Summit League

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The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States from Indiana and Illinois on the East of the Mississippi River to the Dakotas and Nebraska on the West, with additional members in the Western state of Colorado and the Southern state of Oklahoma. Originally dubbed the Association of Mid-Continent Universities in 1982, on June 1, 2007, the conference changed its name from the Mid-Continent Conference. League headquarters are in Elmhurst, Illinois.

On July 1, 2017, IUPUI left the conference to join the Horizon League leaving the conference with only eight members. The University of North Dakota will join the league in 2018; it will be the 31st school to hold membership in the conference. Of the eight charter members, only Western Illinois University remains a full member.

Video Summit League

Member schools

Current members

Current full members

Notes

Current associate members

Future member

Former members

Former full members

The Summit League has 22 former members.

1. - The then-Mid-Continent Conference did not sponsor women's sports until the 1992-93 school year. Cleveland State, UIC, Northern Illinois, Valparaiso, Green Bay, and Wright State were all members of the women's-only North Star Conference until the Mid-Con began sponsoring women's sports, effectively absorbing the NSC.
2. - As noted before, the Mid-Con did not sponsor women's sports until 1992-93. Before that time, Eastern Illinois had been a member of the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference, which began as a women's-only conference and added football in 1985; EIU was a member of both sides of the conference. When the Gateway merged its women's side into the Missouri Valley Conference, EIU moved its women's sports into the Mid-Con, but kept its football team in the Gateway until it moved its entire athletic program into the Ohio Valley Conference in 1996.

Former associate members

Notes

Maps Summit League

History

Foundation

The association was created on June 18, 1982 at the O'Hare Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois as the Association of Mid-Continent Universities (or AMCU or AMCU-8, pronounced Am-cue), which it was known as until 1989. The conference sponsored football from 1982 until 1984 at the Division I-AA level (now Division I FCS), and current members North Dakota State, South Dakota, South Dakota State, and Western Illinois plus future member North Dakota have FCS football programs.

Changes and the addition of women's sports

In the early 1990s, the conference saw its first changes. Southwest Missouri State departed for membership in the Missouri Valley Conference as the University of Akron and Northern Illinois University joined in 1990. Then Wright State University joined in 1991 as Northern Iowa followed Southwest Missouri State to the MVC.

Major changes came to the conference in 1992. First, Akron left for the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and was replaced by another Ohio school, Youngstown State University. More significantly, the Mid-Continent added women's sports by absorbing the North Star Conference (NSC), a women's-only league whose final seven members had all been in the Mid-Continent. All of the final NSC members except for Akron moved their women's sports into the Mid-Continent. At the same time, Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois moved their women's sports into the Mid-Continent when their former women's sports home, the Gateway Conference, merged into the Missouri Valley Conference. A year later, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee joined the Mid-Continent.

Horizon and ECC transitions

In 1994, charter members Cleveland State University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, as well as newer members Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Northern Illinois, and Wright State left the conference to join the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, now known as the Horizon League.

In response, the Mid-Continent absorbed Central Connecticut State University, Chicago State University, the University at Buffalo, Troy State University (now Troy University), and Northeastern Illinois University from the collapsed East Coast Conference. None of these institutions remain in the league.

Missouri-Kansas City, formerly an independent, also joined the Mid-Continent Conference in 1994.

Declining membership

Eastern Illinois moved to the Ohio Valley Conference in 1996, reducing membership to nine programs. Troy State departed for the Trans America Athletic Conference while Central Connecticut went to the Northeast Conference in 1997. Buffalo joined the MAC in 1998 while Northeastern Illinois ceased intercollegiate athletics at that time. Oral Roberts University and Southern Utah University replaced the former pair while Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Oakland University moved into the latter duo's spots a year later.

Youngstown State switched to the Horizon League in 2001, and was replaced by Centenary College in 2003. Chicago State University announced in the spring of 2006 that it would withdraw from the conference to compete as an independent starting in the 2006-07 school year. Charter member Valparaiso University then moved to the Horizon in 2007.

Renewed expansion and contraction

At the Mid-Continent Conference annual Presidents Council meeting in 2006, conference expansion was discussed at length, and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW, now branded athletically as Fort Wayne), North Dakota State, and South Dakota State were approved for site visits. On August 30, 2006, IPFW accepted an invitation to join the Mid-Continent Conference as a full member starting July 1, 2007. The following day, North Dakota State and South Dakota State also accepted invitations to join the conference.

The Summit League has continued its renewed expansion push with the admission of the University of South Dakota. The Coyotes began conference play in the 2011-12 academic year and become eligible for all championships the following season. Centenary College subsequently announced that it would leave the Summit League following the 2010-2011 campaign.

The University of North Dakota had also been openly rumored to have been courted by the Summit League, but controversy over the Fighting Sioux nickname in all likelihood prevented UND's admission at that time. Expectations that UND would join the Summit League came to an end on November 1, 2010, when North Dakota instead accepted an invitation to join the Big Sky Conference. The University of South Dakota entered into very brief negotiations to join the Big Sky as well, rather than continuing their plans to join the Summit. However, South Dakota chose instead to remain with the more compact Summit League (along with other Dakota schools, NDSU and SDSU). As the University of Nebraska Omaha began the transition to Division I athletics in all sports, it joined the Summit League on July 1, 2012. With the departures of Centenary to Division III at the end of the 2010-11 athletic year, and Southern Utah and Oral Roberts for other Division I conferences at the end of the 2011-12 athletic year, the Summit League continued with nine institutions, all within the Midwest geographical region.

The conference unveiled the University of Denver (DU) as its 10th member on November 27, 2012, and the Pioneers joined in July 2013. While Denver is slightly outside The Summit's current Midwestern base, travel issues for the other members were seemingly minimized by the city's status as a major air hub. Then, with Denver among the eight of ten WAC members switching to other conferences, that league was searching for new members, and on February 7, 2013, it was announced that UMKC would be one of six schools joining the WAC for the 2013-14 season, dropping the Summit league back to nine member schools. On May 7, 2013, membership fell to eight schools, when Oakland announced that it was joining the Horizon League. With Oakland's move, eight of the nine then-current Horizon League programs were former Summit League members (the Horizon has since added a second member that was never in The Summit League, Northern Kentucky).

In December 2013, The Summit League office announced that Oral Roberts University was returning to the conference in all sports, effective July 1, 2014.

The most recent changes to the conference's core membership were announced in 2017. First, on January 26, North Dakota, which had resolved its controversy by selecting the new nickname Fighting Hawks, was unveiled as a new member beginning in 2018. Then, on June 28, IUPUI announced it would leave the conference to join the Horizon League effective July 1, 2017.

The moves leave the conference with eight members currently, but will increase to nine school in 2018.

Membership timeline

Full members Full members (non-football) Associate member (baseball, men's soccer, softball, swimming and diving, or men's tennis)

• Southwest Missouri State adopted its current name of Missouri State University in 2005.
• The two former members that are part of the University of Wisconsin System, namely UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwaukee, now brand themselves for athletic purposes as "Green Bay" and "Milwaukee".
• Troy State adopted its current name of Troy University in 2004.

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Sponsored sports

The Summit League sponsors championship competition in nine men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Former full member Eastern Illinois is an associate member for men's and women's swimming and diving and men's soccer. Drake and Illinois State became associate members in men's tennis starting in 2017-18, and former full member Valparaiso rejoined for men's swimming and men's tennis at the same time.

Men's sponsored sports by school

Men's varsity sports not sponsored by The Summit League which are played by member schools:

Women's sponsored sports by school

Notes

Women's varsity sports not sponsored by The Summit League which are played by member schools:

North Dakota sponsored women's ice hockey when it was announced as a future member, but later announced that it would drop the sport after the 2016-17 season.

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Football

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Men's basketball

Men's basketball in the NCAA tournament

* At-large bid
** Opening round game

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Facilities

Future member North Dakota in gray.

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See also

• List of Summit League champions
• Summit League Men's Basketball Tournament
• Summit League Women's Basketball Tournament
• Summit League Baseball Tournament
• Association of Mid-Continent Universities football

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References

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External links

• Official website

Source of article : Wikipedia