35|35 #8: Good Things Come in Threes
In 1994, the GLVC admitted Quincy, SIU Edwardsville and UW-Parkside to the conference
Jeff Smith, Assistant Commissioner
35|35 Anniversary Website
This is the eighth installment of a series of 35 moments, milestones, and facts that will be featured throughout the 2013-14 academic year to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Great Lakes Valley Conference was in the midst of its teenage years as a 10-member NCAA Division II league, comfortable in its own settings and with its current membership.
But over the course of three years, a young and eager athletics director from Quincy University knew that his school’s status as an independent was taking them down a path to nowhere. Once he took a glance at his men’s basketball schedule and found the Hawks had no home games in the month of February because every other school was in conference play, he knew that Quincy needed to find a permanent home. More on him later…
Meanwhile in Edwardsville, Ill., Southern Illinois University Edwardsville had also been competing as an independent since the start of its athletics program in 1967. The Cougars had played the role of nomads for so many years, struggling with the same scheduling issues Quincy had been facing. They needed an identity. They needed a home.
For the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, its independent status began to impede the Rangers from establishing rivalries, reaching the postseason, and luring regional opponents north to Kenosha, Wis., where Parkside was – and still is – Wisconsin’s lone Division II institution.
So for UW-Parkside athletics director Linda Draft, SIUE athletics director Cindy Jones, with help from then assistant AD and now-current AD Brad Hewitt, and that eager athletics director from Quincy, Ill., the time was now to pitch what their respective schools can bring to the GLVC.
On June 7, 1994, the GLVC’s Council of Presidents listened, and voted to undergo what would be the first multiple-school expansion in the league’s history. Prior to the 1994 expansion, only Lewis University (1981), Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne (1983), now commonly referred to as IPFW, Northern Kentucky University (1984), and Kentucky State University (1988) had been admitted to the league, and it was always just one school at a time.
With the GLVC’s approval of Quincy, SIU Edwardsville and UW-Parkside as the 11th, 12th and 13th members, their respective independent tag was stripped and full-time member status was awarded, paving the road for both athletic and academic success in the years to come.
The only thing small bump in the road was that Quincy and SIU Edwardsville had men’s soccer programs classified as NCAA Division I playing members. In order to advance their respective athletics departments as a whole, bringing them both regional and national recognition along with an ease of burden in scheduling, Quincy and SIUE Edwardsville had to drop its men’s soccer teams’ status from Division I to Division II.
It was not a favorable move amongst the players, but for both the athletics department and university, it was a small price to pay for the dividends they would enjoy as members of the GLVC.
Quincy and UW-Parkside remain a successful active member of the conference to this date, while SIUE resigned its membership in the summer of 2008 to reclassify as a Division I member of the Ohio Valley Conference.
Looking back, the conference’s first true major expansion has provided a sizable return on its investment.
The three schools have combined for one national championship in softball, three individual national titles in track and field, 58 GLVC Championships, three GLVC All-Sports Trophies, one GLVC Commissioner’s Cup, nine GLVC Hall of Fame inductees, eight Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award winners as the league’s male and female athletes of the year, 40 GLVC Scholar-Athletes of the Year, one Dr. Charles Bertram Alumni of Distinction Award honoree, and one Dr. Thomas Kearns Service Award winner.
Prior to its departure, SIU Edwardsville totaled 34 GLVC Championships, which ranks fifth overall in conference history. The SIUE softball team captured the NCAA Division II Championship in 2007, becoming the first GLVC school to earn a men’s or women’s national title outside of the sport of basketball. SIUE claimed a program-high five league crowns in softball, women’s indoor track and field, and men’s outdoor track and field each. The school also earned league championships in the sports of men’s soccer (4), men’s indoor track and field (4), women’s outdoor track and field (4), baseball (2), men’s tennis (2), women’s golf (1), women’s tennis (1) and volleyball (1). The Cougars proved most-dominant in the sport of track and field having won 18 of its 34 overall conference championships in that sport. SIUE was also awarded the 2008 NCAA Championship in the women’s 1,600-meter relay at the outdoor meet, while Holly Noeller (javelin) and Deserea Brown (400-meter hurdles) earned national crowns at the 2006 and 2008 national outdoor meets, respectively.
SIUE finished the 1997-98, 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons as the most successful across-the-board conference member, having won the GLVC All-Sports Trophy. In 2006-07, the Cougars also received the GLVC Commissioner’s Cup for best all-around performance in the league’s seven core sports.
In addition, SIUE boasts six GLVC Hall of Famers in Misi Clark-Jones (2008), Mark Bugger (2009), Jenny Esker (2010), Michelle Gilman Cox (2010), Dr. John Meisel (2011), and Alicia DeShasier (2012). Clark-Jones was named the conference’s tri-Paragon Award winner in 2001, while Esker earned the award outright in the spring of 2004. Away from the playing surface, sports information director Eric Hess was honored in 2012 with the Dr. Thomas Kearns Service Award for his contributions in helping create the conference’s very first website.
UW-Parkside has accumulated 18 GLVC Championships since being admitted to the conference, 15 of which were won on the women’s side, including eight titles in cross country that tie for the second-most in league history in that sport. The Rangers have also garnered four women’s soccer conference titles and three in softball. Parkside’s baseball, golf, and soccer programs have each one league crown on the men’s side.
Stefanie Strauss and Hope Christie were respectively named the 2004-05 and 2011-12 Scharf Paragon Award winners, while Wendy Wolff (2005) and Jakie Kann-Aiken (2006) have been inducted into the GLVC Hall of Fame.
Quincy has seen its baseball and women’s basketball programs each claim two GLVC Championships, while men’s soccer and women’s soccer have captured one apiece to give the Hawks six conference crowns as an institution. Most of the school’s success has come in recent years. The men’s basketball team went to the brink of earning its first-ever NCAA Elite Eight appearance before falling to Saint Joseph’s in triple overtime in the 2010 NCAA Midwest Regional Championship. Since then, the Hawks have won GLVC Championship Tournament titles in men’s soccer, baseball and women’s soccer and have advanced to 10 NCAA Championship events. The Quincy women’s soccer program, which has also garnered the 2012 and 2013 regular-season crowns, is one of just two programs nationally to have qualified for the last seven NCAA Tournaments.
Matt Spector (2002-03), Nick Frederickson (2005-06), Jessica Keller (2008-09), and Torie Bunzell (2010-11) have each garnered the Scharf Paragon Award as the conference’s top athlete, while former QU standout and current Hawks’ baseball coach Josh Rabe was Quincy’s first and only inductee into the GLVC Hall of Fame in 2007.
Nearly 20 years ago, three independent Division II institutions and a small group comprised of its leadership, courted the GLVC in search for a home.
For UW-Parkside and Draft, now former AD, postseason opportunities have been far easier to attain.
For SIUE and former AD Jones, joining the GLVC helped create an identity that helped raised image of the University in the state, region, and nation.
For the young and eager AD from Quincy, no longer do the Hawks have issues scheduling basketball games in February. The conference office takes care of that.
For that, he can thank one individual.
Himself.
For now that young and eager AD from Quincy – Jim Naumovich – is currently serving in his 14th year as GLVC Commissioner.