OVC

[rocki]

https://goleathernecks.com/news/2023/5/ ... 8YVO4xgZHU
 

[ST_Lawson]

Over the next week or so (maybe couple of weeks), I'm going to be putting together an "intro to the OVC" thread talking about the conference and the various schools within it. I figured this is probably the best place to put it, so let's start with the OVC in general.



History

The Ohio Valley Conference was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Brentwood, TN (suburb of Nashville).
The initial lineup inclued Louisville, Evansville, Western Kentucky, Morehead State, Eastern Kentucky,. and Murray State. Louisville and Evansville only lasted a couple of years before moving on. Marshall and Tennessee Tech both joined up in '49, although Marshall took off in '52. From '52 to '62, Middle Tennessee State, East Tennessee State, and Austin Peay were added, although ETSU moved to the SoCon in '78.
Western Kentucky headed out after 1982 (although they joined back up for a couple of years from '99-'01 for football, before WKU popped over to the MVFC for a few years, and then headed up to the FBS).

Over the next few decades, the OVC added a team every few years. Akron in '80 (they only lasted for 7 years), Youngstown State in '81 (they went independent in '88), then Tennessee State in '86, SEMO in '91, UT-Martin in '92, and Eastern Illinois in '96. Middle Tennessee State left in '00, but then Samford was added in '03, but they took off in '08 for the SoCon, and Jacksonville State in '03, followed by SIU-E in '08 and Belmont in '12.

There's been quite a bit of changeover of teams in the last few years, with Eastern Kentucky, Austin Peay and Jacksonville State all leaving for the ASUN in '21 and '22, although JSU quickly got an invite up to Conference USA. Murray State and Belmont headed out in 2022 for the MVC, with Murray State's football going to the MVFC. This was followed up by additions of newly DI Lindenwood, Arkansas-Little Rock (non-football), Southern Indiana (non-football), and now our own beloved Leathernecks.

Today's OVC

The current lineup of schools include football playing members: Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, Southeast Missouri State, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT-Martin, and in 2024, WIU. Non-football playing members include Alabama-Little Rock, SIU-Edwardsville, and Southern Indiana. Morehead State has football, but they play in the Pioneer League. There's also affiliate/associate members of Murray State (Rifle), UT-Chattanooga (Beach Volleyball), and joining along with us in 2023, Chicago State (Men's Soccer, Men's and Women's Golf), Houston Christian (Men's Soccer), Incarnate Word (Men's Soccer), and Liberty (Men's Soccer).

In 2023/2024, the conference will sponsor the following sports:
Men's - Baseball (9 teams), Basketball (10), Cross Country (10), Football (6), Golf (10), Rifle (3), Soccer (8), Indoor T&F (7), Outdoor T&F (8)
Women's - Basketball (10), Beach Volleyball (5), Cross Country (10), Golf (8), Rifle (4), Soccer (9), Softball (9), Tennis (7), Indoor T&F (9), Outdoor T&F (9), Indoor Volleyball (10)

2023 will be year 1 of a 4-year football partnership with the Big South, which includes Charleston Southern (North Charleston,SC), Gardner-Webb (Boiling Springs, NC), Bryant (Smithfield, RI), and Robert Morris (Moon Township, PA). I'd assume we'd be a part of that in years 2-4, but beyond that, renewal probably depends on the number of football teams each conference has.

Locations

I've put together a map of all the members. We're in purple, dark red are the full OVC members, green are the non-football OVC members, yellow are the Big South members that we will likely occasionally be playing football at, and blue are the associate members in sports that we also participate in. I'm hoping they do travel partners at least for Men's soccer, so if we're playing a match at Houston Baptist, we can follow that up with a match at Incarnate Word (San Antonio) a couple days later.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/edit? ... sp=sharing

Also ran some numbers on the distance to the schools. The average for football (including Big South) is 560 miles, but without the Big South, it's 337 miles. In the MVFC, it's 389 miles.

For most olympic sports, it's 347 miles. For Men's Soccer, it's 478. For the Summit League, the average distance is 540 miles.

I don't know what the cut-off is for driving vs flying, but I'd suspect we drive to anything closer than ~6 hours. For the OVC olympic sports members, that's SIUE, Lindenwood, EIU, SEMO, Southern Indiana, and UT-Martin (6 schools). Flying to TN State, Morehead State, UALR, TN Tech (4)
If the same criteria is applied to where we are as of right now, for Summit League sports, we would drive to Kansas City and Omaha (2). Fly to St. Thomas, South Dakota, Oral Roberts, South Dakota State, North Dakota State, North Dakota, and Denver (7).
If someone knows if the cut-off is different for driving vs flying, let me know and I'll change up those numbers.

I plan on doing a post about each school individually every day or two, so I'll get into more detail about each school's athletics history and everything at that point.
 
 

[ST_Lawson]

Found this style guide for the OVC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Guide.pdf
Thought it might be helpful to know things like the preferred shortened versions of their names (and the unacceptable ones). If we don't want people showing up calling our women's teams the "Lady Leathernecks" or whatever, then we should make sure to respect the other team's names also.

Most schools, both men's and women's teams are called the same thing. The only exception listed is Tennssee State (TSU) who has "Lady Tigers" for their women's basketball, "Tigerbelles" for women's track, and "Flying Tigers" for men's track.

The University of Tennessee at Martin goes by UTM or UT Martin, not UT-Martin (I've been getting this one wrong myself).
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville also doesn't use a hyphen. It's SIUE or SIU Edwardsville.
SEMO can also be referred to as Southeast Missouri.
Like we had with Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, UALR can be referred to as just "Little Rock".

[Tere North]

Found this style guide for the OVC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Guide.pdf
Thought it might be helpful to know things like the preferred shortened versions of their names (and the unacceptable ones). If we don't want people showing up calling our women's teams the "Lady Leathernecks" or whatever, then we should make sure to respect the other team's names also.

Most schools, both men's and women's teams are called the same thing. The only exception listed is Tennssee State (TSU) who has "Lady Tigers" for their women's basketball, "Tigerbelles" for women's track, and "Flying Tigers" for men's track.

The University of Tennessee at Martin goes by UTM or UT Martin, not UT-Martin (I've been getting this one wrong myself).
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville also doesn't use a hyphen. It's SIUE or SIU Edwardsville.
SEMO can also be referred to as Southeast Missouri.
Like we had with Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, UALR can be referred to as just "Little Rock".

 

FYI, officially lower case "e" for Edwardsville, SIUe
 

[leatherneckcountry]

Found this style guide for the OVC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Guide.pdf
Thought it might be helpful to know things like the preferred shortened versions of their names (and the unacceptable ones). If we don't want people showing up calling our women's teams the "Lady Leathernecks" or whatever, then we should make sure to respect the other team's names also.

Most schools, both men's and women's teams are called the same thing. The only exception listed is Tennssee State (TSU) who has "Lady Tigers" for their women's basketball, "Tigerbelles" for women's track, and "Flying Tigers" for men's track.

The University of Tennessee at Martin goes by UTM or UT Martin, not UT-Martin (I've been getting this one wrong myself).
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville also doesn't use a hyphen. It's SIUE or SIU Edwardsville.
SEMO can also be referred to as Southeast Missouri.
Like we had with Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, UALR can be referred to as just "Little Rock".


 

FYI, officially lower case "e" for Edwardsville, SIUe
 

 

Not anywhere I’ve seen even there school pages say SIUE

[may know]

Found this style guide for the OVC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Guide.pdf
Thought it might be helpful to know things like the preferred shortened versions of their names (and the unacceptable ones). If we don't want people showing up calling our women's teams the "Lady Leathernecks" or whatever, then we should make sure to respect the other team's names also.

Most schools, both men's and women's teams are called the same thing. The only exception listed is Tennssee State (TSU) who has "Lady Tigers" for their women's basketball, "Tigerbelles" for women's track, and "Flying Tigers" for men's track.

The University of Tennessee at Martin goes by UTM or UT Martin, not UT-Martin (I've been getting this one wrong myself).
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville also doesn't use a hyphen. It's SIUE or SIU Edwardsville.
SEMO can also be referred to as Southeast Missouri.
Like we had with Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, UALR can be referred to as just "Little Rock".


 

FYI, officially lower case "e" for Edwardsville, SIUe
 

 

They do have the lower case "e" in a sculpture on campus and it's in some logos. I wonder if they used to go by SIUe and then switched it to SIUE. 

[ST_Lawson]

Found this style guide for the OVC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Guide.pdf
Thought it might be helpful to know things like the preferred shortened versions of their names (and the unacceptable ones). If we don't want people showing up calling our women's teams the "Lady Leathernecks" or whatever, then we should make sure to respect the other team's names also.

Most schools, both men's and women's teams are called the same thing. The only exception listed is Tennssee State (TSU) who has "Lady Tigers" for their women's basketball, "Tigerbelles" for women's track, and "Flying Tigers" for men's track.

The University of Tennessee at Martin goes by UTM or UT Martin, not UT-Martin (I've been getting this one wrong myself).
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville also doesn't use a hyphen. It's SIUE or SIU Edwardsville.
SEMO can also be referred to as Southeast Missouri.
Like we had with Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, UALR can be referred to as just "Little Rock".



 

FYI, officially lower case "e" for Edwardsville, SIUe

 

They do have the lower case "e" in a sculpture on campus and it's in some logos. I wonder if they used to go by SIUe and then switched it to SIUE.
 

I believe that is correct. They used to use "SIUe" but no longer do that. From their official editorial guidelines: https://www.siue.edu/marketing-and-comm ... ines.shtml

Within text, refer to the name of the University as either “Southern Illinois University Edwardsville” or “SIUE.” Note there is no comma, dash or “at” between University and Edwardsville.When using SIUE within text, use all caps. Refrain from making the “e” lowercase or in a different font or color. Do not incorporate the “e” into other words.

 

[Tere North]

FYI, officially lower case "e" for Edwardsville, SIUe


 

They do have the lower case "e" in a sculpture on campus and it's in some logos. I wonder if they used to go by SIUe and then switched it to SIUE.

 

I believe that is correct. They used to use "SIUe" but no longer do that. From their official editorial guidelines: https://www.siue.edu/marketing-and-comm ... ines.shtml

Within text, refer to the name of the University as either “Southern Illinois University Edwardsville” or “SIUE.” Note there is no comma, dash or “at” between University and Edwardsville.When using SIUE within text, use all caps. Refrain from making the “e” lowercase or in a different font or color. Do not incorporate the “e” into other words.

 

 

Thanks for the update, Scott. I was remembering back to when they made a huge deal about the "e" and hadn't heard about the move to "E"
 

[ST_Lawson]

EIU lost their first game in the NCAA tournament. It's a double-elimination tournament though, so they get one more shot. They play Miami (OH) next. Loser is done, winner plays the loser of the Northwestern and Kentucky game (the two teams who won their games in this regional).