The Northern Athletic Conference is, indeed, alive! A story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks to actual people involved in the process, which has been pretty silent over the past year.
For those who haven’t heard of the league, and I’m sure there are many, the NathCon (sorry, NAC is already taken in D-III) consists of Alverno, Aurora, Benedictine, Concordia (Ill.), Concordia (Wis.), Dominican, Edgewood, Lakeland, Maranatha Baptist, Marian, Rockford and Wisconsin Lutheran.
Oh yeah, that’s why you haven’t heard of it. If a conference forms, and no schools issue press releases, does it make a sound?
The sound being made in today’s paper is from Milwaukee School of Engineering, which found itself on the outside looking in on its attempt to enter the Midwest Conference. Clarke is also trying to get into the NathCon.
It’s the end of the Lake Michigan Conference and the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference. It might result in an extra Pool B bid for the next two seasons, while the NathCon goes through its waiting period.
Another new conference we have no news on is the Interstate 8. Stevens dropped out of the newly formed conference earlier this year to join the Empire 8. Rumors immediately flew that Elizabethtown was to replace them and bring the league back up to eight, but there has been no official word.
It will be interesting how the league schedule will be set up since Alvernia is an all women’s school. Will the men’s side be scheduled with all 11 teams just playing an uneven schedule or will there be a division of 5 and a division of 6?
Alvernia, OS? I don’t think the NathCon will be travelling to Pennsylvania. I think Alverno is the name you’re looking for.
I anticipate the men’s and women’s schedule will be the same. The only difference is in the spots where the women’s schedule says Alverno, the men’s schedule will say Bye.
Yeah I know…I couldn’t edit it.
I know this is being discussed to death in the new room, but shouldn’t the A be capitalized? Like this…. NAthCon?
This is a really big league, is there any word yet on how it’s going to be handled?
I guess this also means I’m going to have to pay attention to all those LMC schools, now that they are group with the NIIC schools which are much more often actually really competitive regionally. 😀
Actually, too, it’s the Northern Athletics Conference…not just one Athletic, Pat. 🙂
“Harris hopes MSOE will gain admittance to the recently formed Northern Athletic Conference, perhaps in time for 2007-’08.”
I’m writing about that newspaper report. Perhaps the conference would like to send out some actual information about itself sometime … it’s only been 15 months … and clarify things.