McMurry University will join the Lone Star Conference as an affiliate member for men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track & field, the league announced Monday.
The choice to invite McMurry was reached during this fall’s LSC Council of Presidents meeting and calls for the War Hawks to join the LSC immediately, with the indoor track & field season underway with competition beginning in earnest next month and outdoor events set to start in the spring.
The agreement, which will be reviewed annually, stipulates that McM’s track teams are eligible to compete for LSC individual and team championships, and earn weekly and postseason awards. They are also entitled to representation as a voting member of the track coaches’ Advisory Group.
“It’s great to welcome McMurry’s track and field teams into affiliate membership in the Lone Star Conference,” LSC commissioner Stan Wagnon said. “Coach Crousen established McMurry as a perennial powerhouse in the American Southwest Conference, winning a pair of Division III national titles on the men’s side, and we look forward to seeing the War Hawks compete alongside our outstanding LSC men’s and women’s track teams as they transition into NCAA Division II membership.”
With the addition of McM, the league has seven men’s and nine women’s teams competing in the league’s second season of indoor track & field. The LSC Championships meet is set for March 1-2 in Lubbock, Texas.
In outdoor track & field, the War Hawks become the league’s eighth men’s and ninth women’s team. This year’s outdoor championships will be held May 1-3 in Kingsville, Texas.
McM, located in Abilene, Texas, is currently is in year-two of its transition to NCAA Division II, and competed in the National Christian College Athletic Association last season. Previously, as a member of NCAA Division III, the War Hawks track and field team won NCAA men’s outdoor national championships in 2008 and 2012, as head coach Barbara Crousen became the first female in NCAA history – in any sport and at any level – to guide a men’s team to an NCAA championship.
Crousen’s teams have a total of nine top-4 national finishes in NCAA III. Additionally, the McM men won the American Southwest Conference title all 14 seasons it was a member from 1999-2012, while the women’s squad earned ASC championships 10 times. A total of 244 McM student-athletes have earned all-America accolades since Crousen re-started the school’s track program in 1999 and, most recently, shot putter Paul Davis – a senior in 2013-14 – placed fifth at the USA Track & Field Outdoor National Championships in 2012.
This is McM’s second time with the LSC, after holding full membership in the league for eight athletic seasons and competing in the 1965-72 conference track meets.