University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) swimmers and divers won’t be eligible to compete at the 2022 Horizon League Championships after the school accepted an invite to leave the conference last month.
On January 26, UIC announced it was join the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) beginning in the 2022-23 season, leaving the Horizon League after 28 years.
The Horizon League then released a statement on Wednesday morning asserting that UIC’s decision to leave the conference forfeits their championship eligibility for the remainder of the season according to Bylaw 2.5.3.3.
Multiple swim team sources, including head coach Tim Loeffler, indicated to SwimSwam that Tuesday was the first time they became aware of the possibility they were ineligible to compete at the Horizon League Championships, which are scheduled for Feb. 16-19 in Indianapolis.
The conference said it met last Friday to consider a request made by UIC for a special waiver to bypass the Bylaw, but ultimately decided to uphold it.
“Horizon League Bylaws provide a choice to departing members: either provide a reasonable one-year notice of a decision to join another league or lose the privilege of having its teams participate in League championships and potentially carry the Horizon League banner into NCAA tournament competition,” the Horizon League said. “The League’s eligibility Bylaws have been in place for years and were approved by its members, including UIC, fully aware of this choice.
“When UIC announced its intent to leave the Horizon League at the end of the 2021-22 season, UIC chose not to comply with the League’s Bylaw requiring that written notice of such intention must be received on or before July 1 one year before the withdrawal date. In this instance, UIC needed to provide notice before July 1, 2022 and remain a member until July 1, 2023 to be in compliance with League Bylaws and preserve 2022 championship opportunities for UIC teams.”
The league said it was “unfortunate” for UIC’s teams that the school elected a path that precludes their participation in championship play, “but this was an informed choice under a longstanding rule.”
UIC Athletics has issued a statement in response, saying they’re “outraged” by the decision and intend to “aggressively pursue all avenues to enable its student-athletes fully participate in their 2022 winter and spring seasons”.
#UIC Athletics Statement on @HorizonLeague Decision
to Expel Flames Student-Athletes from Conference Championships.➡️ https://t.co/NVjSSzFNVP#DontBlameTheFlame | #FireUpFlames pic.twitter.com/Y2Rhfl2Oaa
— UIC FL🔥MES ATHLETICS (@uicflames) February 9, 2022
The Horizon League said that UIC teams are still able to play any remaining regular season contests and remain eligible to earn at-large bids to NCAA team championships.
Earlier this week, a similar situation happened with Stony Brook, who was barred from competing at the America East Championships after opting to leave for the Colonial Athletic Association.
The school should pay a financial penalty for leaving without notice. Screwing the athletes over really seems unfair.
How about if we collectively be kind to these kids who got screwed over and over again the last couple of years? Forget the stupid bylaws for a bit since we have unprecedented problems.
Would be fantastic to have UIC and Stonybrook and other college teams wishing to have a champs meet attend the ISCA SENIOR CUP in St Petersburg, Florida. Great venue and competition.
https://swimisca.org/save-the-date/isca-international-senior-cup-march-april-2022/
The UIC student athletes not holding their own administration accountable for dropping the ball on this. If the administrators were part of implementing the bylaw they should have know this was going to happen?
It sucks that swimming lost this opportunity one week out but it sounds an awful lot like UIC trying to shift blame. If another school had left the conference I wonder if UIC doesn’t vote to enforce this on that team?
These Conferences can hide behind these rules all they want, but the bottom line is these rules were designed to protect Conference dollars, and not to protect the student athletes they are supposed to be serving over their own pocket books. These kids lost their season, and for the seniors, so much more. Shameful disgrace.
How do you think the conferences serve student-athletes? They’re sure as hell not turning any profits from their swimming.
Why don’t you go volunteer to run the school’s marketing department or be a volunteer fundraiser or make a big fat donation? Apparently you expect these folks to work for free to give your kid some magic college experience, or worse, you expect their non-athlete classmates to pay for their good times.
College swimming has jumped the shark. I love college swimming, but I think it’s clear from the attitudes of college swimmers that it’s time for the model to change.
Baller move would be for MVC to invite UIC to their new conference championship meet.
Apparently this was discussed, but it was decided that would make the situation for UIC much, much worse.
I think it is naïve to believe that the athletic administration didn’t understand the conference by-laws. They made the decision based on what they thought was best for men’s basketball. Giving the required notice to the Horizon League would mean having to wait a year to switch conferences. That would have meant a loss of revenue for the men’s basketball team since the MVC has a better television deal than the Horizon League. Or perhaps the MVC wasn’t willing to wait a year. Either way, UIC made the decision based on what was best for men’s basketball. They understood the risk to their non-revenue sports and made the decision anyway.
I see this situation as pretty different from the Stony Brook situation. In this one, the timeline is explicitly called out in the bylaws, while in the latter it was decided by the board after Stony Brook announced their move.
I’m no fan of the NCAA overall, including the conferences, but this one seems pretty cut and dried as to being UIC’s fault.
Every conference has the exact same rules. UIC, Stony Brook, and James Madison are all in the same boat. There are 32 division 1 conferences across the country and 19 of them are dealing with changes right now. Only these 3 mid major conferences have decided to be petty and ruin the opportunities for student-athletes. If the power 5 don’t see an issue with it, neither should these conferences.
Per SwimSwam’s reporting, there does appear to be a difference in the rules. Per the Stony Brook article, the rule says
“…Conference Constitution Article 3.4 (b), which states that upon notice of an institution’s intention to withdraw from America East, the institution’s teams become ineligible, on a date to be determined by the remaining members of the Board of Presidents, to compete for Conference championships.”
In this article, there is an explicit notice date given after which teams leaving the conference are ineligible to compete. The generality of the rule is likely similar between conferences, but at least based on SwimSwam’s reporting, there are specific differences between these two conferences.
There are a lot of bylaws that could apply, but this would probably be the easiest to apply:
6.5.1 General. In order for a member institution’s athletics teams and student-athletes
to be eligible for Horizon League Figure 5-1 competition (regular-season and League
championships), the member must maintain and actively enforce compliance with the
Constitution and Bylaws of the NCAA and Bylaws and Operating Regulations of the
Horizon League.
Once they were out of compliance with the Bylaws, they were no longer eligible for Horizon League competition, ber the Bylaws.