Rice University to Consider Invitation to Join the WAC

Contact: Michael Cinelli
Phone: (713) 527-4807

Rice University to Consider Invitation to Join the WAC

The Rice University Board of Governors has
affirmed Rice’s intention to proceed with discussions about joining
the Western Athletic Conference based on today’s invitation. The
completion of this negotiation would make Rice a member of the
largest Division I-A conference in the nation.

"For the past several months, following the collapse of the
Southwest Conference, the Board of Governors and I have been engaged
in a careful review of the university’s options regarding
intercollegiate athletics in consultation with many members of the
Rice community," Rice president Malcolm Gillis said. "All options,
and the corresponding costs of each, were discussed at length and on
multiple occasions with members of the Board. This process involved
faculty, student leaders, the Athletics Committee, members of the
administration and many alumni. The feedback from all constituencies
has been extraordinarily productive."

Rice would join two other Southwest Conference members-Southern
Methodist University and Texas Christian University-as part of an
expanded WAC. The WAC’s expansion from 10 teams to 16 teams-split
into two eight-team divisions-will be completed in time for the 1996
football season, possibly sooner for other sports. Current members
of the WAC include the Air Force Academy, Colorado State, UT-El
Paso, Wyoming, Brigham Young, Fresno State, Hawaii, New Mexico, San
Diego State and Utah.

The process of finding a new athletic conference for Rice was an
exhaustive one, Gillis said.

"We talked at length to presidents and commissioners in several
existing athletic conferences," he said. "We explored membership in
conferences at all levels, I-A through III, and considered at great
length the implications of independent status, again at all three
levels."

When WAC officials indicated that the expanded conference would
consist of two divisions, the decision by Rice actively to consider
becoming a member was enhanced. Eastern Division conference members
will likely include SMU, TCU, Tulsa, Colorado State, UTEP, New
Mexico, and either Air Force or Wyoming. Tulsa is one of the new
schools also expected to join the WAC. The other new members, which
would affiliate with the WAC’s Western Division, are San Jose State
and Nevada-Las Vegas.

"We believe that an affiliation with the new 16-team Western
Athletic Conference and maintenance of a Division I-A
intercollegiate program is in Rice’s best interest," Gillis said.

"We have a group of outstanding coaches dedicated to high
academic and athletic standards in both men’s and women’s sports,"
he added. "We have students who can compete at the highest level of
athletics as in so many other areas of extracurricular activity. We
are committed to managing the revenues and costs of intercollegiate
athletics so that academic programs do not suffer."

Rice became a charter member of the Southwest Conference in
1914, two years after it opened its doors to students. It has a
total student enrollment of 4,257 and a full-time faculty of 437.

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