Curtis Jackson, otherwise known as hip-hop star 50 Cent, begins a song on his first album, “Guess who’s back?” with this interlude:

“Who do I have beef with? ANYBODY THAT CAN’T HELP ME MAKE MONEY!”

I know, I know … you don’t get it. The excerpt appears to be trivial, and seems to have nothing to do with anything related to Northeastern. Alright then, let’s try this …

“The answer to 99 out of 100 problems … is money.” — David Aames, Vanilla Sky

Money! Ahh, yes, now the picture clears a bit. Still …

“The ball, run for run, play the slumbs for crumbs/Wired, real tired till my lungs are done” — Cam’Ron

Now you see where I’m coming from, but in case you don’t …

There has been some recent speculation about the Northeastern Athletic Department leaving the America East Conference, and heading over to the Colonial Athletic Conference. If they were to leave, then the Huskies, an original member of the North Atlantic Conference (which became the America East in 1996-97) would drastically affect the rest of its conference.

My response to that? Mush, Huskies … MUSH!

Forget loyalty … do you think loyalty was on the minds of Albany, Stony Brook, and Binghamton when they switched up conferences two years ago? Ce n’est pas du tout, mes amis. I’ll tell you what was, though: money, and lots of it. The three schools mentioned above were Division II schools that had to see an increase in spending to make the jump up to Division I. Do you think Binghamton felt ‘guilty’ about leaving the New England Collegiate Conference? I doubt it, especially when Binghamton Assistant AD for Communications John Hartrick says, “It worked out well for us, better than we ever could have imagined.”

Oh, but that was not it. Hartrick also discussed the difficulties involved with moving up from Division III to Division II, and how much more taxing that was upon the university, because so many things had to be implemented to make it happen. Why go through all the trouble? Dollar signs, baby, plain and simple. And you are going to tell me that if granted the opportunity to move up to the top tier of collegiate athletics for a fraction of the trouble it cost you to move from D-III to D-II, that you wouldn’t do it? If you would, then you wouldn’t necessarily be classified as smart; you just wouldn’t be stupid. And if you wouldn’t … Hah, you’re wilin’.

Okay, so let’s assume that you are not cracked out, and you make the move to D-I. Now what? Only time will tell if you toil in obscurity for a couple of years, like Albany and Stony Brook, or get lucky and jump right into a D-I conference, like Binghamton did. Regardless, you get in there.

Here comes the ‘hard’ part. Stay in a lower-level D-I school, with a smaller budget, or leave it for the chance at greater prestige (and most importantly, money) in a higher level conference. Hmm … hah … hmm … no. The only reason I could possibly see why anyone would want to stay in a lower-level conference is because of a comfort level. Yea, there is a strong New England contingent in the AE. True, nothing feels better than beating Boston University in any sport imaginable, from swimming and diving to table football. But, quite frankly, that’s about it.

Now for the positives. The CAC represents an opportunity for Northeastern to accrue more revenue from a higher-funded conference. In addition, the competition gets stiffer. Can you imagine what affect some extra cash would have on the baseball, soccer and track programs? Could you envision the football team playing in a newly-built football stadium filled to its capacity? Can you picture the field hockey and swimming programs stepping up another level against some better competition? Seems like a win-win proposition to me.

My friend and co-worker (who will remain anonymous) once told me that “Any man who says that money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any.” I don’t necessarily agree with that statement, but he may have a point. If cash wasn’t an issue, you wouldn’t hear about programs getting cut and internal issues about revenue distributions. Give them more money, and watch the dissenters disappear; it’s just that simple.