The Ohio Athletic Conference would need an on-duty fire truck to properly celebrate its birthday with a cake and candles.

The OAC turned 100 last month, a mark eclipsed only by two other conferences in the NCAA, the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, founded in 1888, and the Big Ten Conference, founded in 1894.

Now a Division III conference, the OAC has 10 members, though 31 institutions were members at one time. The current members are Baldwin-Wallace College, Capital University, Heidelberg College, John Carroll University, Marietta College, Mount Union College, Muskingum College, Ohio Northern University, Otterbein College and Wilmington College (Ohio).

The conference sponsors championships in 21 different sports, 11 for men and 10 for women.

Of today's members, Mount Union has the longest uninterrupted tenure, having belonged to the OAC since 1914. The newest kid on the OAC block is Wilmington (Ohio), which joined in 2000.

"Obviously, one of the reasons we were excited about the opportunity to join was because of the longevity and the tradition of the Ohio Athletic Conference," said Dan DiBiasio, president of Wilmington (Ohio) and a member of the Division III Presidents Council. "The OAC represents the best of academic and athletics excellence at the Division III level."

The OAC has a history of athletics and academic success that includes 190 academic all-Americans since 1992. Five different OAC teams have won national championships in the last decade.

Mount Union has won five of the last six Division III football championships and it had an all-divisions record streak of 54 wins.

Capital was the first Division III team to win back-to-back national championships in women's basketball, going 55-1 from 1994 to 1995.

Otterbein was the 2002 men's Division III basketball champion, and Muskingum took home the 2001 softball title.

The OAC also is known as a major force in shaping many of the rules and philosophies in the NCAA overall and in Division III today.

Back in 1904, the OAC declared athletes ineligible if they played on professional teams, a common practice at the time. Other regulations restricted competition to bona fide college students and limited eligibility to four years, incorporating a one-year residence rule for transfers. Students were barred from competition for being deficient in their academic work, and athletes were required to subscribe to a statement of eligibility. In 1919, the OAC established a policy prohibiting aid based on athletics ability, while permitting academic awards to deserving student-athletes.

Rachel Poland, an all-American at Heidelberg last season who completed her career with 1,914 points at the school, points out that winning in the classroom is a priority in the OAC.

"Education is No. 1, and then comes athletics. They don't make athletics a career here, but the conference rivalries are really intense."

Sounds like there might be competition to blow out all those candles.