(Story taken from the Gwinnett Daily Post)
By Will
Hammock
Sports Editor
SUWANEE, Ga. - Just 100 yards or so off
Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road is the turn into the nondescript office
park.
Like many similar complexes in Gwinnett County, it has the standard
doctor's offices and insurance agents. But it also has a rather
unique tenant, an NCAA Division III conference.
The Suwanee park is home to the Southern Collegiate Athletic
Conference, identified only by a small sign on the door. One step
inside, the quaint space fits the look of a conference office
better with jerseys on the wall and memorabilia on shelves.
"I would say most people don't even know there's an NCAA conference
in Gwinnett County," SCAC commissioner Dwayne Hanberry said.
"That's not such a bad thing. We get a lot of solicitors coming in.
When people stick their heads in, especially if it's a guy, they
always stop and look and ask 'What do you guys do?' because of all
the jerseys they see on the wall. Not many people know we exist in
the county because we're kind of tucked away and hidden, but that's
fine."
The SCAC found its way to the Atlanta area in 1991 when it became
the College Athletic Conference (which was founded in 1962).
Originally near Northlake Mall, it moved to the Gwinnett Place area
in 1996 before settling in Suwanee in 2000.
Originally a two-person operation, the SCAC now features three
full-time employees, a large staff for the typical D-III conference
office. Hanberry, 43, is joined by Jeff DeBaldo, director of sports
information, and Russell Kramer, director of communications and new
media.
Together they handle scheduling, championship administration, rules
and regulations, statistics and record book maintenance, the Web
site and media relations for the SCAC's 20 sports. It's like the
Southeastern Conference - on a much smaller scale.
Hanberry, a former college basketball player at Oglethorpe, an SCAC
school, has been with the conference since 1995. He became interim
commissioner in January 2008, assuming that role permanently in
July of that year. He is the league's second full-time commissioner
- Steve Argo was the first.
Hanberry and his wife Charis, who works for Turner Broadcasting,
and their children - sons David, 14, a rising freshman at Collins
Hill, and Daniel, 10, a rising fifth-grader at Walnut Grove
Elementary - have settled down in Gwinnett, an odd location for a
league that has just one Georgia school.
The remainder of the SCAC teams are scattered as far west as Texas
and Colorado, and as far north as Indiana. But the hub is
Suwanee.
"One of our ADs calls us the three-time zone league," Hanberry
said. "There are 12 schools in nine states and three time zones. We
are either the most or second-most geographically diverse Division
III conference in the nation."
The SCAC is rare in the South, which isn't loaded with D-III
schools. Other areas, the Northeast in particular, boast numerous
colleges at that level. There are a total of 449 D-III schools
nationwide, making it the largest of the NCAA's three sanctioned
divisions.
Only four Georgia colleges play D-III athletics - Oglethorpe,
Emory, Piedmont and LaGrange. D-III students don't get athletic
scholarship money, but most receive academic and other financial
aid while attending upper-echelon academic schools.
SCAC schools don't charge admission to games and there is obviously
no TV revenue to share. However, the league does feature some
noteworthy academic colleges, like esteemed Tennessee schools
Rhodes and University of the South. And all of its members devote
substantial money to athletics.
"Division III to me is kind of the last bastion of true college
amateur athletics," Hanberry said. "The kids are there because they
are good students, they want to get a diploma from a very good
school and plus they want to play athletics. It allows them to do
both. They walk away with a great degree to get them in the door to
a nice job and they got to do that along with competing in a sport
that they love for four years."
Hanberry said the athletic and academic combination at D-III
schools, like the ones that make up the SCAC, are nice fits for
Gwinnett athletes.
Even if most players and coaches around here don't know they have a
D-III office in their backyard.
"I've always thought the schools in Gwinnett County would be a
great fit for Division III," Hanberry said. "I don't know if a lot
of kids know that Division III can be a great destination for them.
... There are strong academics in Gwinnett County and obviously
Division III hangs its hat on being a great academic league."
To view the article on the Gwinnett Daily Post website, click here.