Horizon League: Raise Your Sights

HORIZON LEAGUE
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2008-09, the Horizon League continues to aspire toward its goal of being one of the nation's leading athletics conferences while being recognized as a leader in the development of student-athletes as leaders and role models.

The Horizon League membership features ten public and private institutions that have impressive academic reputations and a storied tradition of broad-based athletic programs. Current membership includes Butler University, Cleveland State University, the University of Detroit Mercy, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, Valparaiso University, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wright State University and Youngstown State University.

The Horizon League's primary focus is on adding value to the educational experience through its four platforms of athletic performance, academic achievement, community outreach, and personal responsibility and accountability. It is the League's belief that athletics is a powerful and visible resource tool that can be used to enhance student-athletes' collegiate experience. The Horizon League's goals are to enhance the holistic university experience for the student-athlete, to create an affiliation of institutions with similar athletic goals, and to adhere to the principals of integrity, diversity, excellence and growth.

The Horizon League sponsors competition in 19 sports - nine for men (baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field and tennis) and ten for women (basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, tennis and volleyball). In all sports, all teams participate in their respective postseason League championships regardless of regular-season performance, allowing all student-athletes an opportunity to qualify for NCAA championships. The League receives automatic bids to NCAA championships in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's golf, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's tennis, and women's volleyball.

The Horizon League is headquartered in Indianapolis, the "Amateur Sports Capital of the World," with offices in the Pan American Plaza (201 S. Capitol Avenue), located a block from Lucas Oil Stadium and just minutes from Conseco Fieldhouse, the State Capitol Building, Victory Field and the NCAA national office.

A PROUD HISTORY
Founded on June 16, 1979, as the Midwestern City Conference with six charter members, the League changed its name to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference in 1985 and added women's sports for the 1986-87 academic year. Charter members of the conference included current members Butler and Loyola as well as the University of Evansville, Oklahoma City University, Oral Roberts University and Xavier University. Among other current members, Detroit joined in 1980, and Cleveland State, UIC, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Wright State came aboard in 1994 in the largest non-merger conference expansion in history, with Youngstown State joining in 2001 and Valparaiso in 2007.

On June 4, 2001, the Horizon League unveiled its current name and ushered in a new dynamic direction that has brought the League closer to its stated goal of being one of the nation's top ten conferences with a focus on enhancing the student-athletes experience by upgrading the League's market and competitive positions.

ATHLETIC SUCCESS
In the past few years, the Horizon League has enjoyed unprecedented success on the national stage, highlighted by three Sweet Sixteen appearances (Butler 2003, 2007; Milwaukee 2005) and eight wins in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship in the past six seasons. In other sports, League teams have won at least one game in their respective NCAA Championships each of the last six seasons in men's soccer (Milwaukee 2002-05, UIC 2006-07), with UIC just one win away from the College Cup in 2007. In softball, League teams won a game in the national tournament four straight years earlier in the decade (UIC 2002, 2004; Wright State 2003; Green Bay 2005) while advancing into the second round in women's soccer three of the last four seasons (Detroit 2004, Milwaukee 2005-06). Green Bay's women's basketball team added to that resume with a victory in the 2007 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. Butler's Victoria Mitchell became the League's first NCAA individual champion when she won the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and then finished fourth at the 2005 NCAA Cross Country Championships.

ACADEMIC SUCCESS
Horizon League student-athletes also excel in the classroom as more than 500 have been named to the Academic Honor Roll each of the past seven semesters for carrying a grade-point average of 3.2 or better, including more than 600 for the fall 2007 and spring 2008 semesters. Forty-eight student-athletes were named to ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District teams in 2007-08, while 14 earned Academic All-America honors, including a pair of first-team selections.

COMMUNITY SERVICE
In addition to its athletics success, the Horizon League has secured a well-earned reputation for its community service initiatives.

Each January, member institutions partner with local elementary schools for an art, music and essay contest highlighting the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with winners recognized at League games on the weekend of MLK Day.

The Horizon League Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) also has continued a tradition of working with youth in Indianapolis during its annual summer meeting, while the League, it schools and fans donate to Komen for the Cure for breast cancer awareness during its annual women's basketball championship. On campus, student-athletes have raised money and awareness for such causes as breast cancer, diabetes and hurricane relief, while hosting blood drives, neighborhood clean-ups, Big Brother/Big Sister programs and more.

SPORTSMANSHIP
One of the Horizon League's points of emphasis is fostering collegial environments for competition among student-athletes, coaches, administrators and fans in a pro-active approach. Among the vehicles is the Ethical Conduct Pledge, which is signed each season by student-athletes, coaches, officials, and campus and League administrators. Its purpose is to make all the involved groups aware of the Horizon League expectations of behavior during conference events.

DEMOGRAPHICS
Horizon League institutions boast a combined enrollment of more than 130,000 plus nearly a quarter-million living alumni centered in the League's Midwest footprint. League media markets include five of the nation's top 35 in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Milwaukee, covering more than ten million television households and encompassing more than nine percent of the nation's television audience.

GOVERNANCE
The Horizon League is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of the ten member institutions' chief executive officers. Dr. David Sweet, President of Youngstown State, serves as Board Chair through June 30, 2010. Ron Strollo, Executive Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Youngstown State, serves as chair of the Executive Council, and Christine Moeller, Assistant Athletic Director/Senior Woman Administrator at Cleveland State, is the Second Delegate, while Sheila Patterson of Cleveland State serves as chair of the Faculty Athletics Representatives.

LEADERSHIP
Jonathan B. (Jon) LeCrone is in his 17th year as Commissioner of the Horizon League, having been named to the position on May 11, 1992, and is the ninth-longest tenured commissioner among the 33 Division I conferences. He is the fifth commissioner in League history, succeeding Daniel B. "Tucker" DiEdwardo (1989-92), James W. Shaffer (1984-89), Cecil N. Coleman (1980-84) and James J. McCafferty (1979-80). LeCrone is in the first year of a four-year term on the NCAA Division I Leadership Council after recently completing a five-year term on the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee.

VISIBILITY
The Horizon League has enhanced its media visibility with a number of initiatives. The League is in the fourth year of a five-year agreement with ESPN that includes selected regular-season men's basketball action (ESPN2) and the men's championship game (ESPN) and features increased exposures each year on ESPNU plus inclusion in the annual O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters, one of college basketball's premier in-season events. In addition, the Horizon League has partnered with CBS College Sports to provide the official web site at www.horizonleague.org, which offers the most comprehensive coverage of Horizon League teams on the net.

HORIZON LEAGUE NETWORK
The Horizon League is a recognized leader in video streaming, through the Horizon League Network (HLN), having produced more than 800 free, live events in the past three years, with plans to web cast more than 400 during the 2008-09 academic year. In addition to live games, HLN includes highlight vignettes of all 19 League championships, weekly highlight videos during the men's and women's basketball season and other special programming covering Horizon League institutions, coaches and student-athletes.

McCAFFERTY TROPHY
The Horizon League annually awards the McCafferty Trophy in recognition of its all-sports champion in honor of its first commissioner, James J. McCafferty. Cleveland State won its first McCafferty Trophy in school history following the 2007-08 academic year. The Vikings also captured their first Men's All-Sports Award, while Milwaukee claimed the women's honor for the third straight year and seventh time in the past eight years. As an indication of the League's competitive balance, eight of its ten schools won at least one team championship last year.