Friday, September 28, 2007

Chowan to CIAA simply is historical

The significance — and even the news itself — might have escaped many fans and supporters this week. Chowan University in Murfreesboro, N.C., has joined the Hampton-based CIAA as a football member starting in 2008.

It is the first time that a predominantly white institution has joined a historically black college athletic conference, but it might not be the last.

Many fans on the popular black college sports site onnidan.com are skeptical of the union. Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

The feelings are similar at Chowan, according to athletic director Dennis Helsel.

"The reaction has ranged from 'Wow, that's creative!' to 'Will it work?' We haven't had any outright negative," Helsel added. "We've had some quizzical."

Eric Moore, founder and Webmaster for onnidan.com, said the relationship is a win for both sides.

"Now you have pretty much broken the mold," Moore said. "Because you are saying that schools who fit geographically and well as athletically will be welcome."

Moore said he doesn't think the union takes anything away from the purity of a historically black college conference, because the colleges for years have had white athletes, and "black colleges will always be historically black."

Jerry Holmes, defensive coordinator at Hampton University, and a graduate of Chowan when it was a junior college, agreed. "It's a good fit for both," Holmes added. "Chowan has always had a solid program."

Indeed, the school's Website lists 20 athletes, including Holmes, under "Chowan in the NFL."

Folks having a problem with this arrangement need to get over it quickly. This was a marriage of convenience that is already being looked at by at least one of the other three black conferences.

But first a little recent history.

The CIAA has been hemorrhaging members and looking for new partners. Hampton and Norfolk State left at least 10 years ago, and Winston-Salem and N.C. Central took off recently, hoping for greener pastures in Division I-AA.

Meanwhile, Chowan's courtship (provisional membership) with the Division III USA South Conference ended when the school was denied full membership in 2004. But in came a new president and new direction — and a decision to move up to Division II.

Chowan had played many of the CIAA schools in nearly all of its sports, and conference membership looked enticing — to both the CIAA and Chowan.

But race, so often an incendiary element, threatened an open love affair.

Credit CIAA commissioner Leon Kerry, a Hampton native. And credit both Helsel and Chowan president M. Christoper White for not letting race be a dividing factor.

All it took was a look ahead and even a look back.

"We want to be out of the box in our thinking," Kerry said. "We're looking for people with excellent venues, who play similar sports that we do. It's not about color."

Helsel, a former associate commissioner for Conference USA, searched for a new league for Chowan. He found that the average driving distance to the closest compatible conferences was 350 miles.

However, the average driving distance to the CIAA schools was 196 miles.

"That's a substantial cost difference in terms of savings," Helsel said. "If you take race out of it, the CIAA popped up as the best fit."

Helsel said some university officials also looked back to Chowan's beginnings in 1851 "as a four-year college for women — one of the first of its kind — not just a finishing school.

"We were ground breakers, so there is a parallel with us going to a historically black conference," Helsel said. "We're hoping people will look at us and say, 'Wow, this was a very creative and very good idea.' "

Helsel wasn't at first sure the CIAA would be receptive to a non-historically black institution. But once he learned the CIAA was having discussions with the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, a predominantly Native American institution, Chowan became less shy and made contact.

Discussions took place this summer and the arrangement was announced this week. Both Helsel and Kerry say that Chowan might become a member in other sports down the road.

Kerry said historically black Lincoln University, near Philadelphia, and UNC-Pembroke will join the CIAA in football in 2009.

Williams Lide, president of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a black-college league based in Atlanta, said the CIAA-Chowan arrangement is the future.

"We are too looking to diversify our conference," Lide said. "It's the right thing to do, and it's also a good business decision.

"It expands your fan base, instills new rivalries and enhances your revenues."

So in the end, it is about color.

It's about green.

David Squires, Daily Press

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