun in those days. The 'troubles' became all-encompassing... it filled the air and pages even when we weren't playing each other... any and every televised UConn or UTenn game was filled with nonsensical conversations by the play-by-play and color commentators about the problems between PHS & Geno... UConn & Utenn... it was pushing the actual game of basketball out of the conversation... It was all about the anger & resentments. The printed media blindly followed suit.
As Phil said, the accusations were based upon ridiculously flimsy supposition and completely unsupported, yet 'responsible' adults made them anyway. There was no reasonable suspicion that could be found here... there was only an itch to be scratched... a need to lash to be laid upon a foe. Most of us were gobsmacked when we finally had a chance to read the actual NCAA complaint... How UTenns AD didn't squash this all before it left the walls of her office is still a mystery. It was beyond silly... but old angers and the rest of the more base of human emotions took control of our Knoxville neighbors. Positively silly notions became facts in the resentment fueled minds in Knoxville. Given that as a starting point, it wasn't really all that surprising that it rapidly went downhill from there.
So, what would a rational, reasonable, mature person/organization do if they suspected that something was amiss....well, in the absence of facts that would substantiate allegations of wrongdoing, the folks in Knoxville chose to wage a war of innuendo whose first shot was at Geno in the form of "Ask Geno." PHS's fans took up her tactic and the smear was on... Their weapon of choice to give remedy to their suspicions was a campaign of far fetched rumor mongering and a malicious whisper campaign designed to punish Maya's mother, Carolyn Doty, DT, Sue, Geno, Kib, Tonyc, DD and others.... This full scale smear campaign was set into motion by UTenn and kept fueled for years by it's more rabid fans. To them, it was a sacred duty to back Pat with whatever was needed to smear potential recruits, recruits families, Geno, the other Husky coaches, the COOP, Husky fans as a group, and several Husky fans individually many of which were 'interviewed' by the authorities(FBI, Compliance officers).
Because PHS and crew had shown no motive other than a deep sense of resentment as she and they allowed nasty rumors and ugly suspicions to go unchecked and unchallenged, many folks lost respect for Coach PHS.
For many of us this was PHS's greatest misdeed:: she and her subordinates stayed silent as her proxies spread rumors -- her are just a few :::
[ ]Rumors of houses purchased as payoff to recruits parents ::: although untrue and completely concocted out of whole cloth, it had the potential to effect our recruiting efforts and to damage the reputations of both the school, the recruits, and the recruit's parents. Pretty dirty stuff...PHS never lifted a finger to mute this vile onslaught.
[ ]Rumors of sweet-heart book-bag deals made illegally to payoff the parent of a Husky:::not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that this ever happened... just mud thrown at UCONN and Maya's mom.
[ ]Rumors of cash payouts, not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that this ever happened... just mud thrown at UCONN and Maya's mom.
[ ]Rumors of illegal payouts of french fries and Wendy's burgers ::: designed purely to punish CD for having chosen UConn and to discredit UConn & Geno.
[ ]Rumors of secret and strictly illegal car rides home given to a recruit by DT & Sue, who BTW were out of the country at the time of the alleged car ride but had to be interviewed non-the-less. Simply a mud-slinging story created out of the air to damage the reputations of UCONN, Geno, DT, & Sue.
[ ]Rumors of accusations that illegal contact between Husky fans and recruits had become so commonplace that gifts(handmade signs) were given... too silly to take seriously except, of course, if you were the one being interviewed by the compliance folks.
As one rumor was shown to be ridiculous, several more would pop up from Knoxville. Peoples lives were interrupted and their reputations were assailed not as a result of an honest desire to keep the sport as clean as possible, but as a result of spite, resentment, anger, entitlement, and to some extent jealousy. These times were not filled with the laudably high-minded sentiments that you spoke of in your post; they were nothing more than humans behaving very very badly. The story became the nastiness... the game was lost in the muck. Those that disagree with you aren't failing to act like adults, they just don't wish to revisit/repeat those experiences.
I know that this response is far too long and I apologize for that but I also hope that this helps you to understand why you get the push-back that you do when the topic of renewing the series comes up. For many of us, it's as if you are suggesting we get back into an abusive relationship because there were 'good' times too. At least consider the possibility that those who oppose renewing the series are not failing to act like adults, that instead that it is possible that your plea for a detente is far too naive and based upon far too frail of an understanding of those events.
You Ol' Pal Boo
