Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference logo
Established	1970
Association	NCAA
Division	Division I FCS
Members	12 [A]
Sports fielded	15 (men's: 7; women's: 8)
Region	South Atlantic
Headquarters	Norfolk, Virginia
Commissioner	Dennis E. Thomas (since 2002)
Website	www.meacsports.com
Locations

The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is a collegiate athletics conference of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, and in football, in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

Currently, the MEAC has automatic qualifying bids for NCAA postseason play in baseball (since 1994), men’s basketball (since 1981), women’s basketball (since 1982), football (since 1996), softball (since 1995), men and women’s tennis (since 1998), and volleyball (since 1994). Bowling was officially sanctioned as a MEAC governed sport in 1999. Before that season, the MEAC was the first conference to secure NCAA sanctioning for women’s bowling by adopting the club sport prior to the 1996-97 school year.

History[link]

In 1969, a group, whose members were long associated with interscholastic athletics, met in Durham, North Carolina with the purpose of discussing the organization of a new conference. After the formulation of a committee, and their research reported, seven institutions: Delaware State University, Howard University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University and South Carolina State College agreed to become the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.^[1] The conference's main goals were to establish and supervise an intercollegiate athletic program among a group of educational institutions that shared the same academic standards and philosophy of co-curricular activities and seek status as a Division I conference for all of its sports.

The conference was confirmed in 1970, and had its first season of competition in football in 1971. The MEAC has had to date, three full-time commissioners.^[1] In 1978, the MEAC selected its first full-time commissioner, Kenneth A. Free, who served as Commissioner until he resigned in 1995. He was succeeded by Charles S. Harris, who served at the position until 2002. On September 1, 2002, Dennis E. Thomas became the conference’s commissioner.

The MEAC experienced its first expansion in 1979 when Bethune–Cookman College (Now Bethune–Cookman University) and Florida A&M University were admitted as new members. That same year, founding members Morgan State University, North Carolina Central University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore withdrew from the conference. All three schools eventually returned to the conference; Maryland Eastern Shore rejoined in 1981, Morgan State in 1984, and North Carolina Central in 2010.

On June 8, 1980, the MEAC was classified as a Division I conference by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Prior to that year, the league operated as a Division II conference. The following month the MEAC received an automatic qualification to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.

In 1984, membership in the MEAC again changed as Florida A&M chose to leave. The university would return to the conference two years later. Coppin State College, now Coppin State University, joined the conference in 1985. The MEAC would find stability in membership with the addition of two HBCUs in Virginia, Hampton University and Norfolk State University in 1995 and 1997 respectively. For the next 10 years, the MEAC would remain an 11 member conference. In 2007, former CIAA member Winston-Salem State University was granted membership, but announced on September 11, 2009 that it would return to Division II at the end of 2009-2010 and apply to return to the CIAA.^[2]

North Carolina Central University rejoined the conference effective July 1, 2010.^[3][4] NCCU was one of seven founding member institutions of the MEAC, but withdrew from the conference in 1979, opting to remain a Division II member when the conference reclassified to Division I.^[3]

Savannah State University was announced as the newest member of the MEAC on March 10, 2010.^[4] Savannah State originally applied for membership into the MEAC in 2006 but faced an NCAA probationary period soon after. Membership was then deferred until the completion of the imposed probation period, which ended in May 2009. Savannah State then resubmitted their application for membership again in 2009 and was finally granted probationary membership status.^[4] On September 8, 2011, the university was confirmed as a full member of the MEAC Conference, making the Tigers eligible to participate in all conference championships and earn the conference's automatic berth to NCAA postseason competition in all sponsored sports. ^[5]

Membership[link]

Current members[link]

Membership in the MEAC has fluctuated through the years, but now stands at thirteen schools.

Former members[link]

Membership timeline[link]

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         id:line     value:black

         id:bg       value:white
         id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports
         id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football
         id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only
         id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote)
         id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference
         id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two

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  bar:1  color:Full from:1970 till:end text:Delaware State (1970–present)

  bar:2  color:Full from:1970 till:end text:Howard (1970–present)

  bar:3  color:Full from:1970 till:1979 text:Maryland Eastern Shore (1970–1979)

  bar:3  color:Full from:1981 till:end text:Maryland Eastern Shore (1981–present)

  bar:4  color:Full from:1970 till:1979 text:Morgan State (1970–1979)

  bar:4  color:Full from:1984 till:end text:Morgan State (1984–present)

  bar:5  color:Full from:1970 till:end text:North Carolina A&T  (1970–present)

  bar:6  color:Full from:1970 till:1979 text:North Carolina Central (1970–1979)

  bar:6  color:Full from:2010 shift:(-140,-3) till:end text:North Carolina Central (2010–present)

  bar:7  color:Full from:1970 till:end text:South Carolina State (1970–present)

  bar:8  color:Full from:1979 till:end text:Bethune–Cookman (1979–present)

  bar:9  color:Full from:1979 till:1984 text:Florida A&M (1979–1984)

  bar:9  color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Florida A&M (1986–present)

  bar:10 color:Full from:1985 till:end text:Coppin State (1985–present)

  bar:11 color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Hampton (1995–present)

  bar:12 color:Full from:1997 till:end text:Norfolk State (1997–present)

  bar:13 color:Full from:2008 till: 2010 shift:(-90,-3) till:2010  text:Winston-Salem State (2008–2010)

  bar:14 color:Full from:2010 till: end shift:(-110,-3) till:end  text:Savannah State (2010–present)

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1. > If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. Full members Full members (non-football) Assoc. members (football only) Assoc. member (list sports) Other Conference Other Conference <# </timeline>

Conference facilities[link]

Sports[link]

Member universities compete in the following sports:

Championships[link]

Current Champions[link]

Football[link]

Men's basketball[link]

On June 8, 1980, the MEAC earned the classification as a Division I conference by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 1981, the MEAC has received an qualifying bid to for NCAA post season play in the sport of basketball. In three cases, MEAC schools seeded 15th (Coppin State in 1997, Hampton in 2001, Norfolk State in 2012) defeated second-seeded teams in the NCAA tournament. In 2008, Coppin State again made history by being the first 20-loss team to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Tournaments Performance by school[link]

Women's basketball[link]

Softball[link]

Bethune-Cookman won the Florida Regional in 2005, the first NCAA Regional Final ever won by a MEAC school, and ended that season ranked #18 in a national poll.^[20]

Baseball[link]

Notes[link]

A.^{^} Howard was later disqualified from their 1971 NCAA soccer championship, however, no team was ever announced as the new champion.

B.^{^} Coppin State has a club football team that competes in the Mid Atlantic Conference of the National Club Football Association. This team does compete at an on campus facility.

C.^{^} Bethune-Cookman receives NCAA Division-I FCS Playoff Automatic Qualifying bid via MEAC Conference tiebreaker system.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller and smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.

United States[link]

In the United States and Canada, the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) are divided into the western (NHL, NBA) and eastern (NHL, NBA) conferences, with three divisions within each conference. In both leagues, the winners of the three divisions in each conference automatically advance to the playoffs, with the 5 next best teams in each conference also going to the playoffs. In the NHL each of the three division winner is guaranteed one of the top three seeds (or ranks to determine who has home advantage and the matchups for each round of the playoffs, where the top ranked teams play lower ranked teams) in the NBA the top four seeds go to the three division winners and the next best team, based on record. A pending realignment will divide the NHL into four regional conferences instead of two.

The National Football League has an American Football Conference (AFC) and a National Football Conference (NFC). Both conferences have 16 teams, and each conference is divided into 4 divisions of 4 teams each. Each of the 4 division winners is guaranteed one of the top 4 seeds in the playoffs. These conferences, for the most part, derive from the fact that they were once separate organizations: the original National Football League and the 1960s American Football League; the two entities merged in 1970, with each league forming the basis of the NFC and AFC respectively.

Major League Baseball does not use the word "conference." Instead, it is divided into two separate leagues (which, although their operations have been integrated via the Commissioner of Baseball in modern times, were originally separately managed and highly rivalrous organizations); each league has three divisions each. These are the American League with 14 teams and the National League with 16 teams. Each league is divided into the Eastern, Central and Western divisions; each division winner is also guaranteed one of the top three seeds, even if their record is lower than the league's wildcard team.

In all four sports, the champion of one conference (or league in MLB's case) plays the champion of the other conference for the final round championship, this is guaranteed to occur because the rules for the playoffs require play to be exclusively within the conference/league in all rounds before the final round, leaving only two teams for the finals (one from each conference/league) and the records of teams outside a conference/league are ignored, which can allow teams with inferior records to make the playoffs while teams in the other conference with better records do not get in. An extreme example of this occurred in the NFL in 2010 in regards to the Seattle Seahawks, who achieved a playoff position despite having a losing record (the only time this has happened in a non-strike season). Also, in each sport, teams play predominately within their own conference during the regular season, but play some games outside their conference (or league in baseball).

In college sports, the terms "league," "conference" and (generally at lower levels) "athletic association" can be used interchangeably to refer to a group (usually of approximately ten colleges and/or universities) of teams that regularly play against each other within the National Collegiate Athletic Association; most of these groups (including all of those in the Bowl Championship Series) refer to themselves as conferences, although the Horizon League, Ivy League, Patriot League, Pioneer League and Summit League use the word "league" instead. The NCAA itself is divided into divisions and subdivisions, which can lead to redundancy when these conferences also have divisions of their own. For instance, the Southeastern Conference is part of NCAA Division I (specifically the Football Bowl Subdivision), but is itself also subdivided into an east and west division.

England and Wales[link]

In English Association football, Conference National is one level below the The Football League. The second tier of which is divided into Conference North and Conference South. Although, this does not meet the above definition as Conference National is the fifth tier of the English football pyramid whilst Conferences North and South are the sixth.

Australia, New Zealand and South Africa[link]

In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the highest level of provincial rugby union is Super Rugby. From the 2011 season, Super Rugby will work on a conference system. The competition will have one conference based in each country. The winner of each conference will receive a play-off spot, as will the three next best teams overall.

Philippines[link]

In the Philippine Basketball Association where teams do not represent geographical entities, a conference is a tournament within a season.

See also[link]

• Sports league
• Regulation of sport
• Outline of sports#General sports concepts
• List of college athletic conferences — in the United States

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2010)

LeVelle Moton (born (1974-06-16)June 16, 1974) is an American college basketball coach and the current head men's basketball coach at North Carolina Central University. He was a former player at North Carolina Central, having graduated in 1996.^[1]

References[link]

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