LITTLE ROCK — Six NCAA Division II Arkansas colleges are exploring the possibility of leaving the Gulf South Conference, but don’t hold your breath. Glaciers move faster than policy changes in what used to be Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference territory.
For example, AIC schools started pondering the possibility of switching from NAIA to NCAA status as far back as the early 1970s. It actually started happening in the early 1990s.
Last week, it was reported that the presidents of Arkansas Tech, Arkansas-Monticello, Southern Arkansas, Ouachita Baptist, Harding and Henderson State are engaged in discussions with presidents of three Oklahoma schools (now members of the Lone Star Conference) regarding the formation of a new league.
It’s about economics, not athletic philosophy.
Travel expenses for Arkansas teams visiting Valdosta (Ga.) State,West Georgia, North Alabama and West Alabama are considerably higher than they would be for trips to East Central (Ada, Okla.), Southeastern Oklahoma (Durant) and Southwestern Oklahoma (Weatherford).
(Did someone murmur that the Oklahoma football teams don’t sound nearly as formidable as Gulf South powers North Alabama, Delta State or Valdosta State? If so, don’t expect the Arkansas entries to complain.)
About 20 years ago, it seemed the AIC would go NCAA as a conference, but that didn’t happen.
Henderson State and Central Arkansas led the way into the Gulf South. Hendrix joined the Division III Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
The rest of the league members scraped by as best they could for a couple of years, or until Arkansas Tech followed HSU and UCA into the Gulf South.
The final AIC football season was waged in 1994. By the spring of 1995, the conference was ready for the archives.
Harding and Ouachita Baptist detoured through the Lone Star Conference en route to joining HSU, UCA, ATU and SAU in the Gulf South. The UCA Bears eventually moved on to the Southland Conference and Division I.
The GSC imposes a 13-month notice for any members wanting to leave, so there won’t be any changes for the 2010-2011 school term in the GSC or Lone Star conferences.
“I thought all the football schools would be going to NCAA Division II as a group,” said the late Harry Hall, AIC commissioner when the breakup started in 1990. “I mean, the travel was so handy in all sports and the rivalries were so strong. Most of these schools had been playing each other since before World War I.
“The thing that puzzled me was how all the schools were able to compromise and stick together for so long. Two or three schools were ambitious to build bigger programs. Two or three wanted to do as little as possible. Two or three others acted like they didn’t care much one way or the other. For the longest, though, the conference could somehow work through the problems and keep going.”
It makes sense that a process accelerated by heavier expenses will likely produce a new Arkansas-Oklahoma conference in the next two years. The question is, why didn’t they listen to Harry Hall 20 years ago?
Sports, Pages 16 on 06/22/2010