By Jim Baer
C’mon, C’mon, let’s give credit where credit is due.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has made the leap to Division I athletics and it took a whole lot of creativity, ideas, planning and meticulous execution to get there. Those who made this happen include one chancellor, an athletic director, and a host of coaches, marketing sorts, public relations people, trainers, boosters, athletes and student leaders alike. There’s no “I” in team at SIUE. SIUE folks, take a bow.
The champagne corks were popped recently as SIUE got a double dose of good news. First they were admitted to Division I competition (starting up in 2012) and secondly, they were tapped in June as the 11th member of the rapidly flourishing Ohio Valley Conference.
The genesis of this move goes back to Vaughn Vandegrift, seventh chancellor at the Edwardsville-based campus. Vandegrift was previously a department chair at Murray State for 12 years, so as they like to say: “he had a little skin in the game.”
After assuming direction at the school in 2004, he commissioned an Athletics Task Force (IATF) committee, made up of students, faculty, staff, community leaders and alumni in 2005 to study the future of SIU’s athletics as it related to the university’s strategic plan. “I specifically asked for a report, but not a recommendation then,” says the chancellor. He wanted to mull over the options of remaining Division II, combining Division II with Division I sports or participate solely at the Division I level.
In 2007, the University began an exploratory period and lucky for them, they got their application into the NCAA just under an unannounced deadline. As it turns out, the NCAA has declared a moratorium on new Division I members for four years. SIU beat the deadline by a scant few months.
“We were functioning at the high Division II level. We have a softball team that won a national title. We are clearly a university functioning at a Division I level in all other aspects—referencing the various academic strengths including having a dental and pharmacy school and being very strong in music education, teaching, business, engineering and other key academic pursuits.
“We have recently been profiled by U.S. News & World Report magazine as having one of the top masters’ programs in the nation as well as having an outstanding senior assignment program. We have wonderful facilities, our students are interning at some of the best companies in St. Louis and the only area we were not Division I was in athletics.”
SIUE celebrates its 50th year of service this year. The beautiful campus spreads out among cornfields on more than 2,400 rolling acres just 30 miles north of the Arch in downtown St. Louis.
Vandegrift is grateful and appreciative to the athletic directors and chancellors who voted the Cougars into the now 11-member conference. New rivals Southeast Missouri State University and Eastern Illinois University, conference members are within a two-hour drive of Edwardsville.
Historic names abound around various sports complexes. The baseball complex is named for the legendary coach, Roy Lee, while the late great Bob Guelker has his name on the soccer stadium.
Conference affiliation is very important to SIUE. “Notre Dame is practically the only school that has athletic success outside of a conference affiliation and that is only for football. They compete in the Big East (conference) in all other sports,” reminds Vandegrift.
Athletic Director Dr. Brad Hewitt knows his way around athletic venues. He’s served in various leadership capacities on campus now for 20 plus years. Hewitt cut his teeth, coaching football at Central Missouri State University and SIU-Carbondale.
He proudly hangs an NCAA Division I banner in his cramped office.
“People didn’t know too much about SIUE sports until we hosted the U.S. Olympic Festival in 1994. Then things changed. We finally got to the million-dollar donation mark when Highland, Ill. builder Ralph Korte donated more than a million dollars for the development of a track and field complex, now bearing his name (Ralph Korte Track & Field Stadium).
“We’re very excited about this move to Division I competition,” says Hewett, thinking about hosting powerful squads like Murray State and Eastern Kentucky in his newly refurbished 4,000 seat Vadalabene Center for basketball and other sports. “We have 18 head coaches, 35 employees, we play 18 different sports (nine men, nine women) and all of our coaches are ready to make a move to Division I. It can be frightening, but we are ready to face the changes,” says Hewitt.
The Cougars have some pressing goals. They once competed against Saint Louis University soccer for the prestigious Bronze Boot cup. The first goal is bringing that rivalry back. “The next goal is funding more scholarships.”
“We need to make this more of a sports (involved) atmosphere on campus. We are counting on students to support us. We want our band, pom pons, cheerleaders and students to be more visible as we move to Division I,” says Hewitt.
As they say in sports like anything else, timing is everything. The Cougars of SIUE are moving up at just the right time in their growing 50-year history. Enrollment is in excess of 13,000; there is a waiting list for incoming freshmen and everyone is excited about their future in Division I sports competition. Next stop for the SIUE Cougars—Division I sports competition.
Likeminded Schools, Comparable in Athletics to SIU-Edwardsville
Athletic Director Dr. Brad Hewitt was asked to name comparable universities to SIUE. He was taking into consideration size of enrollment, physical location and prior athletic successes. On his list were the following major up-coming universities:
1. Wright State/Dayton Ohio. A school that competes in the Horizon Conference and has had enormous athletic success at the D-1 level since the 1980s.
2. Oakland University/Detroit area. Like SIUE, they are successful, located near a major city and also do not play football.
3. Illinois-Chicago. A metro, commuter-based school, which is rapidly evolving into a residential campus school like SIUE.
4. Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Located in Milwaukee, no football and enormous NCAA success, especially in men’s basketball and soccer.
5. Cleveland State University. Also located in a major city, they have been playing D-1 sports and showing great success, especially of late in men’s basketball.
6. Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. IUPUI has major athletic facilities and hosted a variety of national and international sports events, especially national and international swimming competitions.
|
|
