King College joins NCAA, Conference Carolinas

BRISTOL, Tenn. – At long last, rush is over.

King College is in the NCAA.

The renowned intercollegiate sports fraternity welcomed King as a full Division II member with a phone call Friday, the details of which the college kept hush-hush until Monday afternoon when it announced its successful bid with a celebratory press conference held in the campus’ sports Hall of Fame room emblazoned with NCAA logos for the occasion.

“It just reiterates that the level of coaching and athletic competition at King is pretty substantial,” said college president Greg Jordan. “If it is, why not compete in the most well-known brand in collegiate sports?

In conjunction with the NCAA announcement, Conference Carolinas commissioner Alan Patterson was on hand Monday as well to welcome King into his now 13-member association. North Greenville was also granted membership to the league on Monday.

“I thought initially that I would compare it to a wedding,” Patterson said about the addition of King and North Greenville, “... and then it occurred to me that we’d be a polygamist.”

King will participate in conference administrative and coaches meetings immediately, but will not begin regular season play or be eligible to take part in conference tournaments until the 2011-12 school year.

During the 2010-11 season, King’s 19 NCAA sports teams will compete with independent schedules, but will be eligible for NCAA postseason play through at-large bids.

The NCAA’s acceptance of King as a full member brings to an end a long process that formally began back in May 2007 when the college turned in its application to become an NCAA member, a little more than a year after publicly announcing that it would be pursuing the move.

King had no setbacks as it journeyed through the new three-year process that the NCAA now requires for schools to join Division II. In 2009-10, the school was a provisional NCAA member and had to renounce its ties with the NAIA and the Appalachian Athletic Conference.

But despite its successful progression through the NCAA-mandated steps to membership up until this point, King wasn’t assured of getting the nod as a full member until the phone call Friday.

“We had about four or five people around a conference telephone call and as soon they said, ‘oh and you are now an active member,’ everybody just let out a big holler and everybody exclaimed,” Jordan said. “It was a lot of fun and we were thrilled.”

Rob Littleton, the chairman of King’s NCAA transition committee, said Monday’s celebration represented an achievement for the entire school, not just the athletic department.

“We’re very, very grateful for this day,” he said.

In between now and when King and North Greenville join Conference Carolinas as full members on June 1, 2011, Patterson said the 13 schools will be discussing everything from how many conference games to play in each sport to whether to split into east and west divisions.

“We’ve got committees going wild right now,” he said.

Conference Carolinas, which has headquarters in High Point, N.C., has a long history under various names, but first began competing as an NCAA Division II league in 1995. It was known as the Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference for a period when Longwood University was a member during the organization’s first few Division II years, but changed its name to Conference Carolinas in 2007 after Longwood had departed for Division I.

King will be the only member not located in North Carolina or South Carolina, but Patterson said the college is still well within the conference’s “geographical footprint.”

“Golly, if you’re going to trip over state lines then you’ve got some problems,” he said.

Despite the addition of King, the league will continue to be known as Conference Carolinas.

Patterson said King brings a number of assets to the conference, from a well-run athletic program to facilities that will help the overall conference’s image and recruiting.

“They make all of us look good,” he said.

nhubbard@bristolnews.com | Twitter: @Hubbard_BHCSprt | (276) 645-2543