35|35 #10: Westward Expansion
In 2004, the GLVC admitted Drury, Missouri S&T and Rockhurst in the second multi-school expansion in league history.
Jeff Smith, Assistant Commissioner
Two weeks ago, the GLVC’s
35|35 series featured the conference’s first multi-school expansion in 1994, which saw the league admit Quincy University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
The admission of the three schools was paramount to the league’s stability as the conference had recently received resignations from both charter member Ashland University and then-member Kentucky State University as they opted to begin new paths. Ashland was on to the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, while Kentucky State joined the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
With exception of Missouri-St. Louis’ entry to the league in 1995 and Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne, now commonly referred to as IPFW, resigning to classify as a Division I member of the Summit League in 2001, the 10 years following the league’s first major expansion was relatively quiet.
That silence ended on June 29, 2004, when it was time to move again.
And move west.
Drury University (Springfield, Mo.), Rockhurst University (Kansas City, Mo.), and the University of Missouri-Rolla (Rolla, Mo.) – now Missouri University of Science & Technology or simply Missouri S&T –
were admitted into the conference, bringing the GLVC’s membership to 14 schools – the most ever in league history.
The three schools began competition in the league for the 2005-06 academic year.
Although he was the athletics director at Quincy when the Hawks joined the conference, the 2004 league expansion was the first for Jim Naumovich as GLVC Commissioner.
Naumovich credits then GLVC President Dr. John Meisel, the faculty athletics representative at SIU Edwardsville, as a key figure in the conference’s expansion. Prior to serving as president, he was the league’s treasurer and knew that it would be difficult for the league to sustain itself with just 11 members. There were discussions of increasing annual member dues, but ultimately the decision was made to expand.
“Our institutional representatives had been discussing conference expansion for two years prior to the inclusion of Drury, Rockhurst and Missouri S&T,” said Naumovich. “This move, however, was predicated on two things. We were only focused on admitting all three schools as a whole, and we needed Drury to sponsor baseball and softball, and Missouri S&T to pick up volleyball. By accomplishing these two things, it allowed the league to move to divisional scheduling with two geographically-balanced seven-team divisions.”
The expansion also marked just the second time in conference history that the league admitted more than one school at a time.
Since then, the three schools have combined for one NCAA Championship, 29 GLVC Championships, one GLVC All-Sports Trophy, one GLVC Hall of Fame inductee, seven Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award winners as the GLVC’s Male and Female Athlete of the Year, two Dr. Charles Bertram Alumni Award of Distinction honorees, 31 GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year recipients, and 2,674 Academic All-Conference selections.
Among the three schools, Drury has claimed 20 of those combined 29 GLVC Championships as well as the lone national championship, which came last season when the Panthers earned their first-ever and the GLVC’s seventh NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. Drury, which sponsors 17 sports, has placed in the Top 35 in the Learfield Sports Director's Cup all-sports standings in each of the past 16 seasons, including a 16th-place finish in 2012-13, when Drury was the only D-II school in the country to capture three national championships (men's basketball, men's and women's swimming and diving). At the conference level, Drury showcased its across-the-board sports success by sharing the GLVC All-Sports Trophy with Northern Kentucky in 2009-10. On the heels of the men’s basketball title, the Panthers are poised to raise their GLVC profile even more as the conference is sponsoring men’s and women’s swimming and diving for the first time. DU has captured the past nine men's national championships and four of the last five women's titles in swimming and diving, combining for 20 NCAA Champions in the sport since moving into the Division II ranks in 1994. Among its 20 league titles, which already rank eighth all-time in league history, six have been won in women’s tennis, followed by five in men's tennis, two each in men's and women's basketball and women's golf and one apiece in men's soccer, women's soccer and baseball. Drury’s Amanda Newton (2005-06), Molly Carter (2007-08) and Jaime Villa Zapatero (2010-11) have also been named winners of the prestigious Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award.
Rockhurst sits 13th overall in conference history with seven GLVC Championships, five of which have come in men’s soccer, including last week’s upset victory over Indianapolis in the GLVC Championship Tournament final. The Hawks earned the 2005 men’s soccer title in its first year in the league and have since won in 2008, 2012, and 2013, while men’s tennis took home GLVC titles in 2009 and 2011, and women’s volleyball captured the 2012 conference title. Men’s soccer head coach Tony Tocco and head women’s volleyball coach Tracy Rietzke rank among the winningest coaches all-time in their respective sports. Garrett Fischer was named the male recipient of the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award at the conclusion of the 2007-08 academic year. The Hawks have seen most of their conference success in recent years as Rockhurst has captured a GLVC title in five of the last six years, while nine of its 14 sponsored intercollegiate sports have qualified for NCAA postseason competition since 2008. RU added women’s cross country to its GLVC lineup in 2013 and included men’s and women’s lacrosse to its sports sponsorship as well.
Missouri S&T has cultivated the definition of a student-athlete and has received recognition for team and individual accomplishments throughout its NCAA Division II history. Included in its achievements are over 70 Academic All-Americans and over 190 Academic All-District selections; S&T has the fifth-most Academic All-America selections in NCAA Division II since 2000. Previously in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), the Miners, who sponsor 15 sports, claimed 35 league championships during their tenure, and have since picked up two conference crowns since its arrival to the GLVC. The Miners earned both the men’s indoor and outdoor track and field titles during the 2008-09 season. Similar to Drury, the Miners have had several NCAA national champions in swimming in recent years and hope to continue that tradition as its men’s swimming program now competes under the GLVC banner. S&T has also had representatives claim several major end-of-year awards from the conference. Jordan Henry was Missouri S&T’s first Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award winner in 2008-09 and the Miners made it a clean sweep last season when Spencer Brinkmeyer and Jennifer Costello earned the conference’s top honor. Costello was also tabbed the Capital One Academic All-America of the Year award winner for all of Division II volleyball. In addition to its Paragon Award winners, Kandi (Wieberg) Spraggs was S&T’s first inductee into the GLVC Hall of Fame last year, while Dr. Sandra Magnus and Keith Bailey were named the Dr. Charles Bertram Alumni of Distinction Award recipients in 2009 and 2011, respectively.