The History Of The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
(MEAC)
The
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is a collegiate athletic conference
which consists of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the
southeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA’s Division I in
football. Its teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS;
known until the 2006-07 academic year as Division I-AA). It is expected that
founding member North Carolina Central University will rejoin the league in the
2008–09 season.
In 1969, a group from a number of
historical Black colleges long associated with intercollegiate athletics met in
Durham, North Carolina, at North Carolina College (NCC), now North Carolina
Central University (NCCU) for two days. They were invited by Leroy T. Walker to
discuss the feasibility of organizing a new conference based along the Atlantic
coastline. Seven of these institutions agreed to become the Mid-Eastern
Athletic Conference. They were Delaware State University, Howard University,
University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, North Carolina
A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, and South Carolina
State University.
The MEAC headquarters remained in Durham,
North Carolina, until 1981, moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, on March 26,
1982. It remained in Greensboro until the MEAC relocated to its current location
in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in August of 2005.
The league was confirmed in 1970, kicking
off its first season of competition in football in 1971. In 1978, the MEAC
selected its first full-time commissioner, Kenneth A. Free and the following
year, expanded to nine schools with the admission of two Florida schools:
Bethune-Cookman University (then Bethune-Cookman College) and Florida A&M
University. The MEAC operated with nine schools until 1985 when Coppin State
University was admitted. The next expansion occurred in the 1990s with the
inclusion of Hampton University in 1995 and Norfolk State University in 1997.
Newer additions followed into the 2000s with Winston-Salem State University in
2007 and the re-addition of North Carolina Central University fully by 2011.
On June 8, 1980, the MEAC was classified Division I by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the following month, received an automatic berth in the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship. n