Southern ConferenceRead moreSoCon expects to hold steady at 10 schools
After six months of one-way traffic out of the Southern Conference, three schools were added to the league Thursday.
The SoCon’s Council of Presidents voted to offer invitations to East Tennessee State and Virginia Military Institute — both former SoCon members — as well as Mercer. ETSU and Mercer accepted the invitations Thursday and VMI will do so today when its board of visitors meets, bringing the league back up to 10 members starting in the 2014-15 academic year.
“We really see this as a golden opportunity to rebrand the conference and launch it in a very positive way,” SoCon commissioner John Iamarino said in a phone interview from Hilton Head, S.C., where the league’s spring meetings are taking place.
The return of ETSU will revive a mostly dormant rivalry with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The Mocs have some more minor rivals in the SoCon, but nothing like what they had with the Bucs.