National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Jan 21, 2010 9:03:32 AM

The Great Lakes Valley Conference is adding football as the league's 18th championship sport, targeting 2012 as its inaugural season.

GLVC Commissioner Jim Naumovich said with the addition of William Jewell College as the league's 16th member, there are now six football-playing schools in the conference, the minimum number of institutions needed to sponsor a sport in the GLVC.

William Jewell is in its first exploratory year of Division II membership and could achieve active status by 2012.

"The athletics directors from our football-playing institutions have all expressed their desire to compete in the GLVC, and I am happy that we will be able to accommodate this request beginning in 2012," Naumovich said. "We've been discussing this for three or four years and it has been our intent – as long as the conference membership agreed that this was a direction it wanted to go – that we would add football."

In addition to William Jewell, other GLVC members currently sponsoring football are Kentucky Wesleyan, Missouri S&T, Quincy, Saint Joseph's (Indiana) and Indianapolis.

Kentucky Wesleyan, Missouri S&T and Saint Joseph's currently are affiliated with the Great Lakes Football Conference. Quincy is a current member of the Mid-States Football Association. Indianapolis will continue to compete in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference through the 2011 season.

For Indianapolis, the transition aligns football with most of the institution's other teams that compete in the GLVC.

"The GLVC has been our conference of choice for the vast majority of our sports," said Athletics Director Sue Willey, noting that active GLVC members are required to transition their sports teams to the league when they become sponsored by the conference. "Regardless of the conference affiliation our goals remain the same. We will continue to run a great program that graduates its players, plays exciting football and wins."

GLVC officials are expected to adopt the 2012 schedule at the league's May 24-26 meeting in St. Louis. Naumovich said the conference will explore additional football-playing institutions that would serve as associate members of the GLVC.

"The addition of football will be a positive development for our league and will be well received by our football student-athletes, their coaches and fans," said Naumovich. "We are excited to become a NCAA Division II football conference."

Indoor track and field in 2000 was the last sport the GLVC adopted as a championship sport.