MBB: University Athletic Association

[D3HoopJunkie]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Also, congratulations to both Rochester and Emory. As mentioned I am an Albertus supporter and I look forward to the game Friday night. It should be a very interesting game between too well coached teams with contrasting styles in the way they approach the game.

Hopefully a Rochester fan can help me out here. Can I look forward to a good broadcast on Friday night? Audio play by play and a good video feed perhaps?? I would love to attend in person but the six hour ride is quite the journey.

[ronk]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Also, congratulations to both Rochester and Emory. As mentioned I am an Albertus supporter and I look forward to the game Friday night. It should be a very interesting game between too well coached teams with contrasting styles in the way they approach the game.

Hopefully a Rochester fan can help me out here. Can I look forward to a good broadcast on Friday night? Audio play by play and a good video feed perhaps?? I would love to attend in person but the six hour ride is quite the journey.

Rochester was charging to watch their video during the regular season - maybe the NCAA game will be free but check in advance.

[Gregory Sager]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

Think D1 BCS conference schools that actually care about academics enough to not give scholarships.

[D3HoopJunkie]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

Thats incredible! So thats simply all it is?!? They have the money so they fly and play there conference games essentially like a Divison 1 program. Truly remarkable. Yet another example of just how opposite these 2 programs are! LOL

Albertus is a small time school with an athletics budget probablly less then a % of what Rochester has just from what I gathered here so far. But that being said, this will be a very interesting game on Friday between 2 excellent basketball teams

[sac]

The UAA are nationally renowned research universities, their relationship as schools goes far beyond athletics.

[jaybird44]

Indeed. 

Here is the mission statement and history of how the UAA came into being, from the UAA itself:

"The formation of the University Athletic Association (UAA) is a bold statement of what college athletics can and should be—that it is highly desirable and possible for a group of committed institutions to conduct a broad-based program of intercollegiate athletics for men and women; to compete with like academic institutions spread over geographically expansive areas; and to seek excellence in athletics while maintaining a perspective that holds the student-athlete and the academic mission of the institution as the center of focus.

The University Athletic Association, which is in its 30th year, is a significant expression of the principle that the provision of a high-quality college athletic experience is worth the commitment required of an institution. It is worthwhile not only because it benefits the entire campus community and, in turn, the institution itself.  Perhaps more importantly, the UAA is a strong statement that the success
of intercollegiate athletics is wholly dependent upon institutional integrity and the ability of institutions to complete the full integration of athletics into the academic fiber of higher education. 

Members of the UAA share the belief that academic excellence and athletic excellence are not mutually exclusive. Implicit in this belief are several sets of assumptions. The first is that the academic enterprise is the primary element. Student-athletes are just that—students first and athletes second.  The second set of assumptions has to do with athletic excellence. Athletic excellence is not to be confused with a win-at-all costs attitude. It properly relates to the caliber of experience offered to students who participate in intercollegiate athletics."

[Gregory Sager]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

Thats incredible! So thats simply all it is?!?

No, there's more to it than that. It's not just a random collection of eight D3 schools stretching from Boston to New York City to Rochester to Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Atlanta to St. Louis to Chicago. As sac pointed out, they are research universities -- a different type of institution entirely than the liberal arts colleges that make up the vast majority of D3's membership. And, as he pointed out, they're nationally-renowned research universities, each and every one of them a member of the exclusive Association of American Universities that constitutes the upper echelon of American academia. The University of Chicago, for example, has produced more Nobel Prizes than any other school on the planet. The University of Rochester contains perhaps the world's best music school, the Eastman School of Music. Several UAA schools have top-notch hospitals and medical schools attached to them.

They formed a conference, in other words, that is not based upon geography but upon similar institutional identities. There really aren't more than two or three other schools in all of D3 that are like the UAA schools. Their peers are the Ivy League schools.

[WUPHF]

No UAA team has the budget of a Division I BCS school.  Not even close.

The UAA schools play four weekends on the road during league play and only three that require flights.

Washington University has a budget that is two or three million or so more than Webster and the Bears feature more sports, including football.  Definitely a difference but...

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

No UAA team has the budget of a Division I BCS school.  Not even close.

The UAA schools play four weekends on the road during league play and only three that require flights.

Washington University has a budget that is two or three million or so more than Webster and the Bears feature more sports, including football.  Definitely a difference but...

I didn't mean it as an athletic budget, but the school profile of, say, a Rochester, isn't terribly different than the University of Michigan.  Rochester spends a lot less on sports, but they can essentially spend what they want to spend - they just have things in proper perspective.

[jaybird44]

The UAA basically holds an extension of beliefs regarding collegiate athletics, that were formulated by Wash-U, the University of Chicago, and other colleges and universities just before or just after World War II.  Sewanee University was a member of the SEC for several years; Wash-U was an original member of the Missouri Valley Conference that included the University of Missouri and many other future members of the Big Eight Conference; and the U. of Chicago was a charter member of the Big 10 Conference. 

In the few years just before WWII, those smaller schools began to see that major college athletics were starting to place far too much emphasis solely on athletic achievements, at the expense of academic integrity.  For example, Sewanee opted out of the SEC just before the war, and Wash-U followed suit just after the war ended.  Bad news for fans who liked seeing those schools play Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc.  But, the smaller schools who wanted to keep the focus squarely on academics knew they couldn't compete with the student-athletes from the larger universities who weren't tethered to that ideal.

So, the small colleges and universities continually gravitated away from playing what are now Division I schools...first in football, then later in basketball and other major sports.  Two or three decades down the line, enough colleges had moved toward embracing the true student-athlete model, to where they would eventually form what is now Division III of the NCAA. 

From there, in 1987, like-minded research universities formed the University Athletic Association.  It is robust in basketball, soccer, and track and field, in maintenance mode in baseball and softball, and faltering in football.  Yes, even those who have wealthy endowments have drawn the line and left the UAA (in the cases of Rochester and Johns Hopkins), or chose not to field football teams (Emory, Brandeis, and NYU) due in part to the expense of flying large rosters of football teams across the wide expanse of the UAA footprint, and for the convenience of playing in conferences that feature opponents who are closer to home.  Also, the desire to be in a conference that has an automatic qualifier bid into the NCAA tournament for the league champion was strong.

The four remaining football-playing members of the UAA, by 2018, will have all settled in playing football in other conferences as affiliate members.  Wash-U will be an affiliate member of the CCIW at that time, Chicago will be in the Midwest Conference, and Carnegie Mellon and Case-Western Reserve are already assimilated into the Presidents Athletic Conference.

[iwumichigander]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

Thats incredible! So thats simply all it is?!?

No, there's more to it than that. It's not just a random collection of eight D3 schools stretching from Boston to New York City to Rochester to Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Atlanta to St. Louis to Chicago. As sac pointed out, they are research universities -- a different type of institution entirely than the liberal arts colleges that make up the vast majority of D3's membership. And, as he pointed out, they're nationally-renowned research universities, each and every one of them a member of the exclusive Association of American Universities that constitutes the upper echelon of American academia. The University of Chicago, for example, has produced more Nobel Prizes than any other school on the planet. The University of Rochester contains perhaps the world's best music school, the Eastman School of Music. Several UAA schools have top-notch hospitals and medical schools attached to them.

They formed a conference, in other words, that is not based upon geography but upon similar institutional identities. There really aren't more than two or three other schools in all of D3 that are like the UAA schools. Their peers are the Ivy League schools.

Whoa, over the line Sager - as a graduate at the School of Music Ithaca College my son would take exception to your remark as would his follow magic graduate at Berkley Boston, Oberlin and NYU. Rochester one of the best- yes.

And beyond the citations so far add in law schools, each with one or more top notch graduate schools and significant endowment funds.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Also, congratulations to both Rochester and Emory. As mentioned I am an Albertus supporter and I look forward to the game Friday night. It should be a very interesting game between too well coached teams with contrasting styles in the way they approach the game.

Hopefully a Rochester fan can help me out here. Can I look forward to a good broadcast on Friday night? Audio play by play and a good video feed perhaps?? I would love to attend in person but the six hour ride is quite the journey.

Rochester was charging to watch their video during the regular season - maybe the NCAA game will be free but check in advance.

They are not allowed to charge for games in the NCAA Tournament... they don't own the rights. Turner does. As a result to get the rights to broadcast, they can't charge viewers.

[Gregory Sager]

Pardon my ignorance with regards to the UAA but would somebody mind explaining this conference to me? I'm really baffled by the geographical lay out. I am a GNAC/Albertus Magnus supporter and poster and have really only witnessed first hand the Northeast in terms of travel amongst teams. Obviously a few exceptions for the NCAA tourney over the years (fortunatley) but when you look at the UAA it is so spread out geographically it's hard to understand how it all works financially. I had no idea where Emory was, come to find out they are a UAA conference member located in Georgia and Rochester as we all know is a couple foot steps away from getting there toes wet in Lake Ontario. Throw in Washington University and Case Western as well!?!?!?! My Goodness!

Each and every one of the UAA schools is insanely wealthy, with endowments in the billions of dollars. Trust me, the plane travel involved in that league is not a budget-breaker for anybody.

Thats incredible! So thats simply all it is?!?

No, there's more to it than that. It's not just a random collection of eight D3 schools stretching from Boston to New York City to Rochester to Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Atlanta to St. Louis to Chicago. As sac pointed out, they are research universities -- a different type of institution entirely than the liberal arts colleges that make up the vast majority of D3's membership. And, as he pointed out, they're nationally-renowned research universities, each and every one of them a member of the exclusive Association of American Universities that constitutes the upper echelon of American academia. The University of Chicago, for example, has produced more Nobel Prizes than any other school on the planet. The University of Rochester contains perhaps the world's best music school, the Eastman School of Music. Several UAA schools have top-notch hospitals and medical schools attached to them.

They formed a conference, in other words, that is not based upon geography but upon similar institutional identities. There really aren't more than two or three other schools in all of D3 that are like the UAA schools. Their peers are the Ivy League schools.

Whoa, over the line Sager - as a graduate at the School of Music Ithaca College my son would take exception to your remark as would his follow magic graduate at Berkley Boston, Oberlin and NYU. Rochester one of the best- yes.

I said "perhaps", Larry. That's qualifier enough.

(Oh, and you left out Julliard. )

[Mr. Ypsi]

Not to mention the IWU Opera School!

(IWU's Music Department actually is quite extraordinary.)