Stony Brook will not be allowed to compete at America East Championships, a consequence of accepting an invitation to join the Colonial Athletic Association, prompting negative responses from Stony Brook’s student athletes and leaders.
The conference announced that Stony Brook could not compete on February 2. Stony Brook announced it would join the CAA on January 25.
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“At the request of Stony Brook, the Board of Presidents reconsidered this matter late last week but unanimously reaffirmed their decision to uphold 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,” the conference said in the announcement.
The America East Conference emphasized that the article was enacted in 2005, during which Stony Brook was a part of the conference and supported the decision. The only other time a school departed for another D1 conference was Boston University in 2012-13, and the conference stated that the article was enforced then, too.
Stony Brook’s current president and athletic director were not at the university in 2005.
After the conference’s announcement, athletic director Shawn Heilbron released a statement saying the school was “disappointed” by the result.
“As a result, Stony Brook plans to review all options, legal and otherwise, to address this decision,” Heilbron said.
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Student athletes have also been posting their statements with the tag #istandwithstonybrook.
With the move to the CAA, all of Stony Brook’s athletic teams will compete within the same conference.
“The decision to move to the CAA is synchronous with the aspirational nature of our university as well as our department’s vision to positively transform the life of each student-athlete,” said Heilbron during the announcement of the conference change. “We took an extremely deliberate approach to this process and believe that the outcome encapsulates the best interests of our entire Stony Brook community.”
Stony Brook will join the CAA along with Monmouth and Hampton.
The CAA has also barred James Madison, which is leaving the conference, from its conference championship season.
It’s happening to The University of Illinois – Chicago to for leaving the Horizon League
This just happened to University of Illinois at Chicago. Really unfortunate to the athletes, one week before swim conference!
Probably could have been handled differently by the conference, yes. BUT, the school has some fault here, folks. To me, feels like another instance of swimming being overlooked when larger athletic department decisions are made. The rule is the rule…and the current administration should have done much more due diligence to ensure student-athletes from ANY sport were not impacted negatively.
Sounds like the board is a bunch of petulant children.
“…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.”
So, they *could* swim at champs, the board is just being petulant and picked an ineligibility date before champs.
I continue to be very negative about the NCAA and its components.
The NCAA just transferred more power to conferences, so I assume more stuff like this will happen. I’m not a fan of the NCAA’s governance and don’t hesitate to call it out, but this is all on the conference.
Agreed, but the conferences are a component of the NCAA, so my negative views include the conferences.
These Seniors have two more years of eligibility!!!
They may have 2 more years of eligibility, but maybe they don’t want to stay at SB 2 more years and delay their plans for after graduation. Maybe they’re going to Grad School or have jobs – not everyone takes more than 4 years to complete an Undergrad degree, even if you’re a competitive swimmer.
Stony Brook senior here, yeah we might have the eligibility but a majority of us have jobs or grad school lined up. This is it for most of us.
“determined by the remaining members of the Board of Presidents”
How does preventing these student-athletes from competing serve the mission of the remaining institutions?
The can go to the ecac meet? They should have waited couple weeks to announce the switch.
That was my first thought as soon as I saw the title. Hopefully they can make it down to Navy for the meet an have some good competition! 🤞🏼
The CAA actually bared JMU form the post season this year for the exact same reason…I get its the rules but its stupid
For some background – It’s a little messier than “The CAA barred JMU”. The CAA didn’t bar JMU from competing in individual sports. They did bar JMU from being able to score points at the championships in individual sports. It gets messier in terms of the execution of that decision but JMU had already decided to go to ECAC’s if they couldn’t score points at the conference championship and so the execution of how JMU would compete but not score becomes a moot point.
Before I get reactions to this comment – My personal opinion is that JMU Swimming and Diving should be allowed to compete AND score at the conference championship.