HBCU athletic departments are switching up their conferences. Just last week, Hampton University announced that its athletics department would join the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) this summer. Now, the athletics department at Wiley College in Texas has announced that it will be joining the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference in the upcoming school year. Get the full story from staff at The Marshall News Messenger below.
The Wiley College Department of Athletics will compete in an athletic conference with all members Historically Black Colleges and Universities as it heads to the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference beginning with the 2022-23 season.
The Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Board of Presidents voted to accept Wiley College as a member. It will join current schools Dillard University in New Orleans, Mississippi schools Tougaloo College and Rust College, Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Oakwood University in Alabama and Southern University New Orleans were also accepted pending approval of their NAIA membership.
Wiley College will be the first school from Texas to compete in the conference. The Wildcats are very familiar with most of their future conference opponents as it has frequently played against them in nonconference, especially in men’s and women’s basketball.
The 2021-22 season will wrap up the Wildcats’ time in the Red River Athletic Conference. They have been a member since the conference was founded in 1998.
Over the past 22 years, Wiley College won regular season RRAC titles in men’s track and field (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), women’s track and field (2015, 2016, 2017), volleyball (2008, 2018), women’s basketball (2012-13, 2013-14), men’s cross country (2014) and women’s cross country (2014). It won tournament titles in men’s basketball (2007, 2014), volleyball (2008, 2018), women’s basketball (2013) and men’s soccer (2015).
Over 400 athletes earned All-Red River Athletic Conference.
Before competing in the RRAC, Wiley College was a member of the Big State Athletic Conference, the Interregional Athletic Conference and started in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
