February 21, 2012 – News
came this week that the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) has received
notice that the NCAA Division II Membership Committee has approved the G-MAC as
a member conference of NCAA Division II effective September 1, 2012.
This is great news for a mixture of six schools that stayed
with the process in hopes of giving their student-athletes a conference home
for the future.The story of the G-MAC
has been a real soap opera in progress.
It all started when six Ohio
members of the NAIA’s American Mideast Conference (AMC) decided to apply for
NCAA D2 membership.The initial plan was
once all were accepted to form an all-Ohio D2 conference.Then the first storyline took place, only two
of the six schools were accepted during the application period (Cedarville and
Notre Dame), the other four (Malone, Walsh, Ursuline and Mount Vernon Nazarene)
received the “bad news” call from the NCAA that they had been turned down.For all six members it was quite a
shock.The two accepted schools faced
some real items they had not planned on, mainly a future conference home.The other four now had to decide what to do
next, three of the schools (Malone, Walsh and Ursuline) decided to reapply the
next year and all were accepted.Mount
Vernon Nazarene decided to remain in the NAIA and this past school year joined
the Indiana based NAIA Mid
Central Conference.
Now the next move in this athletic conference soap opera would take place.In June (2011), Cedarville and Urbana
announced their intention to form a new NCAA Division II league, along with Notre
DameCollege and UrsulineCollege. Those four schools, plus CentralState and Kentucky Wesleyan,
announced in October (2011) the new league would be called the Great Midwest
Athletic Conference.
Missing from this list of schools was two of the Ohio AMC members Malone and
Walsh.They would soon announce that
they both would join the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.With those two additions the GLIAC grew to
sixteen members.Shortly after this
Trevecca Nazarene was added to the list of G-MAC members. This is when another
soap opera storyline was added – Notre DameCollege was not on the list of the
conference membership in the news release.This was quite a shock to everyone as Notre Dame was the main force
behind the establishment of the new conference.
It was soon announced that the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic
Conference had offered affiliate membership status to Notre Dame in the sports
of football, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and wrestling starting in 2012 and
possibly full membership in the future.This was quite a blow to the G-MAC schools fighting to make this process
work.
So why did the three Ohio
schools decide to “bail” on the G-MAC venture to form a new conference?Many sources told me they thought the G-MAC
would never become a reality and that these schools wanted a conference home
now, instead of facing being an independent in the future.Also according to some sources these three
wanted a football home for their teams, since at this time the G-MAC would not
have enough member schools that had football as a conference sport.Although one of the goals
was to consider adding football in the future.
Who are the winners in all
of this in the G-MAC? All six charter member schools deserve a pat on the back
for the hard work they did in setting this in motion. A friend of mine always
told me “Hard work ain’t easy”, it sure isn’t.You have to think these six schools will now
be able to grow together, including Kentucky Wesleyan who can add some
leadership as a long time D2 member.The
change from NAIA to NCAA D2 does take some time, the G-MAC now will allow its
members the chance to build slowly and also be competitive in the process.I told one G-MAC official I talked to, “This
almost like having a new baby”. I can assure you that a lot of time and effort
went into the planning of this and this included the surprises that came along
the way. This is a “win” for these schools that most likely spill over on the
athletic fields and courts.
Who are the losers in all
of this?It has to be the three Ohio
schools that decided on a “sure-thing”, instead of an option that might have
provided their student-athletes an opportunity to be competitive in the future.
These schools now face some tough competition on a regular basis from
established D2 programs .The GLIAC is considered by many to be one of
the quality D2 conferences in the NCAA.A
good example of this might be Tiffin
who went from the NAIA to D2 and can tell you about the past several years in
the GLIAC, it has been a tough road for them.
The future looks bright for the members of the G-MAC and don’t be surprised
if in the very near future you hear of schools knocking on the door to
join.Interesting how this will make a
difference with those schools that now see this as an option and not a
dream.
G-MAC FACTS
The G-MAC, established in 2012, is a NCAA Division II
Conference featuring active and reclassifying members in Ohio,
Kentucky and Tennessee.
Charter members of the G-MAC include CedarvilleUniversity, Central
State University, Kentucky
Wesleyan College, TreveccaNazareneUniversity, UrbanaUniversity and UrsulineCollege.
