Southern Athletic Association


The Southern Athletic Association is a college athletic conference in NCAA Division III that began play in the 2012–13 school year. It was formed in 2011 by seven former members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and independent Berry College.

Member schools

Full members

Affiliate members

Two schools, the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis, announced their intention to become affiliate members of the conference for football, effective in 2015. Both are members of the University Athletic Association, which at the time had a football scheduling alliance with the North Coast Athletic Conference. However, after the 2012 season, the NCAC adopted a full round-robin football schedule, making it impossible for that conference to fill in all of its non-conference dates with the four UAA members that sponsor the sport.
Over the summer of 2015, Chicago and WashU announced that they would leave the SAA after two seasons of competition in order to join more geographically-convenient conferences. WashU will maintain its football affiliation with the UAA for the 2017 season before joining the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in 2018 as a football-only member. For nearly a year, Chicago did not announce a future league affiliation, but it announced in May 2016 that it would become a football-only member of the Midwest Conference in 2017.
On November 18, 2015, Trinity University and Austin College announced they would affiliate with the SAA for football, renewing a relationship that was lost when the SAA split from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. As a result, the SCAC will no longer offer football as a sport from 2017.
InstitutionLocationFoundedTypeEnrollmentNicknameColorsSAA Sport
Chicago, Illinois1890Private/Non-denominational5,134Maroons Football
Washington University in St. LouisSt. Louis, Missouri1853Private5,997Bears Football
Austin CollegeSherman, Texas1849Private/Presbyterian1,278'Roos Football
Trinity UniversitySan Antonio, Texas1869Private/Presbyterian2,353Tigers Football

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:2012 till:2018
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:FullxF from:2012 till:2013 text:Berry
bar:1 color:Full from:2013 till:end
bar:2 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:Birmingham–Southern
bar:3 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:Centre
bar:4 color:FullxF from:2012 till:2013 text:Hendrix
bar:4 color:Full from:2013 till:end
bar:5 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:Millsaps
bar:6 color:FullxF from:2012 till:end text:Oglethorpe
bar:7 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:Rhodes
bar:8 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:
bar:9 color:AssocF from:2015 till:2017 text:Chicago
bar:10 color:AssocF from:2015 till:2017 text:Washington
bar:11 color:AssocF from:2017 till:end text:Austin
bar:12 color:AssocF from:2017 till:end text:Trinity
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:2012

Blue = Full member, Green = Full member except football, Red = Associate member for football