USIU Keeps Talking Up an American Conference

Come the 1991-92 basketball season, U.S. International may take its high-scoring act and soar happily above what it hopes will be the newest NCAA affiliate: the American Conference.

Thursday in Mission Valley, athletic directors from six independent universities gathered to further discuss plans for a new conference that Al Palmiotto, USIU Athletic Director, has been working on for two years.

After a day of discussion, representatives from USIU, Southern Utah State, Cal State Northridge, Missouri-Kansas City, Northeastern Illinois and Chicago State agreed to take recommendations for a new basketball conference back to their respective presidents for approval by June 7.

In addition to the six schools attending--the NCAA requirement to form a conference--Sacramento State, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Youngstown and Wright State expressed interest but failed to send a representative.

“We agreed that a basketball conference would be in our best interest,” said Palmiotto, “and right now, it would be a beginning for all of us. We decided we’re all going back to our schools to get approval or denial.”

Palmiotto and the other athletic directors decided that forming a basketball-only conference would be beneficial because basketball is the only sport where they consistently have scheduling difficulties.

“The trouble with being an independent,” said Palmiotto, “is that we never know until that year if people will hold to their contract with us. There’s more of a moral commitment in a conference. People in our conference won’t walk out.”

Bob Heigert, Cal State Northridge athletic director, said scheduling basketball games for November and December is easy, but January and February is another story.

“We have five established conferences on the West Coast,” Heigert said. “That puts us in a bind when we have to schedule games. It leaves us with some tremendous voids. We’re off the last three weeks in December to late January and we can never find teams to play us.”

Palmiotto said schools will be required to make a two-year commitment to the conference.