Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ten states, three additional public land-grant universities, and one private research university. The conference is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The SEC participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I in sports competitions; for football it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.
For other uses, see Southeastern Conference (disambiguation) and SEC (disambiguation).Association
1932[1]
Greg Sankey (since 2015)
- 21[2]
- men's: 9
- women's: 12
14 (16 in 2024)
Roy F. Kramer Building
2201 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd.
Birmingham, Alabama
United States
The SEC was established in 1932 by thirteen members of the old Southern Conference. Three charter members had left by the late 1960s, but subsequent additions in 1990 and 2012 grew the conference to fourteen member institutions. The league will expand to sixteen members with the upcoming addition of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas, which are slated to join in 2024.[3]
Members of the SEC have won many national championships: 43 in football, 21 in basketball, 41 in indoor track, 42 in outdoor track, 24 in swimming, 20 in gymnastics, 15 in baseball (College World Series), and one in volleyball. In 1992, the SEC was the first NCAA Division I conference to hold a championship game (and award a subsequent title) for football and was one of the founding member conferences of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The current SEC commissioner is Greg Sankey, who has been the commissioner since 2015. The conference sponsors team championships in nine men's sports and twelve women's sports. The conference is successful financially, distributing $721.8 million to its 14 schools in 2022.[4]
Member universities[edit]
Current members[edit]
The SEC consists of 14 member institutions located in the U.S. states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. The SEC is divided into East and West Divisions, although the divisional alignment is not strictly geographic, with Missouri in the East Division while being farther west than several West Division schools, and Auburn in the West Division despite being located farther east than East Division schools Missouri and Vanderbilt.[5] These divisional groupings are applied only in football, baseball, and women's soccer, for both scheduling and standings purposes. In football, the two division winners meet in the SEC Championship Game.
The SEC will eliminate its baseball and football divisions once Oklahoma and Texas join in 2024, however, soccer will continue to use divisions.[6][7]
History[edit]
Founding[edit]
The SEC was established December 8 and 9, 1932, in Knoxville, Tennessee, when the thirteen members of the large Southern Conference located west and south of the Appalachian Mountains left to form their own conference. Ten of the thirteen founding members have remained in the conference since its inception: the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University ("LSU"), the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"), Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University ("Vandy"). The three founding members that have since left the conference are Sewanee, who left after the 1940 season to drop all athletic scholarships and become a D-III Independent; Georgia Tech, who left after the 1963 season and became a D-I Independent; and Tulane, who left after the 1965 season and became a D-I Independent.
In 1935, the SEC became the first conference to legalize athletic scholarships.[19]
SEC Academic Network[edit]
In 2005, the member institutions of the Southeastern Conference formed the SEC Academic Consortium (SECAC), a collaborative endeavor designed to promote research, scholarship, and achievement amongst the universities.[41]
In 2011, the SEC Academic Consortium was relocated to the SEC headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, from its original home on the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and was renamed SECU. The SECU rebranded its mission to better serve as a means through which the collaborative academic endeavors and achievements of Southeastern Conference universities would be promoted and advanced. The SECU's goals included highlighting the endeavors and achievements of SEC faculty, students, and its universities; advancing the academic reputation of SEC universities; identifying and preparing future leaders for high-level service in academia; increasing the amount and type of study abroad opportunities available for students; and providing opportunities for collaboration among SEC university personnel.[42][43] The Big Ten Conference, since 1958, has had a similar program, now called the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
The SEC Symposium component of SECU was crafted by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, who at the time was the Vice President of the SEC Executive Committee and liaison to SECU.[44] In an interview with Dr. Zeppos about the formation of the SECU he noted, "that the member institutions of the Southeastern Conference are committed to a shared mission of fostering research, scholarship, and achievement. The SEC Symposium represents a platform to connect, collaborate and promote a productive dialogue that will span disciplinary and institutional boundaries and allow us to work together for the betterment of society."[45]
The SEC Academic Network was created in 2009 in partnership with ESPN. The SEC Academic Network was an online library of institutionally produced videos featuring academic initiatives and stories from all Southeastern Conference institutions. The SEC Academic Network was officially merged into the SECU operation.[46]
Awards and honors[edit]
NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup rankings[edit]
The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an annual award given by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the U.S. colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics.
