The Ohio Valley Conference
By Matt Shetler
The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC)
is an eleven member Division I athletic conference that competes
in seventeen men’s and women’s Division I sports. All of the
conferences teams are located in the Midwestern and
Southeastern, United States. The OVC headquarters are located in
Brentwood, Tennessee and the commissioner of the conference is
Jon A. Steinbrecher, a post he has held since 2003. The OVC
competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (formally
Division I-AA) for football, but all other sports are recognized
as Division I.
The OVC was founded in 1948, but the seeds for the league were
planted in 1941. Plans didn’t go on at first because of World
War II , but play started officially in 1948. The OVC began with
six charter members: Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, Western
Kentucky, Morehead State, Louisville and Evansville. The OVC is
currently the eighth oldest athletic conference in the nation.
In the 1950’s, the OVC became a pioneer on a social scale during
times of racial segregation. Morehead St. became the first
member of a non-traditional, black mid-southern University to
accept a black student-athlete. Marshall Banks earned an
athletic scholarship in 1958, becoming the first
African-American to do so in the region.
Western Kentucky, Louisville and Evansville have since left the
OVC, but have been replaced by: Austin Peay, Eastern Illinois,
Jacksonville St., Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois,
Tennessee St., Tennessee Tech and Tennessee-Martin.
Throughout the last six decades, fourteen different teams have
won the leagues football title, led by the Eastern Kentucky
Colonels, who have won nineteen(as of 2008). Many OVC teams had
success in the Division I-AA playoffs. In basketball, the OVC
Tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament. In 1971, Western Kentucky became the only OVC school
to reach the Final Four. Overall, eleven teams have won the OVC
basketball title, led by Murray St. with 20.
Since then, OVC teams have recorded some of the biggest upsets
in the history of the tournament. The most famous occurred in
1987 when the Austin Peay Governors (who only finished fourth
that year in the OVC regular season) defeated the heavily
favorite Illinois Fighting Illini 68-67. The game is also
remembered because of ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale who promised
to stand on his head if Illinois didn’t win the game (which he
did). The following year saw the Murray St. racers pull off a
dramatic upset of the North Carolina St. Wolfpack, who were
ranked fourteenth in the nation.
The OVC has a few other distinctions on the basketball court. In
1991, they became the only conference to produce the nation’s
leader in scoring (Morehead St‘s. Brett Roberts 28.1ppg),
leading rebounder (Murray St‘s. Popeye Jones 14.4rpg) and leader
in assists (Tennessee Tech’s Van Usher 8.8apg) in the same
season. Another OVC feat occurred during the 2007-08 season when
Tennessee-Martin’s Lester Hudson became the first player in
Division I history to record a quadruple-double in a game (25
pts. 12 reb. 10 ass and 10 steals).
The OVC has produced several Olympic athletes as well as some
great professional athletes. The list includes football great
Phil Simms (Morehead St.), basketball’s Clem Haskins (Western
Kentucky) and Bubba Wells (Austin Peay). The conference has also
produced present-day stars such as : football player Tony Romo
(Eastern Illinois), basketball player Trenton Hassell (Austin
Peay), baseball players Jamie Walker (Austin Peay) and George
Sherrill (Austin Peay) and professional golfer Jeff Sluman
(Tennessee Tech).
