Coe, Luther not interested in new conference

Well, at least right now.

Coe College President Dr. James Phifer confirmed Monday and Luther College President Rick Torgerson confirmed Tuesday that their schools do not plan at this time to take part in further discussions about the possible formation of an athletics conference that would include all or some of the 14 schools in an academic consortium called the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.

"We like the Iowa Conference, we're happy to be a part of the Iowa Conference," Phifer said. "We'll see what happens."

The presidents of the 14 schools in the ACM had a regularly scheduled six-month meeting in the Twin Cities last week, with part of the agenda being an ACM athletics conference. The subject has been broached before but has seemed to grow legs again recently.

Eight ACM schools (Cornell College, Grinnell, Wisconsin schools Beloit, Ripon and Lawrence, and Illinois schools Lake Forest, Knox and Monmouth) voted at the meeting to continue discussing a possible new conference. Six others (Coe, Luther, Colorado College and Minnesota schools St. Olaf, Carleton and Macalester) voted not to.

Luther was a charter member of the Iowa Conference in 1922 and is the newest member of the ACM (since July 1), replacing the University of Chicago. Coe and Cornell joined the IIAC from the Midwest Conference in 1998.

"Our travel costs and missed class time would have been increased significantly," Torgerson said. "So for that reason, we have decided not to continue discussing this further."

The seven ACM schools who voted with Cornell to continue new conference discussions are currently members of the Midwest Conference.

“Eighty percent of our students are from outside the state of Iowa,” Cornell President Les Garner said. “In fact, the states we draw the next highest number of students are Illinois and Wisconsin ... The attraction (of a new conference) for us is to be able to play where we recruit heavily. We also have high numbers of alumni in those states.”

Garner would not guess whether an ACM conference is inevitable and if his school will be a part of it. He said there still are too unresolved issues.

“I really wouldn't hazard a guess at this point,” Garner said.

Expediency would seem to be important, however.

“I do know it's in our best interest to resolve this as soon as possible,” Cornell Athletics Director John Cochrane said. “I don't like the speculation about our future.”