Southern Athletic Association brings a fresh start to Maryville College athletics
After being a founding member of the Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS), winning eight regular-season championships and six conference tournament titles, all Maryville College sports will officially join the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.
This marks four years as a member of the CCS, and time for Maryville College to step up the athletic competition in the SAA.
“The move overall will benefit the school,” Assistant Athletics Director for Communications Jake Woods said. “It will help us get a potential increase in enrollment, and we gain lots of national exposure.”
Athletic Director Andrew Wu agreed: “Simply put, the invitation [to join the SAA] was a fantastic opportunity at the right time.”
Maryville’s move to the SAA started with the closing of Birmingham-Southern College, leaving the conference short a member. According to Woods, MC was the top choice of the association, leading to a natural fit.
“We have traditional rivals in the conference that we’ll now be able to face every year,” Woods said. “It’s exciting for the alumni to be able to renew these rivalries.”
The reasons to move to the SAA include: increasing Maryville’s academic and athletic reputation, bettering the strength of schedules across all sports and improving conference stability, as three CCS teams left the conference with only one school to replace them.
“The SAA is one of the strongest athletic and academic conferences in the country, and I believe the strongest Division III conference in the South,” Wu said. “It’s also an opportunity for all of our sports teams to compete in one conference. Football and women’s golf were not sponsored by the CCS, so those sports continued to compete in the USA South [for the last four years.”
With the move to the SAA, Maryville College will face stronger opponents across all sports, some of whom are nationally ranked. Football had losses to Berry College and Trinity University, which ended their seasons ranked as the No. 8 and No. 11 in the NCAA. Other programs, such as men’s and women’s tennis, have multiple schools ranked in the top 50 in D-III athletics.
“The SAA is quality from top to bottom,” Woods said. “Each school has teams that will compete for championships, and the league takes everything they do very seriously.”
Being part of and competing in the SAA will boost elements that are imperative for a
A trophy case displays awards won by Maryville in the CCS for Baseball, Softball, and Women’s Soccer. Photo courtesy of Eli Cauthorn