Conference Calls:
The Landscape Changes for Susquehanna Athletics

In October 2005, Susquehanna University announced that its football team was leaving the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC), beginning with the 2007 season. In recognition of the MAC's bylaws requiring member schools to participate in all sports or none, the university announced two months later it was joining a group of selective private institutions to form a new Division III athletics conference that would begin play in the fall of 2007.

These moves have brought questions from alumni, parents, friends and student athletes on topics ranging from breaking with tradition to how recruitment of student athletes will be affected. Conversations that led to Susquehanna's departure from the MAC go back several years and are connected to a decade-long shift in the nature of NCAA Division III athletics generally, as well as changing philosophies within the MAC.

Recently, Susquehanna Today invited several members of the Susquehanna community to discuss the athletics program and the changes that have been made. The session was moderated by Susquehanna sports information director Jim Miller.

The Participants
Steve Briggs Head Football Coach Asst. Director of Athletics	L. Jay Lemons President	Nicholas Lopardo '68 Former Chair, Board of Directors Member, Sports Hall of Fame
Megan McCurley '08 Marketing Major, Emmaus, Pa. Student Athlete, Softball	Jim Miller Sports Information Director	Margaret Peeler Associate Professor of Biology Faculty Athletics Representative
Jim Reed Head Women's Basketball Coach Head Women's Golf Coach	Pam Samuelson Director of Athletics	Brandt Waples '09 Business Major, Media, Pa. Student Athlete, Football

Miller/SU Today: Why did Susquehanna choose to leave the MAC?

Lemons: A prominent college president once said, "Like it or not, athletics is the window by which a large number of people come to know and become acquainted with our institutions." To that, I will add a corollary: You're known by the company you keep and known by the associations that you have.

Lopardo: Five years ago, Susquehanna's board of directors considered a critical question: Do we want to continue as a regional university or do we want to align ourselves nationally with the best liberal arts schools around the country? There was intense, soul-searching discussion, but the board came out with what I think was the right decision: If we are going to be in this business we want to be with the best and we want to be viewed as one of the best. (The new conference alignment) follows that pattern of aspiring to be in the top 100 schools in the country in liberal arts education.

Lemons: More recently, the board commissioned a task force to undertake an examination of Susquehanna's reputation. A question posed in that analysis was whether we might consider athletic conference alignment with a group of more similar institutions. In fact, there are significant differences in the academic profile of schools in our historic conference. At the most selective MAC institutions, a bottom quartile student is a top quartile student at the least selective MAC institutions. We all invest financial aid dollars seeking to have the strongest student body. Financial aid awards to top quartile students are different than they are to fourth quartile students. That's an example of one of the challenges we faced in the MAC.

Reed: As we become more selective, students who meet that profile are going to have to come from a wider geographic area. If we want to increase our profile we have to reach out to that area, and playing in it will increase Susquehanna's name recognition.

SU Today: So, we didn't leave the MAC because we felt we couldn't win?

Briggs: Two Liberty League schools made the national playoffs last year (versus one from the MAC). This presents new challenges which, in my eyes, are good challenges. We're going to see how other people do things. I know the coaches in the Liberty League are excited because they get on the Internet, look at Lopardo Stadium, and see our field house and our facilities.

Reed: With basketball, it's going to be a very competitive league and I already see a significant rivalry with Catholic in men's and women's basketball. Both our teams played them this year and knowing that we are going to be in the league together soon, there was a certain edge to the competition in those games.

Samuelson: One thing I've heard here from coaches is we want a level playing field. Our student athletes will now be competing against student athletes who are similar academically and who face similar academic challenges and rigor.

SU Today: Why not join the Centennial Conference? Given that we've identified so strongly with schools like Gettysburg, Muhlenberg and Dickinson, wouldn't that be a better fit?

Lemons: I wrote my first letter of inquiry to the Centennial Conference as president-elect of Susquehanna in late 2000. I've had conversations with each of the chairs of the Centennial council of presidents every year since. It was 2004, Swarthmore had dropped football a few years before, and the league was down to 7 schools for football. Five of the teams finished the season at 4-2, which meant they had to go to a tiebreaker to determine which one would get the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. It was a painful process from what I understand. And the presidents concluded they didn't want to go through that pain again. So the expansion door opened.

SU Today: And Susquehanna got into the game?

Lemons: Absolutely. Juniata, Moravian and Susquehanna decided to chase out this football opportunity together, realizing that there was the potential if we were successful to build a conference for all of our other sports, because the MAC bylaws preclude our continuing membership. The three presidents composed a joint application to the Centennial. In response, the Centennial said, "We can't take three, we want two," and they picked Juniata and Moravian. It's a decision the Centennial never explained privately or publicly. Juniata and Moravian appealed on our behalf, in writing, but the response was the same.

Lopardo: I've heard, "We did not try hard enough to get into the Centennial Conference, we didn't go to critical meetings, we didn't step up at the last moment and be more forceful about it." The truth is, we made the effort, and none of us will understand why they chose Moravian and Juniata and not Susquehanna.

SU Today: So how did the new league affiliations come about?

Briggs: I got a call about a week after the Centennial decision from the coach at Union College. They were looking to schedule a nonconference game because a team in their league had just dropped out. So we talked about that, and one thing led to another and it became clear that the Liberty League was interested in Susquehanna being the school to fill the vacancy on a permanent basis.

Samuelson: So then, with Juniata, Moravian, and now Susquehanna out of the MAC for football, we decided to partner again and appeal the "all or nothing" nature of the MAC bylaws. That failed. While there were other existing leagues we could have explored, we were pretty sure we wanted to stay with Moravian and Juniata if possible. As it turns out, that's what happened, and the other schools came to be with us. It was surprising how fast it all moved.

SU Today: What are some of the challenges?

Lemons: Students are going to have to travel farther. We will have to work hard to manage class absences and do things that will accommodate the class obligations that must be primary for our student athletes.

Waples: If it takes more traveling to have equal opportunity for a championship, I'm willing to do it. Playing Lycoming and Moravian as nonconference games will be different, but for now this move gives us the incentive to get the last MAC championship this upcoming year.

McCurley: I was talking to a couple of girls on my team and one said she's having issues with a professor now about traveling. She said "What am I going to do when we have to travel farther?" As long as our professors are flexible and understanding, and realizing that it's going to take some time to figure things out together, it can be okay.

Peeler: That was the big concern for the advisory committee, but we were satisfied with the models that were suggested -- the idea of more weekend travel and pairing, or going to one place to play two competitions on Saturday and Sunday. It might work out better in terms of the amount of class time the students are going to miss, but it's a lot more strain on the coaches and the weekend obligations for them.

Samuelson: I think resources are an issue, both human and financial. Historically we've had a lot of part-time coaches, and I suspect not all of them will want to take on added travel. So we may be forced to rethink how we staff our programs.

SU Today: What opportunities for Susquehanna exist with these new conference affiliations?

Briggs: This is an opportunity to get better. We preach that as coaches, we preach that as educators, and I think it is tremendous. It's the future of where we're going -- you either get better or get worse, you don't stay the same in anything.

Lemons: One of the rewarding aspects of the journey is that (with the new league) we are creating something from the ground up. The presidents have talked about an identity that would be larger than athletics, and the idea of having an annual undergraduate research gathering that rotates among us is something that every one of the presidents is excited about.

Peeler: One of the major goals of the university is to increase diversity. We struggle with geographic diversity, and these changes are going to be positive since they're going to take us to places where we have not had any presence. There are going to be prospective students who hear about Susquehanna and will start to apply and attend.

Lemons: The Liberty League gives us exposure in New York and New England. The new conference (remaining sports) will provide us a better opportunity to be known in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. We're about three hours away from those suburban areas, and we have not drawn adequate numbers of students or student athletes from them. It's a great opportunity for the Susquehanna flag to be flown higher.