Established 2002 Association NAIA | Dissolved 2011 Division Division II | |
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Sports fielded 10 (men's: 5; women's: 5) Region Region X of the NAIA
Northeastern United States | ||
The Sunrise Athletic Conference was a college athletic conference founded in 2002 and affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Its member institutions were in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont.
History
The SAC was founded when both the Maine Athletic Conference and the Mayflower Conference disbanded in the spring of 2002. Both of these conferences were NAIA conferences of long standing. The conference formed with eight inaugural members: the College of St. Joseph, Fisher College, Lyndon State College, University of Maine at Fort Kent, University of Maine at Machias, University of Maine at Presque Isle, Paul Smith's College, Vermont Technical College. Royal Goheen became the commissioner of the Sunrise Conference and continued to serve as the only commissioner in the history of the SAC until it disbanded. In 1997, Goheen took on the role as the commissioner of the Maine Athletic Conference before its disbandment. In 2010 he was elected to the NAIA Hall of Fame.
In 2004, the Sunrise Conference added State University of New York at Canton after the university joined the NAIA as part of a transition from two-year to four-year institution. The conference held steady with nine members until Paul Smith's College and Lyndon State College left in 2010, dropping SAC membership to seven.
The conference disbanded in 2011 when the College of St. Joseph, Vermont Technical College and University of Maine at Machias left the conference and NAIA for the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) and the Yankee Small College Conference. The University of Maine at Fort Kent, University of Maine at Presque Isle, and SUNY-Canton then left with no regional NAIA competition to become independents in the USCAA. In addition, UM-Presque Isle is transitioning to an independent member of NCAA Division III, while SUNY Canton was accepted into the transition process to move from NAIA to NCAA DIII. Fisher College joined the American Mideast Conference.