Jacie
5/6/2012, 01:41 PM
Conference USA expands by 5 members
By STEVE REED | The Associated Press – Fri, May 4, 2012 3:26 PM EDT
Conference USA announced Friday that it is adding five new schools in 2013.
Commissioner Britton Banowsky said Charlotte, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, North Texas and UT-San Antonio will join the league in all sports, with Charlotte joining in football in 2015.
Charlotte is rejoining Conference USA after several years in the Atlantic 10. Louisiana Tech has been in the WAC since 2001, and UTSA will play in the WAC next year before joining CUSA. FIU and North Texas will be leaving the Sun Belt Conference.
Current CUSA members include East Carolina, Marshall, Rice, Southern Mississippi, Tulane, Tulsa, Alabama-Birmingham and UTEP. Conference USA will lose Houston, SMU, Memphis and Central Florida to the Big East in 2013.
Banowsky says Conference USA and the Mountain West continue to discuss a merger and expansion remains a possibility.
''The discussions with the Mountain West are ongoing,'' Banowsky added. ''What form the relationship will take is still to be determined, but both remain committed to working together.''
For now, the conference is happy to be at 13 teams.
''We are excited about adding these new members as part of our bold strategy that focuses on growing institutions in large media markets,'' Banowsky said. ''There is a tremendous upside here. This is an opportunity for us to add a mixture of established and emerging programs. We also remain committed to divisional scheduling models that are student-athlete and fan-friendly. The more we analyzed it, the more it made sense.''
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According to his bio, he was born in California, Dollar Bill was a university president at Pepperdine which is in Malibu, CA and he graduated from the University of Oklahoma.
By STEVE REED | The Associated Press – Fri, May 4, 2012 3:26 PM EDT
Conference USA announced Friday that it is adding five new schools in 2013.
Commissioner Britton Banowsky said Charlotte, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, North Texas and UT-San Antonio will join the league in all sports, with Charlotte joining in football in 2015.
Charlotte is rejoining Conference USA after several years in the Atlantic 10. Louisiana Tech has been in the WAC since 2001, and UTSA will play in the WAC next year before joining CUSA. FIU and North Texas will be leaving the Sun Belt Conference.
Current CUSA members include East Carolina, Marshall, Rice, Southern Mississippi, Tulane, Tulsa, Alabama-Birmingham and UTEP. Conference USA will lose Houston, SMU, Memphis and Central Florida to the Big East in 2013.
Banowsky says Conference USA and the Mountain West continue to discuss a merger and expansion remains a possibility.
''The discussions with the Mountain West are ongoing,'' Banowsky added. ''What form the relationship will take is still to be determined, but both remain committed to working together.''
For now, the conference is happy to be at 13 teams.
''We are excited about adding these new members as part of our bold strategy that focuses on growing institutions in large media markets,'' Banowsky said. ''There is a tremendous upside here. This is an opportunity for us to add a mixture of established and emerging programs. We also remain committed to divisional scheduling models that are student-athlete and fan-friendly. The more we analyzed it, the more it made sense.''
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According to his bio, he was born in California, Dollar Bill was a university president at Pepperdine which is in Malibu, CA and he graduated from the University of Oklahoma.