The Lincoln University athletic department was selling.
And I was buying.
On Thursday morning, Lincoln announced a handful of changes coming to the athletic department. The biggest was the move to the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) from the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA).
In my conversation Thursday with GLVC commissioner Jim Naumovich, the conference is glad to add Lincoln.
“They have a great vision for the future,” Naumovich said. “I could tell there was total support throughout the university for the move.”
And there’s no hard feelings from the MIAA.
“Our league wishes Lincoln success with its membership in the GLVC,” MIAA commissioner Mike Racy said in a release from the conference. “We appreciate Lincoln’s transparency and open communication with our conference leadership as it has explored membership options in the past few months.”
Lincoln president John Moseley spearheaded the move. He is in a unique position, serving as a university president after being the men’s basketball coach as well as the athletic director. Moseley has had a close-up look at what Lincoln athletics does well and what it needs to do to improve in the future.
Make no mistake, the conference move is all about the future.
“Competitively, it’s been on my mind for a long time,” Moseley said Thursday.
The Lincoln track and field programs are national powers. The men’s basketball program grew under Moseley and is firmly among the top half of the conference under first-year head coach Jimmy Drew this season.
The others? They could use some work. And beating your head against the wall that is the MIAA, arguably the best Division II conference for athletics in the country, is a no-win situation. You could be improving, but your record would never show it.
That brings me to football.
In separate conversations Thursday, Moseley and Lincoln vice president of Advancement, Athletics and Campus Recreation Kevin Wilson both said the state of the football program was not the driving force behind the move.
I’ll take them at their word. But …
Lincoln has not won a conference football game since Oct. 19, 2019, a 27-9 victory against Northeastern State on Homecoming at Dwight T. Reed Stadium. Since then, it’s been 26 straight losses, all being MIAA games since the entire schedule consisted of conference contests.
Add in that while Lincoln is not leaving the MIAA until the 2024-25 school year, the Blue Tigers will not play conference football games this fall. There will be MIAA teams on the schedule, but they won’t count as conference games, as Lincoln will now have the opportunity to schedule programs such as fellow HBCU institutions and other programs that it figures to be more competitive against.
GLVC football isn’t going to be a cakewalk. The University of Indianapolis won the conference title last fall and finished No. 17 in the final American Football Coaches Association’s Division II poll. Truman State -- Blair Oaks North -- was No. 25 in those rankings. But it doesn’t figure to be the week-to-week slog the MIAA was for the Blue Tigers.
Moseley also announced Thursday the university was adding three sports -- bringing back baseball and men’s soccer, as well as starting a women’s soccer program -- beginning in 2024-25.
Moseley was the athletic director when the baseball program was shut down. When he spoke about it Thursday, it was evident how that difficult decision still affected him nearly seven years later, but one that needed to be made in the best overall interests of the athletic department.
But now that support is available, as well as that for the two soccer programs. That means more students on campus, which is good for any university.
“It’s a great day to be a Blue Tiger,” was a statement repeated Thursday morning at Jason Hall.
Here’s hoping there are more great days ahead.