By Dave Schmidt - THE SENIOR REPORTS - www.theseniorreports.com

3- Always tell your conference commissioner and fellow conference members first that you are looking to change conferences or national affiliations.

5- Always tell your conference commissioner and fellow conference members first that you are looking to change conferences or national affiliations.

(August 8, 2010) - You can see by the Top 5 items I think it is important to tell your conference before you decide to make a move to another conference. I am still surprised at how many times schools decide to make a conference or national affiliation change and than don’t inform the commissioner or fellow conference members until after it is decided.

Just this past week the NAIA Dakota Athletic Conference (DAC) made an announcement that they would move forward in 2011-2012 as a 5 school conference. The statement was made and this was to force out two current members who had just been accepted into the D2 membership process. The two schools being asked to leave a little early were pretty surprised by this announcement. The DAC also said they were going to ask for a waiver from the NAIA to allow their champions to automatically qualify for national championships. The conference also sent out a proclamation (via AP) that they were firmly committed to each other and the NAIA.

Move forward three days, one of the five DAC members decides and announces (via AP) they will go forward after this year as an independent. To say the least all of the remaining four DAC members and commissioner were shocked. This all happened after a conference meeting three days earlier and according to all sources they had no idea that this school was going to leave…none at all. The entire situation has turned out to be very embarrassing for all those schools and also causes everyone to make some “emergency” plans for the future. This could not have been a fun week for the DAC.

This issue also happened recently in the NCAA D2 Gulf South Conference when six schools from Arkansas announced that they would be leaving to form a new conference. The new conference would help cut down on travel concerns. That is a good enough reason, but the six Arkansas schools were meeting amongst themselves and notified the commissioner just before they made the announcement to leave. The commissioner had no idea the Arkansas schools were considering this move. This all happened as the conference had been meeting as a group to make plans for the future. This change now leaves members of the conference who are left with issues about scheduling and having enough members to qualify for national bids.

These are just two examples, there are many more out there, including high school conferences. I wish I knew why this happened, keeping it quiet seems to be the rule. “We don’t want anyone to know.” But I think it is a must that any school who plans on making a move to another conference should inform those it will impact. Reading or hearing about this through the media is something that is no fun for those schools being left behind.

Why should you inform your commissioner or conference members? This is a pretty easy one…these are the schools who have worked with you in part to make your school athletic program successful. These are people who deserve to know why, almost like family. I can assure you that any school that has been on the other end of schools leaving suddenly will probably agree with me that they would like a heads-up so they could have been better prepared for the future.

Nothing positive comes from making a move and not telling the folks in your conference. You can count on hard feelings for the future, plus this could comeback and haunt your school in the future with the members you leave behind. I would hope that school’s administration would see that handling it this way is far better then “sneaking” around behind conference members backs.

That is why I always tell schools or conferences to make it a practice to know what conference members plans are for the future. Be a good member to your old conference even as you are making the change.