Atlantic 10 Conference



The Atlantic 10 Conference (A10) is a college athletic conference which operates mostly in the eastern United States; it also has two member schools in Ohio: Dayton and Xavier, located in Dayton and Cincinnati, respectively. Another member, Saint Louis is also located in St. Louis, Missouri.

Despite the name, there are 24 partial or full-time members; 12 schools play football, 14 basketball and other sports, and one affiliate member participates in women's field hockey only. Only three schools&mdash;UMass, Rhode Island, and Richmond&mdash;are members in both football and basketball. This odd conference construction is because the A-10 Football Conference was created in 1997 by a takeover of the football-only Yankee Conference, due to NCAA rules changes that significantly diminished the legislative input of single-sport conferences. The members of the Yankee Conference narrowly chose the A-10's merger proposal over that of the Colonial Athletic Association; this decision was later revisited by the football-playing members of the A-10, as explained below.

Full Members
West Chester University of Pennsylvania is an associate member, playing in field hockey.

Broken down by who plays what, that's:

Basketball and Olympic sports


 * Charlotte (2005)
 * Dayton (1995)
 * Duquesne
 * Fordham (1995)
 * George Washington (1976)
 * La Salle (1995)
 * Massachusetts (1976)
 * Rhode Island (1980)
 * Richmond (2001)
 * St. Bonaventure (1979)
 * Saint Joseph's (PA) (1982)
 * Saint Louis (2005)
 * Temple (1982)
 * Xavier (1995)

Women's field hockey only


 * West Chester (1996)

Future developments
The 2005 move of Northeastern University, a football-only member of the A-10, to the Colonial Athletic Association for basketball and Olympic sports began a chain of events that would lead to the upcoming demise of the A-10 football conference.

Although the CAA does not currently sponsor football, five of its members in the 2004-05 academic year (Delaware, Hofstra, James Madison, Towson, and William & Mary) were football members of the A-10. The addition of Northeastern gave the CAA six schools with football programs, which under NCAA rules allows a conference to sponsor football. Northeastern agreed to join any future CAA football conference, which meant that the A-10 football conference would drop to six members once CAA football began operation.

With six football members in place, the CAA decided to start a football conference in 2007. The league then invited Richmond, which left the CAA in 2001, to rejoin for football only, because of UR's long-standing in-state rivalries with William & Mary and James Madison. UR accepted the invitation, taking the A-10 football conference below the NCAA minimum of six. Not wishing to be left in a shell of a conference, Maine also applied for football-only membership in the CAA effective in 2007, and was accepted. Eventually, the A-10 football conference opted to disband. All of its members will compete in the CAA football conference starting in 2007.

External link

 * Atlantic 10 Conference