East Tennessee State Goes Back To The Future With SoCon

East Tennessee State is returning to the Southern Conference. So is Virginia Military Institute, along with newcomer Mercer University.

The SoCon announced that those schools had accepted invitations, and the league hopes this will secure the league’s future.

With the annual game of “musical chairs” by numerous schools and leagues, the Southern Conference has been one of the most plundered. Five of its 12 members have chosen to leave since last November.

East Tennessee was part of the Southern Conference from 1978 until it left for the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2005. VMI was a Southern Conference member for 79 years, leaving in 2003 for the Big South Conference.

Mercer was one of the A-Sun’s founding members. That league launched in 1978.

All three will play out conference commitments through the 2013-14 academic year, and will join the Southern Conference for the 2014 season. The addition of these three schools will bring the league total to 10.

“The addition of these three institutions will solidify the Southern Conference,” Commissioner John Iamarino said in a printed statement, “and ensure our position as a vibrant league with a bright future.

“Our membership is excited about rekindling old rivalries and establishing new ones.”

The College of Charleston announced it was leaving the SoCon last November. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, the top football powers in the league, announced their decisions to leave this spring.

Both will move on to the Sun Belt Conference. Davidson is leaving to join the Atlantic 10 and Elon became the latest to jump conference, announcing a move to the Colonial Athletic Association.

ETSU sponsors 17 varsity sports and will restart the football program, which was dropped in 2003. As a member of the Atlantic Sun, East Tennessee has won the men’s all-sports race each year from 2005-2012, the women’s all-sports trophy in 2006-07 and the combined all-sports race each year since 2006.

The Southern Conference, established in 1921, is the fourth oldest major college athletic conference in the United States. Only the Big Ten (1896), Missouri Valley (1907) and Southwestern Athletic (1920) conferences are older.

There were 14 charter members of the Southern Conference. Those were Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Washington & Lee.

Thirteen of those originals left to form the Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference. W&L is a Division III member of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

A year after the SoCon was formed, six more schools, Florida, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tulane and Vanderbilt joined the league.

VMI, which is returning, first joined in 1924. The next longest in the SoCon are The Citadel and Furman, both of which joined in 1936.