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How?
Aug 28, 2005 19:59:02 GMT -5
Post by ATrain on Aug 28, 2005 19:59:02 GMT -5
Just outta curiosity, how did LU end up in the Big South?
What schools in the league at the time wanted LU, which ones were against it, and most importantly: how did we as a football school end up in a non-football conference at the time?
Oh yeah...did any other conferences look at us and did we look at any other conferences?
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How?
Aug 28, 2005 20:09:33 GMT -5
Post by PAmedic on Aug 28, 2005 20:09:33 GMT -5
I only recently started following LU again after over a decade, but if memory serves correctly, we were independant (and awful in most sports) for a long time- NO ONE would even look at us. According to SLY, the Big South was a big step up for us and a very good opportinity at that time, seeing as we had to struggle to secure decent games for many teams and had no shot a post season play barring a nearly perfect season. So we took whatever we could get, and I believe it probably was for the best. We just need to keep building, now that we evidently are in much better shape financially then way back when- ask SLY or H'burg how scary-bad cheap the place was back in the 80's: what we called Liberty Gym was as good as it got!
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How?
Aug 28, 2005 21:33:21 GMT -5
Post by Sly Fox on Aug 28, 2005 21:33:21 GMT -5
From the moment we moved up to I-AA in football, we made serious overtures to the Southern Conference. But despite our strong efforts, we were swiftly turned away. That left us with few other options as far as conference affiliation were concerned. So we operated as an independent for years.
At the same time, we joined some other nomads in building the Big South in other sports. We've always been head & shoulders abovee the rest of the league in budget (even when the school was swimming in red ink). Its only been recently that a few of the other schools have started to step up financially (i.e. CCU and Winthrop).
Most everybody in the Big South initially was desperate for scheduling partners so I don't remember much dissention.
If we could've found any other football league to take us, we would've jumped. But it didn't work out that way.
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