A new conference for Cornell, Coe and Luther?

OK, that's jumping the gun. Maybe by a lot.

But there is a president's meeting next week of the 14 schools that comprise the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and on the agenda is the possible creation of a new NCAA Division III athletics conference. The 14 schools in the ACM include Iowa Conference members Cornell, Coe and Luther, as well as Grinnell.

Others are Beloit, Carleton, Colorado College, Knox, Lake Forest, Lawrence, Macalester, Monmouth (Ill.), Ripon and St. Olaf.

To explain further, the ACM, according to its Web site, is a "consortium of academically excellent, independent liberal arts colleges located in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Colorado." There has been previous discussion about some or all of the ACM schools breaking off and forming their own athletics conference, and apparently there will be more next week.

"There's not a lot to say about this ACM conference issue," Cornell President Leslie Garner said in a voice-mail message to The Gazette. "The ACM is an academic consortium, and periodically the issue of whether we should consider an athletic conference comes up. It's been on the table for some time.

"The question is are we going to take it off the table and consider it more seriously? I won't know much more about that until after that meeting next week."

Luther has been a longstanding member of the nine-school Iowa Conference, while Coe and Cornell joined in 1998. While Coe has enjoyed widespread IIAC success, Cornell has not.

"We knew that there were some serious discussions going on last summer and over the early fall," IIAC Commissioner Chuck Yrigoyen said of the ACM. "But we have been under the impression those talks were dead.

"We'd hate to see them go. Unfortunately schools make those decisions, and that's the way it is."

Stay tuned for more.