The AUMnibus

AUM Athletics expands conference area

Ian MacIsaac/ Staff Writer

Steve Krotz, AUM Athletics Director, is sponsoring a historic expansion of AUM’s athletic conference. Increasing from ten to sixteen colleges and universities, Krotz said that this new athletic conference will bring a new element of unity, cohesion, and cooperation to southeast collegiate athletics.

Coming into the NAIA conference starting in Fall 2010 are: Truett McConnell College, the University of Mobile, Spring Hill College, Belhaven College, William Carey University and Loyola University New Orleans. The conference will be tentatively split into east and west halves to ease management. All but Truett McConnell College will be joining the western half, which AUM belongs to.

“The conference will help us coordinate travel to games at different schools,” Krotz said, “and will reduce the amount of time AUM students will have to travel to get to their games.”

According to Krotz, there will be no increase in tuition or student fees as a result of this conference; Krotz says it may actually reduce costs, stating, “We’ll be able to cut down on a lot of the expenses incurred previously, now that we have a more solid, pulled-together sort of conference.”

The change will also stimulate school unity and pride. Old rivalries will be rekindled now that more universities and colleges will play each other on a regular basis. For instance, our old-school rivalry against Spring Hill has been dormant in recent years due to inability to face off, but it will likely be reborn as a consequence of the new conference.

Of course, the new conference will not be without its growing pains. There will probably be some scheduling errors and/or conflicts, and there will probably be some administrative slip-ups and confusion. “It’s a work in progress,” Krotz states,  “ but it’ll pull itself together quickly.”