Established in 1978 with a commitment to the purposes, fundamental policies, and basic principles of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) has grown to embody the vision established by the founders of the organization and has melded athletic and academic excellence for 45 years.
The GLVC is comprised of 15 NCAA Division II member institutions, spanning four Midwest states. At one point over the past decade, the league grew to 17 members and was the largest athletic conference in the country in any division. Although formed and developed as one of the nation’s premier NCAA Division II basketball conferences, the GLVC now sponsors 27 championship sports, which included the addition of football in 2012, men’s and women’s swimming and diving in 2013-14, men's wrestling in 2016-17, men’s lacrosse in 2017-18, women’s bowling and women’s lacrosse in 2019-20, and STUNT, men's volleyball, and women's wrestling in 2025-26.
The formation of the GLVC can be traced as far back as 1972 when the athletic directors of three schools – Kentucky Wesleyan College, Bellarmine College (now Bellarmine University), and Indiana State University at Evansville (now the University of Southern Indiana) – began preliminary discussions about forming a basketball conference. Four years later, the University of Indianapolis and Saint Joseph’s College expressed interest. On July 7, 1978, those schools – along with Ashland College (now Ashland University) – united to become the GLVC.
Since its inception, 20 different institutions have joined the league. Those members include: Lewis University (1980), Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne (1984), Northern Kentucky University (1985), Kentucky State University (1989), Quincy University (1994), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (1994), University of Wisconsin-Parkside (1994), University of Missouri-St. Louis (1995), Drury University (2005), Missouri University of Science & Technology (2005), Rockhurst University (2005), University of Illinois Springfield (2008), Maryville University (2008), William Jewell College (2009), McKendree University (2010), Truman State University (2012), Lindenwood University (2019), Southwest Baptist University (2019), Upper Iowa University (2023), and Lincoln University (2024).
Ashland and Kentucky State left the Conference after the 1994 season, IPFW (now Purdue Ft. Wayne) left the league following the 2000-01 academic year, and SIU Edwardsville exited the league following the 2007-08 academic year. These departures opened the door for the seven-team expansion over the past decade, allowing the league to grow to 17 institutions. Northern Kentucky departed following the 2011-12 season to bring membership to 16 schools. Truman then replaced charter member Kentucky Wesleyan in 2013. Saint Joseph’s ceased operations following the 2016-17 academic year, UW-Parkside resigned from the league after the 2017-18 season, while Bellarmine resigned to reclassify to NCAA Division I in June 2020, as did Lindenwood and Southern Indiana in June 2022.
Under the direction of 25-year Commissioner, Jim Naumovich, the Conference headquarters is located in downtown Indianapolis, one of the many major Midwest media markets in which the league maintains a presence. The GLVC has schools in Chicago (Lewis), Indianapolis (Indianapolis), Springfield, Ill. (Illinois Springfield), Springfield, Mo. (Drury), Kansas City (Rockhurst, William Jewell), and St. Louis (Maryville, McKendree, Missouri-St. Louis). Additionally, the GLVC is the only D-II conference with a governance structure that affords the Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) with exclusive voting rights at league meetings.
The 27 championship sports sponsored by the Conference include men's sports in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, volleyball, and wrestling; as well as women's sports in basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, STUNT, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, volleyball, and wrestling. Only one other D-II league in the country sponsors more championships (Conference Carolinas).
In the history of the GLVC, member schools have captured 23 NCAA Division II National Championships, including 12 on the men’s side. Seven of those titles were earned in the sport of men’s basketball, including Drury’s national championship in 2013 and Bellarmine’s title in 2011. Former member Kentucky Wesleyan won the 1987, 1990, 1999, and 2001 crowns under the GLVC umbrella, while Southern Indiana added a national title in 1995. Northern Kentucky won the school’s first-ever women’s basketball national championship in 2000 and followed that with a national title in 2008. In addition, Northern Kentucky became the first GLVC member to win a National Championship in men’s soccer, while USI staked claim to the GLVC’s first baseball National Championship in 2010, only to win the national crown again in 2014. SIU Edwardsville was the first GLVC member to win a National Championship in softball in 2007. Drury men’s and women’s swimming and diving also picked up NCAA titles in 2014, during their first season competing under the GLVC banner, and Indianapolis has picked up the 2015, 2018, and 2024 National titles in women’s golf. Also in 2018, Southern Indiana scored the GLVC’s second softball national crown. Lindenwood captured the GLVC's first women's lacrosse National Championship in 2021, while UIndy made it back-to-back National Championships in the sport with its title in 2022. McKendree also grabbed its second women's bowling National Championship in 2022, which was the first in the sport since the GLVC began sponsoring it in 2019. Other than its women’s golf title from May, the most recent NCAA Championship before that came by way of UIndy men's swimming and diving in 2023.
The league also takes pride in recognizing the many academic and athletic accomplishments achieved by its student-athletes, coaches, and administrators. Among the 23 NCAA Division II conferences analyzed in the 2022-23 report published by the National Office and released in Dec. 2023, the GLVC ranked fourth in Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) at 68 percent and tied for fifth in Academic Success Rate (ASR) at 84 percent for all student-athletes.
Additionally, the GLVC saw 12 of its then-13 member institutions that year equal or exceed the national four-year ASR of 76 percent and 11 of 13 exceed the FGR average of 60 percent, both of which were the same as the prior year's rates. The GLVC also had five member institutions that received the NCAA Division II Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence. In addition, 3,960 student-athletes were recognized with Academic All-GLVC recognition in 2023-24, while 182 teams maintained at least a 3.30 grade point average for the academic year. This past season, a record 584 student-athletes with a perfect 4.0 GPA earned the GLVC Brother James Gaffney Distinguished Scholar Award, while 541 senior student-athletes earned the GLVC Council of Presidents’ Academic Excellence Award for career GPAs of 3.5 or higher.
In November 2014, the GLVC became the first NCAA Division II conference to create an inclusive league-wide digital streaming network – the GLVC Sports Network (GLVCSN). The GLVC has continued to be a national leader in streaming, as it was also the first NCAA Division II conference to have its own mobile (iOS/Android) and over-the-top (Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV) streaming platforms. Since its inception in 2014 and through the 2023-24 academic season, the league’s member institutions and Conference office have combined to stream 16,699 events with more than 7.1 million loads and 4.9 million plays by fans across the world.
In addition to regular-season and league championship events, the Conference office has also utilized GLVCSN to stream select programming from its annual administrative meetings, primarily specific to student health, wellness, security, and inclusion. Through its GLVCSN Extra Credit student initiative, the GLVC also became the first NCAA Division II conference to stream an event in Spanish at the 2019 GLVC Soccer Championship Tournaments. The league has also employed several students at the GLVC Basketball Championship Tournaments, who get the opportunity for a coverage takeover during two games in multiple areas, including GLVCSN, social media, print and sideline reporting, photography, videography, and production.
In September 2019, GLVCSN streamed the inaugural GLVC Game Environment and Security Summit. Nine months earlier, the league’s Someone to Listen mental health awareness campaign earned second place out of 21 finalists for the NCAA DII Award of Excellence. It was later recognized as one of the outstanding programs funded by the NCAA DII Conference Grant Program – an honor also bestowed upon the league for its first installment of its GLVC is Me campaign following the 2015-16 season. As part of the league’s annual fall meeting in September 2016, GLVCSN streamed a “Discussion on Diversity and Inclusion,” which focused on diversity’s impact on hiring and recruiting, racial and disability discrimination, and life as a transgender student-athlete. Moreover, the Conference was recognized in 2021 by the NCAA D-II Planning and Finance Committee for exemplary strategy of its Diversity Public Service Announcement (PSA) series.
In 2001, the league announced the creation of the GLVC Hall of Fame, with the first class being inducted in 2002. The GLVC annually presents the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award to the top male and female student-athlete in the league, the Dr. Charles Bertram Alumni Award of Distinction to alumni who both succeeded while a GLVC student-athlete and excelled in accomplishments after graduation, as well as the Dr. Thomas Kearns Service Award presented to an individual or group that has contributed to the success of the GLVC as it relates to the NCAA Division II attributes of learning, balance, resourcefulness, sportsmanship, passion and service. In 2016, the GLVC renamed its sportsmanship award as the James R. Spalding Sportsmanship Award, which is presented annually to the most deserving teams and student-athletes in the league. A year later, it created the Dr. Joseph J. McGowan Visionary Award to the GLVC institution that displays vision and exemplary programming to promote and advance the student-athlete experience. Moreover, in 2019, the GLVC introduced a Postgraduate Scholarship, which is awarded to one male and one female each year in the amount of $2,500 each to be used in the first year of post-graduate enrollment at the institution of their choice.
In January 2015, the GLVC also became the first NCAA Division II conference to partner with Generation Progress and its national “It’s On Us” campaign to join the movement to end sexual assault on college.