Why is the SCAC conference office remaining in Atlanta?

Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Commissioner Dwayne Hanberry is often asked, “Why does the conference commissioner live in Atlanta?”

This is a reasonable question, given that eight of the SCAC’s 11 full-time members entering the 2024-2025 school year are located in Texas, with the remaining schools located in Colorado, Louisiana and one football-affiliated member in Arkansas.

To answer the question above, we examined The history of SCAC. The conference was founded in September 1962 as the Collegiate Athletic Conference (CAC) with four charter members: Sewanee and Rhodes College in Tennessee, Washington and Lee in Virginia, and Center College in Kentucky.

The CAC underwent numerous membership changes during its first 29 years, including the addition Trinity and Millsaps College in Mississippi in 1988. Hendrix College in Arkansas and Oglethorpe University in Atlanta joined in 1991, a historic year for the conference.

In addition to expanding its membership to eight institutions, the CAC began sponsoring women’s sports. University presidents sought to rename the ACC conference to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and hired its first full-time commissioner, Stephen Argo. By this time a permanent conference office was established in Atlanta.

“The presidents at the time thought it made more sense for the conference office to be in Atlanta with easy access to airports, given that we were already a flying league,” Hanberry said. “They thought it would be easier for Stephen to travel to conference schools from Atlanta.”

SCAC flourished over the next 20 years, expanding to 12 institutions by 2011, including South Westwho joined in 1993, Austin College (2006) and the University of Dallas (2011). Argo submitted his resignation in January 2008, and Hanberry was named acting commissioner. Hanberry officially became SCAC’s second full-time commissioner in June 2008.

However, the future of the conference became uncertain when seven members, including founding members Center, Sewanee and Rhodes, announced that they were leaving to form the Southern Athletic Association following the meeting of SCAC presidents in June 2011.

With the future of the conference unknown, Hanberry began to fear that university presidents would remove him as commissioner.

“As I began to understand that the restructuring was about to take place, I became concerned because it is easy for people to blame the commissioner. After all, I was in charge when everything went wrong,” Hanberry said. “I began exploring other opportunities with other conferences and was in the running for a commissioner position in the Midwest.”

But Hanberry did not take full responsibility for SCAC’s problems. Instead, the seven schools leaving to form SAA wanted Hanberry to become their commissioner. The remaining five institutions also expressed a desire for Hanberry to remain commissioner, which left him with a choice.

“By the time I began any sort of search process for a new league, I had a pretty good idea that I would have the opportunity to stay with the SCAC or follow the group that was breaking up,” Hanberry said . “Deep in my heart, I wanted to stay at SCAC, although in retrospect it might have been more of a crapshoot not to take the safest thing. But I joined SCAC in 1995 and felt like I belonged there.

Although Hanberry wanted to remain with the SCAC, he understood that it might not be practical for the conference office to remain in Atlanta with four full-time members in Texas and one in Colorado. But Hanberry was reluctant to move his family from Atlanta with his wife now working for Warner Bros. Discovery, one child in high school and another in college.

“My wife, to this day, has the best job, and it made no sense to me to take her away from that job,” Hanberry said. “I told the presidents I wanted to be their man and help organize this conference because I believed in what we were doing. My only request was to keep the conference office in Atlanta. The presidents were very kind and considerate.

University presidents quickly decided to authorize the conference office in Atlanta and keep Hanberry as commissioner. He immediately stabilized the conference by adding Centenary College in Louisiana in September 2011. Schreiner and Texas Lutheran announced they were joining the SCAC in 2012, which allowed the conference to remain an active NCAA Division III conference and maintain its automatic playoff bid.

Since those fateful days in 2011, the conference has seen several membership changesand many presidents have taken command.

“It’s funny because every time a new president comes in, one of the first questions asked is, ‘Why does our conference commissioner live in Atlanta?’ and I tell that same story again,” Hanberry said.

Hanberry signed a five-year contract extension in June 2023. This time, the university presidents put a line in his contract stating that the conference office would remain in Atlanta for as long as Hanberry remained the commissioner.

While it may seem odd to have a conference office in the Eastern time zone with its members in the Central and Mountain time zones, Hanberry remains one flight away.

“The university presidents have been very kind to me. Hopefully they don’t feel like they’re losing services because of us being here,” Hanberry said. “We never miss a championship and I go to their campuses from time to time.”

The next time someone asks Hanberry why the SCAC office is in Atlanta, he can point them to his contract and this story.