Deliberation leads to postponement

By Doug Healey
Assistant Sports Editor

After a lot of deliberation, a decision was finally made to postpone all Purdue athletic events scheduled for this weekend, including the home football opener against Notre Dame, which will be Dec. 1.

Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke was involved in several conference calls Wednesday involving Big Ten athletic directors, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White and Notre Dame president the Rev. Edward Malloy. Because the NCAA let member schools and conferences decide whether to postpone athletic events in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on the United States, Burke participated in calls at 8:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. before the decision was made final shortly after 6 p.m.

"We were patient and we didn't rush just to get it done," said Burke.

Although the Big Ten Conference wanted to go forward and play the football games as scheduled, Burke said Purdue respected Notre Dame's request to follow the ruling of the Big East Conference, which canceled all athletic events for this weekend. The fact that Notre Dame belongs to the Big East in every sport but football was not important, Burke said.

"Let's be mindful that each school has a different set of circumstances," said Burke, who was referring to the Big East schools that were much closer to the tragedy that took place in New York on Tuesday.

Burke also said that Purdue did not receive any pressure from ABC to play the game, which was supposed to televise the game nationally.

Whether Big Ten games are played or not, the conference announced on Wednesday that it will contribute $1 million to a non-profit disaster relief fund.

The Purdue game against Notre Dame is not the only Big Ten football game to be postponed, however. No. 16 Northwestern’s home game against Navy was canceled and will not be made up. Penn State’s game at Virginia, scheduled for tonight, was postponed. Also, No. 21 Ohio State's game against San Diego State has been suspended.

A total of 12 games involving teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East Conference were suspended.

The Pac-10 Conference has postponed four of six games involving its members, including No. 13 Washington's game at No. 1 Miami.

The Southeastern Conference decided to go ahead and play its games, although No. 6 Florida State's home game with No. 10 Georgia Tech has been suspended. However, No. 2 Florida will still play No. 8 Tennessee.

Some Big XII games were also postponed, including No. 4 Nebraska's game against Rice. It has been rescheduled for a week from today.

There are only 12 teams in the Associated Press top 25 that are still scheduled to play on Saturday.

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Deliberation leads to postponement

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