SCAC faces big changes in 2012

In June 2012 seven teams will leave to form a new conference

by Lydia Duncombe

Change is coming to Trinity athletics. Not just any old “I got new cleats” change. This is a monumental change for the sports programs at Trinity. Seven schools have decided to leave the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, effective June 2012. Five teams will remain, including Trinity.

“The SCAC has shifted about three times since I’ve been here the past eighteen years, but nothing as monumental as this,” said Bob King, Director of Athletics. “This is a dramatic change in conference configuration and membership.”

Teams leaving include Birmingham-Southern (Ala.), Centre College (Ky.), Hendrix College (Ark.), Millsaps College (Miss.), Oglethorpe University (Ga.), Rhodes College (Tenn.) and Sewanee University (Tenn.). These teams will form the Southern Athletic Association.

Location was a major factor in the changes to the conference. A statement on the new SAA website reads, “the geographic focus will result in reduced travel time and fewer missed classes while still allowing for a strong conference of like-minded institutions.”
King sees the change as an opportunity to save money and play more teams.

“Financially it will allow us to not have to spend as much money on conference games in every sport,” King said. “It will allow us to go out and find a nationally competitive non-conference schedule. We can now go play all the great academic schools all around the country as part of the non-conference schedule, which we couldn’t do before due to the amount of conference games we had to play.”

With only five teams left in the conference, the SCAC is looking for new members.

“We wanted the old conference to stay together, but we need at least three new members, if not five new members.” King said. We are trying to keep the new SCAC a Texas- based conference, and then attract members in this geographical region,” King said.

King has been working with the adminstration to ensure Trinity makes the best decision.

“Dr. Ahlburg and Dr. Fischer have been very supportive and helpful in all of this.” King said. “At this time, we have extended two invitations that I know of to different schools to join the conference, but it is confidential who these teams are as they are in the deciding process right now.”

The five teams that will remain in the conference include Trinity, Austin College, Colorado College, University of Dallas and Southwestern University.

“We might fare better but, the competition level goes way down,” said head cross-country coach Jennifer Breuer. “We have greater opportunities to win, but from a coaching perspective that doesn’t make it any more satisfying.”

Some sports will be more affected by the change than others. Football and women’s golf will lose most of their conference competition when the seven schools break away next year, because most of the remaining schools do not have a team that competes in their sport.

At least four out of the five schools have to sponsor a team in order to have a conference championship.

Due to the lack of football teams in the new conference, football will likely play in a different conference that is not the SCAC after the 2012 season. There is already a contract in place for football to play one more season with the original SCAC teams before negotiations for them to play in a different conference begin.

“It will be different for the football team after the reformed SCAC is really determined, but not necessarily bad,” said junior running back William Hix. “We have two more great opportunities to do well and win a conference championship in the SCAC before we begin to look toward a new conference.”

The changes to the conference might have come as a shock to Trinity, but the future looks optimistic.

“Right now I think Trinity is where it needs to be with the SCAC, but if other opportunities present themselves, we would look at that also,” King said. “It’s not a good thing until we get the new memberships of teams. In the long run though it will serve us well, even though we didn’t want this. I think we can turn a negative into a positive.”