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Florida Atlantic University Athletics
FAU Accepts Sun Belt Conference Offer
12/4/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sun Belt Conference Release
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Dec. 4, 2003
BOCA RATON - Florida Atlantic University's President Frank T. Brogan and Director of Athletics Craig Angelos accepted an invitation to join the Sun Belt Conference from Commissioner Wright Waters, Thursday morning.
"It is with great pride and excitement that Florida Atlantic University joins the ranks of the Sun Belt," said Brogan. "We look forward to competitive athletic schedules and working with the high standards set by the Sun Belt. We also believe this move will help take FAU athletics to a whole new level in the 21st century."
By joining the Sun Belt Conference, initially in football only, Florida Atlantic will be afforded a conference schedule providing an important piece of the NCAA Division I-A puzzle. FAU is currently engaged in a feasibility study of athletics' move from Division I-AA status to Division I-A.
Florida Atlantic's Athletic Department is one of the nation's youngest programs fielding its first sport in 1981 and adding football in 2001. The university has strived to maintain the pace of the community's growth and to meet the needs of its neighbors. This eclectic group is accustomed to "Big Time" football, and that is where FAU's Athletic Department will focus its attention as well as maintaining the high level of competition the remaining 16 sports have demonstrated. The football team, currently ranked no. 13 nationally and scheduled to play in the second round of the NCAA Division I-AA Championship this Saturday on national television, joins volleyball, softball, baseball, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's tennis and men's basketball as nationally ranked teams and/or NCAA post-season participants.
"We are extremely pleased to be able to reap the benefits of the national conference realignment movement," Craig Angelos said. "I consider this move to be one of the most significant steps this department will ever make. It now puts us in a position to expand to our full potential and develop into a premier athletic department in the near future."
Press Conference Transcript
Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters
"This is always a fun time. In the past few years, (the Sun Belt Conference) has focused on academic achievement by student athletes, athletic competition-competing at the highest level of Division I, providing financial stability to our schools and also taking on various leadership initiatives at the national level. Today is really another step in that direction. We find at Florida Atlantic an institution that not only fits the academic profile but also the geographic and athletic profile of our member institutions. This history of this is that several months ago Craig Angelos called and dropped me a letter and he said 'As long as this realignment is going on and if there is an opportunity for FAU we would like to talk about it.' We immediately picked up the phone and called back and said that is a heck of an idea; we need to do that right away. Tuesday of this week, President Maidique came here and reported back to our presidents that they found that Florida Atlantic would not only be an institution that fit in our league but would be an asset in our league. It would be in many ways an institution that would challenge the rest of our league to take up some of the initiatives that you have taken up (at FAU) and would definitely be an improvement in our league. Our presidents unanimously voted to authorize the commissioner today to extend an offer of membership in the Sun Belt Conference in all sports to President Brogan."
FAU President Frank Brogan
"We have been very excited over the past couple of months at the thought of moving potentially into the Sun Belt Conference. All of us in this room have been talking about it and getting excited about it. This university has been served very well over a long period of time by the A-Sun conference. I have spoken to the presidents of the A-Sun conference who know of our desire to move into a football conference for obvious reasons. But also recognize, as is the case with most of the realignment, it will also provide opportunity for all sports in universities across the country. We are excited, not only about the unanimous invitation, I am pleased by that fact because as the commissioner and I have discussed he considers this to be and I am delighted that it is a president's conference. I believe presidents have a distinct responsibility to help shape and guide the athletic programs that are prominent in NCAA competition, both academically and athletically. This university has carved itself out a rather formidable niche in both worlds. We provide ourselves at Florida Atlantic University in a well-rounded opportunity that is both academic and athletic in nature. To have the opportunity to continue the excitement at Florida Atlantic University both academically and athletically by attaching our self to an invitation to a prominent conference that I am convinced is destined to do great things in the next 10 years in NCAA competition.
"This is a great day for Florida Atlantic University. This is about all sports. We are accepting the invitation today that the Sun Belt has been kind enough to offer to us for football first in hopes that we can make that happen as early as this next football season. That will certainly help our football program move to a higher level yet. Coming off of such an incredible season and joining such a prominent football conference bodes well for both Florida Atlantic University and the Sun Belt Conference. That also allows us to move into a new direction on a football scale and university scale as well. But this about all sports. Sometime in the foreseeable future either individually as time will allow in certain circumstances or collectively, all of our sports will become affiliated with the Sun Belt Conference. We hope to not only bring a great level of competition to an already great conference but provide all of our sports a new opportunity to move to a whole new level for this university and for the state of Florida. We very much are excited and do accept the kind invitation that you have provided to us here today. We look forward to being a very important part of the Sun Belt Conference."
FAU Athletic Director, Craig Angelos
"Next year we talked about playing a Sun Belt schedule which would be about seven or eight games in football as we go through our two-year transition period from I-AA to I-A. Football will be playing a full schedule next year. It is still to be determined if the other sports will enter the Sun Belt in 2005 or 2006. We are trying to work with the Atlantic Sun Conference also to try to figure out the best time period for the other sports to move. Swimming does not have a Championship in the Atlantic Sun so it is possible that they could go in next year also. We will just have to see if it is '05 or '06.
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