American Southwest Conference


The American Southwest Conference is a college athletic conference, founded in 1996, whose member schools compete in the NCAA's Division III. The schools are located in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. The conference competes in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's track and field, and women's volleyball.
The American Southwest Conference shares operates from the same headquarters complex in the Dallas suburb of Richardson as the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference.

History

The American Southwest Conference was announced in May 1996. The new league included some former members of the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Founding members of the ASC were Howard Payne University, Austin College, Hardin–Simmons University, McMurry University, Mississippi College, Sul Ross State University, the University of Dallas and the University of the Ozarks.
The expansion soon began as the University of Mary Hardin–Baylor joined the ASC in 1997; followed by East Texas Baptist University, LeTourneau University, Schreiner University and the University of Texas at Dallas in 1998; then Concordia University Texas in 1999, and finally Louisiana College and Texas Lutheran University in 2000.
The University of Dallas was a member of the ASC until the end of the 2000-01 season to become an Independent; and Austin College withdrew the ASC in the 2005-06 season to join the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The University of Texas at Tyler began athletics in 2002 and became a member in 2003, but as a provisional member of the NCAA, was ineligible to participate in ASC or NCAA postseason tournaments until 2007. Centenary College of Louisiana joined the conference in 2011, after completing their transition from Division I to Division III, but almost immediately announced its departure for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
Recently, however, several schools have announced plans to leave the conference in favor of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, which lost seven of its members at the end of the 2011-12 school year. Centenary departed at the end of the 2011-12 season after joining the ASC in that same season; Schreiner and Texas Lutheran left at the end of the 2012–13 season.
In 2012, McMurry left the ASC and completed the process of reclassifying to a full-scholarship, Division II institution and joined the Heartland Conference. Additionally, Mississippi College announced that it would be also leaving the conference and reclassifying to Division II in 2014. Mississippi College will re-join the Gulf South Conference, a league that it had been a member of until 1996.
The departures of McMurry, Texas Lutheran and Mississippi College will leave the conference with only six football playing members, below the minimum seven participating schools required to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA football playoffs. The conference has not announced a plan to maintain its automatic bid.
ASC officials announced on March 13, 2014 the forthcoming addition of McMurry University and Belhaven University to its membership. McMurry will re-join the ASC after a two-year stint in the Division II level, competing as a member of the Heartland Conference; while Belhaven is scheduled to join the ASC as a provisional member in 2015.
On December 3, 2015, ASC officials reported that Texas Lutheran University and Southwestern University would join the conference for football in 2017 as football-only members. Both schools are members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, but the conference only had four remaining schools competing in football. Two other SCAC schools. Austin College and Trinity University, announced they would play football in the Southern Athletic Association beginning with the 2017 season. The SCAC dropped football as a conference sport after the 2016 season.
The most recent change in the ASC membership was announced in July 2018, when the NCAA approved UT Tyler's application to begin a transition to NCAA Division II effective with the 2019–20 school year. Accordingly, UT Tyler will leave the ASC at the end of the 2018–19 school year. While the school did not immediately announce its future affiliation, it stated that it expected to join the Lone Star Conference. The following month, UT Tyler was officially unveiled as an incoming LSC member.
In July 2020, Louisiana College announced that it would leave the NCAA and applied to rejoin the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics after the 2020–21 school year.

Member schools

Current members

; Notes:
1 - McMurry left the ASC to join the NCAA Division II ranks and the Heartland Conference from 2012–13 to 2013–14 before rejoining the conference.
* - The schools are divided into two divisions: East and West.

Affiliate members

joined the conference as an affiliate member in women's golf in 2013. Southwestern University and Texas Lutheran University joined as affiliate members in football in 2017.
InstitutionLocationFoundedTypeEnrollmentNicknameJoinedCurrent
Conference		Football?
Southwestern UniversityGeorgetown, Texas1840Private1,536Pirates2017SCACYes
University of California, Santa CruzSanta Cruz, California1965Public18,783Banana Slugs2013CACNo
Texas Lutheran UniversitySeguin, Texas1891Private1,400Bulldogs2017*SCACYes

* - Texas Lutheran University rejoined the conference for football only in 2017, but was a full member before leaving in 2013 for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Former members

* Texas Lutheran University rejoined the ASC for football in 2016.

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1996 till:2022
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<#
Colors =
id:barcolor value:rgb

id:line value:black

id:bg value:white
id:Full value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports
id:FullxF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football
id:AssocF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only
id:AssocOS value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all
id:OtherC1 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference
id:OtherC2 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:Full from:1996 till:2006 text:Austin
bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:2006 till:end text:SCAC
bar:2 color:FullxF from:1996 till:2001 text:Dallas
bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:2001 till:2011 text:Independent
bar:2 color:OtherC2 from:2011 till:end text:SCAC
bar:3 color:Full from:1996 till:end text:Hardin–Simmons
bar:4 color:Full from:1996 till:end text:Howard Payne
bar:5 color:Full from:1996 till:2012 text:McMurry
bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:2012 till:2015 text:Lone Star
bar:5 color:FullxF from:2015 till:end text:
bar:6 color:Full from:1996 till:2014 text:Mississippi College
bar:6 color:OtherC1 from:2014 till:end text:GSC
bar:7 color:FullxF from:1996 till:end text:University of the Ozarks
bar:8 color:Full from:1996 till:end text:Sul Ross State
bar:9 color:FullxF from:1997 till:1998 text:Mary Hardin–Baylor
bar:9 color:Full from:1998 till:end
bar:10 color:FullxF from:1998 till:2000 text:East Texas Baptist
bar:10 color:Full from:2000 till:end
bar:11 color:FullxF from:1998 till:end text:LeTourneau
bar:12 color:FullxF from:1998 till:2013 text:Schreiner
bar:12 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:end text:SCAC
bar:13 color:FullxF from:1998 till:end text:UT Dallas
bar:14 color:FullxF from:1999 till:end text:Concordia
bar:15 color:Full from:2000 till:2021 text:Louisiana College
bar:16 color:AssocF from:1998 till:2000
bar:16 color:Full from:2000 till:2013 text:Texas Lutheran
bar:16 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:end text:SCAC
bar:17 color:FullxF from:2003 till:2019 text:UT Tyler
bar:17 color:OtherC1 from:2019 till:end text:Lone Star
bar:18 shift: color:FullxF from:2011 till:2012 text:Centenary
bar:18 color:OtherC1 from:2012 till:end text:SCAC
bar:19 color:FullxF from:2015 till:end text:Belhaven
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:1996