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The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a college athletic conference which operates mostly on the United States' eastern seaboard. It also has two member schools in Ohio: Dayton and Xavier, located in Dayton and Cincinnati, respectively. Another member, Saint Louis is located in St. Louis, Missouri. Although some of its members are state-funded, more than half of its membership is made up of private, Catholic institutions. Despite the name, there are 15 partial or full-time members: 14 basketball and other sports, and one affiliate member participates in women's field hockey only.
[edit] HistoryThe Atlantic 10 Conference was founded in 1975 as the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League (ECBL), and began conference play in 1976. At that time, basketball was its only sport. After its first season, it added sports other than basketball and changed its name to the Eastern Athletic Association. However, despite its official names, it was popularly known as the Eastern 8, as it then had eight members (Villanova, Duquesne, Penn State, West Virginia, George Washington, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and Rutgers). After changes in membership that saw charter members Pittsburgh and Villanova leave and new members St. Bonaventure (1979), Rhode Island (1980), Saint Joseph's (1982) and Temple (1982) enter, establishing the league with 10 members, the conference adopted the current Atlantic 10 name in 1982. Further membership changes saw the league expand to its 14 current members. From 1997 through 2006, the league also operated a football conference; during that period, more than 20 schools were participating in A-10 competition in at least one sport. This would end when the A-10 football programs all departed to join a new football conference sponsored by the Colonial Athletic Association. The league announced that they will relocate the headquarters office from Philadelphia to Newport News, Virginia, in the Fall of 2009.[1] [edit] Members[edit] Full MembersThe following is a list of the full members of the conference and the year they joined: [edit] Associate Members
[edit] Past members
† Includes time in Yankee Conference, which merged with the Atlantic 10 for football in 1997. [edit] Men's Basketball ChampionsMain article: Atlantic 10 Men's Basketball Tournament - [edit] Women's Basketball Champions
[edit] Sports sponsoredThere are 21 NCAA sports in the conference
[edit] Atlantic 10 RivalriesThere are a number of intense rivalries within the Atlantic 10. Rivalries that carry over from the Big 5 which includes Saint Joseph's, Temple, and La Salle include those games between La Salle and Saint Joseph's and especially Temple and Saint Joseph's, a rivalry that has intensified in recent years. Like the Big 5, Dayton and Xavier are near one another which has led to a rivalry between these two schools. Another fledgling rivalry that has spawned has been one between Saint Joseph's and Xavier, two of the most consistent schools in the A-10. UMass and Temple also had a rivalry while John Chaney was coaching Temple but it has died down a bit since. [edit] A-10 football[edit] OriginThe A-10 began sponsoring football in 1997 when it absorbed the Yankee Conference, a Division I-AA (now known as Division I FCS) football-only conference. The move was triggered by a change in NCAA rules that reduced the influence of single-sport conferences over NCAA legislation. The following schools were in the Yankee Conference at the time of its demise:
Boston University dropped football after the first season of A-10 football. After the 1999 season, UConn started a transition from Division I-AA to Division I-A football (now Division I FBS) that was completed in 2002. In 2004, UConn, already a member of the Big East for other sports, became a football member of that conference. The other schools all remained in the A-10 football conference until its demise after the 2006 season. [edit] Demise/"Rename"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 demise of the A-10 football conference, at least under the A-10 banner. At that time, the CAA did not sponsor football, but 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. Shortly after this, the A-10 football conference opted to disband, with all of its members becoming charter members of the CAA football conference — in effect, this meant that the A-10 football conference was under new management. [edit] Conference facilities
[edit] External links
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