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By Jim Caltagirone
For the Mirror
The shifting landscape of college football is crimping the lifestyles of road-trippers.
When Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, the forfeiture of independent status dramatically altered the football team's road schedule.
For Nittany Lion fans residing throughout Pennsylvania, an annual lineup of manageable excursions to the home venues of opponents such as Temple, Pitt, Maryland, West Virginia, Rutgers and Syracuse was replaced by lengthier trips to Midwest destinations.
Three-plus decades later, the evolution of super-conferences is prompting fans across America to spend as much time consulting flight schedules as road maps.
The laundry list of winners of college football conference realignment includes television networks, advertisers, athletic departments, and charter flight operators and their fuel providers.
When another new era of college football dawns in August, transcontinental travel for conference games will become part of the natural order in the Big Ten and ACC.
Athletes at UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal, in particular, would be wise to seek some form of compensation for all the frequent flier miles that they would have accrued on commercial flights.
Just when everyone was getting used to Texas A&M and Missouri as part of the SEC family, Oklahoma and Texas are moving in.
The expanded Big 12 Conference stretches from Utah to Florida. The sports terrain at all levels of competition is no longer as simple as North, South, East and West.
Of the 10 teams comprising Triple-A baseball's Pacific Coast League, six are based outside the Pacific Time Zone, including four in the Central Time Zone.
For the second straight season, the Hershey Bears faced off with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, of Palm Desert, California, in the American Hockey League's Calder Cup Finals. The developmental teams are separated by three time zones and over 2,500 miles.
As economic forces redefine boundaries, reconstitute competitive alliances and recreate affiliations, college conferences and professional leagues are battling to preserve their identity.
In the spirit of globalization and pursuit of the almighty Euro and British Pound, the NFL and Major League Baseball seem intent on expanding across the Atlantic Ocean.
International games are not staged merely to sell merchandise and promote tourism. Like the early Project Mercury and Gemini space missions, the games help to determine whether a more ambitious goal is feasible.
For NASA, that goal was landing men on the moon. For the NFL and MLB, success equals populating Europe with expansion teams.
These days, the average sports fan who has limited discretionary funds for extensive travel is left to settle for enjoyment derived as a passive television viewer instead of active participant at the stadium or ballpark of choice.
For football fans of the Washington Huskies who reside in the Apple State, the closest conference road game this coming season will be at Oregon, a reflection of the Big Ten's desire to maintain rivalry games among its new members.
The next closest conference road game for Washington will be at Iowa, a trip which, by auto, would require multiple fill-ups and EV charges.
Pennsylvania offers a summer's bounty of road-tripping options for baseball fans who prefer the intensity of in-state matchups.
The state is home to 12 professional teams, including the Altoona Curve, that represent five different leagues.
At least two teams from each league are based in the state.
Travel to any of the 12 ballparks by RV is optional. Mercifully, no boarding pass is required.
Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.