South Atlantic Conference
The South Atlantic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the southeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association 's Division II level. The SAC was founded in 1975 as a football-only conference and became an all-sports conference beginning with the 1989–90 season.
The league currently sponsors 10 sports for men and 10 sports for women.
History
The distant forerunner of the South Atlantic Conference was the North State Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The NSIAC was formed when the "Little Six", as it was called, broke from the North Carolina Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1930. The charter members included Appalachian State Teachers College, Lenoir–Rhyne College, Atlantic Christian College, Catawba College, Guilford College, Elon College, and High Point College.The North State continued to grow over the next 30 years, adding Western Carolina University, East Carolina University and Pfeiffer College . A name change became necessary when the league accepted Newberry College as its first member from the state of South Carolina in 1961. The league took on the name Carolinas Intercollegiate Athletic Conference on May 20 of that year.
The CIAC saw several changes in the following years as East Carolina withdrew from the league in 1962. Appalachian State and Western Carolina followed in 1971 and 1976. All three landed in the Southern Conference.
The South Atlantic Conference was founded in 1975 solely as a football conference. The league received its name from a contest in which Kurt Brenneman of Greensboro, North Carolina became the first to submit the SAC-8 moniker.
The SAC-8 consisted of Carson–Newman College, Catawba College, Elon College, Gardner–Webb College, Lenoir–Rhyne College, Mars Hill College, Newberry College, and Presbyterian College. Dr. Fred Bentley, of Mars Hill College, was named league president for its inaugural year, by a vote of the member institutions.
After the first season of play in the SAC-8, the Bears of Lenoir–Rhyne College captured the first football title.
In 1989, the league's 15th year of operation, the South Atlantic Conference became a comprehensive, multi-sport conference. Doug Echols was named the league's first Commissioner. That year the South Atlantic Conference sponsored 10 sports – football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's soccer, volleyball, men's golf, men's and women's tennis. Later the conference grew to 14 championship sports by adding women's soccer, men's and women's cross country and women's golf. In 2013, the sports of men's and women's lacrosse and men's and women's track and field were added, increasing the number of championship sports to 18.
The South Atlantic Conference was composed of the same eight member institutions from 1975–76 until 1988–89, when Wingate College replaced Newberry College as the eighth member institution. Newberry College later re-joined the conference in the 1996–97 season.
In July 1998, Tusculum College was admitted as a member of the league, and Lincoln Memorial University began play in the conference in the 2006–07 academic year. Brevard College was admitted to the SAC as a provisional member in 2007 and a full member in 2008.
In 2008, Echols retired after serving as Commissioner for 19 years and Patrick Britz was hired as the new Commissioner.
In July 2010, Anderson University became the league's 10th member. Three years later in July 2013, Coker College and Queens University of Charlotte joined the conference. On April 13, 2018, UVA–Wise announced that it was joining the South Atlantic Conference for the 2019-20 season. The most recent change to the conference membership was announced on April 5, 2019, when Limestone College, which had joined as a football-only member in 2017 and added field hockey to its SAC membership the next year, was announced as a new full member effective in 2020–21, the same time it became Limestone University.
The SAC and Conference Carolinas entered into a partnership in the 2018–19 school year by which the two leagues would operate as a single conference in field hockey and wrestling, with championships immediately conducted in both sports. The leagues agreed that the SAC would coordinate the field hockey championship, while CC would fill the same role for wrestling. Accordingly, all CC field hockey programs became SAC affiliates, and all SAC wrestling programs became CC affiliates.
Member schools
Charter members
Newberry College left the SAC in 1989, and re-joined in 1996. Wingate replaced Newberry College as the final member for the birth of the all-sport SAC in 1989. Former members Elon, Gardner–Webb, and Presbyterian were charter members of both the SAC-8 football era and the SAC all-sport era.| Carson–Newman College |
| Catawba College |
| Elon College |
| Gardner–Webb College |
| Lenoir–Rhyne College |
| Mars Hill College |
| Newberry College |
| Presbyterian College |
| Carson–Newman College |
| Catawba College |
| Elon College |
| Gardner–Webb College |
| Lenoir–Rhyne College |
| Mars Hill College |
| Presbyterian College |
| Wingate College |
Current members
Affiliate members
Former members
Membership timeline
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1975 till:2030
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:5 left:5 bottom:20 top:5
Colors =
id:line value:black
id:Full value:rgb # all sports
id:FullxF value:rgb # non-football
id:AssocF value:rgb # football-only
id:AssocOS value:rgb # associate
PlotData =
width:15 textcolor:darkblue shift: anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Carson–Newman
bar:1 color:Full from:1989 till:end
bar:2 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Catawba
bar:2 color:Full from:1989 till:end
bar:3 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Elon
bar:3 color:Full from:1989 till:1997
bar:4 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Gardner–Webb
bar:4 color:Full from:1989 till:2000
bar:5 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Lenoir–Rhyne
bar:5 color:Full from:1989 till:end
bar:6 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Mars Hill
bar:6 color:Full from:1989 till:end
bar:7 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1988 text:Newberry
bar:7 color:Full from:1996 till:end text:
bar:8 color:AssocF from:1975 till:1989 text:Presbyterian
bar:8 color:Full from:1989 till:2007
bar:9 color:AssocF from:1988 till:1989 text:Wingate
bar:9 color:Full from:1989 till:end
bar:10 color:Full from:1998 till:end text:Tusculum
bar:11 color:FullxF from:2006 till:end text:Lincoln Memorial
bar:12 color:Full from:2008 till:2017 text:Brevard
bar:13 color:FullxF from:2010 till:2024 text:Anderson
bar:13 color:Full from:2024 till:end
bar:14 color:FullxF from:2013 till:end text:Coker
bar:15 color:FullxF from:2013 till:end text:Queens
bar:16 color:AssocF from:2017 till:end text:Limestone
bar:16 color:Full from:2020 till:end
bar:17 color:Full from:2019 till:end text:UVA–Wise
bar:N color:yelloworange from:1975 till:1989 text:SAC-8
bar:N color:yellow2 from:1989 till:end text:SAC
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1979
Sports
| Sport | Men's | Women's |
| Baseball | ||
| Basketball | ||
| Cross Country | ||
| Field Hockey | ||
| Football | ||
| Golf | ||
| Lacrosse | ||
| Soccer | ||
| Softball | ||
| Tennis | ||
| Track & Field Indoor | ||
| Track & Field Outdoor | ||
| Volleyball |
Men's sponsored sports by school
Women's sponsored sports by school
Other sponsored sports by school
In addition to the above:- Anderson and Tusculum treat their male and female cheerleaders as varsity athletes.
- Carson–Newman and Limestone treat their female cheerleaders and all-female dance teams as varsity athletes.
- Catawba treats its male and female cheerleaders and all-female dance team as varsity athletes. The school also sponsors a coeducational varsity eSports team.
- Coker has a coeducational varsity eSports team.
- Lenoir–Rhyne treats its male and female cheerleaders and all-female dance team as varsity athletes.
- Mars Hill sponsors a varsity cycling team, with separate men's and women's squads.
- Queens treats its male and female cheerleaders and all-female dance team as varsity athletes. The school also sponsors men's triathlon, which has no NCAA recognition of any kind, as a varsity sport.
Conference stadia and arenas