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Forbes: How The Colonial Athletic Association Went About Expansion In A Proactive An
FWIW:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jppelzman/2...e9cba64890
A common thread among the athletic directors of the incoming CAA schools was how their universities’ new membership in the CAA could help with recruiting students other than student-athletes.
Stony Brook’s Shawn Heilbron, whose school had been in the America East since 2001, said, “We're aligning ourselves with more schools that look like us from an academic standpoint. That was important to our president. That was important to me. I think it certainly helps, the name recognition of a lot of the schools in the CAA. Students know those schools.”
Hampton University had been a member of an HBCU conference, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, since 1991. But the Pirates moved to the Big South Conference in 2018.
“Our president (William R. Harvey) wanted Hampton’s athletic prowess to match its academic prowess and conference affiliation was key to that,” Hampton athletic director Eugene Marshall Jr. said. “So we looked at a number of different conferences and decided on going into the Big South. He had been trying to get into the CAA for a number of years and unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make that work. Timing and everything didn’t make it jibe.”
But now it did.
“It helps us from an academic perspective because we’re surrounded by great academic institutions,” Marshall said.
"The large geographic footprint of the conference also was important. The CAA stretches down the East Coast from Northeastern University in Boston to College of Charleston in South Carolina.
Marshall said, “Now you can recruit students from Boston to Myrtle Beach and we have a very good alumni base on the east coast, especially Boston, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and the DMV (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), so we have a great alumni group right there.
“It enables us to recruit all students, not just student-athletes,” Stapleton said, “but our entire student body, from New England, Long Island, greater Philly and northern Maryland. That’s where we recruit a lot of our students, and this league has institutions in that footprint. It's so important for us to get out in those communities.”"
And:
Geographic Scheduling?
As for D’Antonio, he likely didn’t have time for nostalgia this past weekend because the conference will hold meetings Tuesday through Friday in Ponte Vedra, Fla. On the agenda will be such topics as potentially splitting the conference into divisions for scheduling purposes, as well as the scheduling model itself.
“We’ve solidified our schedule for the 2022-23 academic year,” D’Antonio said, but he added, “we haven’t made any decisions relative to 2023-24. We're trying to create both a competitive and a (financially) sustainable model. That process is ongoing.”
As for divisions, he said, “We’re continuing to discuss what divisions could look like. I'm not sure if these meetings will reveal a final decision but it will be discussed.”
North Carolina A&T’s Hilton said, “The CAA reached out to us in November with a proposal to divide the conference into divisions and focus on regional scheduling, thereby creating a more attractive travel schedule for our student-athletes. We considered the move from both an academic association and athletics competition perspective and feel like a transition to the CAA is best for A&T and our student-athletes.”
For Stony Brook and Heilbron, regional scheduling likely would mean a chance to play Long Island rival Hofstra twice per season, instead of once.
“It would be huge,” he said. “From the moment I got to Stony Brook, I recognized what the rivalry with Hofstra meant, what it means for Long Island. … Our games now are great, but they’re typically in December. To think that we’ll possibly play twice a year in the heat of conference play, it’s exciting.”
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