Gov. Perry, wherefore art thou?

You don’t write, you don’t call, you don’t send flowers anymore . . .

Your loyal friends in the Baylor Nation need to hear from you, Governor. We’ve always been there for you, and now we need to know where you stand on this Big 12 breakup thing. Because it’s breaking our hearts.

The Pac-10 and Big Ten conference raids are causing palpitations all over the Big 12, but nowhere are the spasms more painful than in Waco. Colorado has already jumped ship for the Pac-10, and Nebraska is all but packed for its move to the Big Ten. And Texas, Oklahoma, A&M and Tech are widely expected to be included in the next round of invites to an out-of-state prom.

If it were up to us here in Waco, we’d prefer to see the party canceled due to lack of interest, Governor. But we know that’s not likely to happen now that the hostile takeover business has officially made its way from Wall Street to the locker room.

With so much money at stake, television deals have become more important to conference executives and athletic directors than such mundane considerations as 100-year-old school rivalries and fans being able to attend away games in the same time zone. The color, spirit and pageantry of college athletics are becoming secondary to attracting a prime-time network slot.

But here’s the way we see it, Governor: If we play the game right, we can have it all here in Texas.

Television money is attracted to regional rivalries and big television markets, right? Texas not only has a century’s worth of classic rivalries, but some of the largest broadcast markets in the nation. It’s the stuff television dreams are made of. We don’t need the Pac-10 to market us. What we need is a tough negotiator to go out there and sell us as a package.

That being the case, we’re wondering why you couldn’t call up the regents of the state universities — you’re the guy who appointed each and every one of them, after all — and tell them that our Texas schools need to stick together. Tell them to grab the reins of the Big 12 Conference and then go looking for new dance partners to take the place of Colorado and Nebraska. LSU and Boise State come to mind, for starters.

Governor, just a year ago you got major headlines by hinting that secession might be a possibility for Texas if the nation didn’t get its act together. Now we’ve got two conferences from other parts of the nation trying to cherry-pick our Texas universities, but we’ve heard next to nothing from you on the subject.

And so here in Bear Country your friends have been wondering: Would it be illegal, immoral or fattening for you to point out that it’s in the best interest of Texas for our universities to stick together? To collectively go on the offense rather than be picked off one by one on defense?

The phrase “Don’t mess with Texas” has pretty much described the way you run your state, your office and your life, Governor. You wear boots with the Texas flag on the tops. You end every speech with the phrase “God bless Texas.” You even carry a pistol and shoot coyotes when you jog.

You are, to say the least, no shrinking violet. So tell us, Governor: Will you really sit quietly by and let a California superconference raid the Texas gridiron crop?

On Thursday, while you were en route to the state GOP convention in Dallas, your spokeswoman Lucy Nashed had this to say:

“The governor is not involved right now, and he’s not going to be involved.”

That led to speculation, Governor, that you’re worried this could become a political tar baby — that it could have negative national political ramifications if you make a run for president in two years.

We don’t want to believe that about you, Governor. We want to believe you’ll do the right thing. For Texas.

So call us. Please. As soon as you get off the phone with all those regents you appointed.

Publisher Donnis Baggett can be reached at 757-5761 or dbaggett@wacotrib.com.