The Dixie Conference was the name of two collegiate athletic leagues in the United States The first operated from 1930 until the United States' entry into World War II in 1942. The second conference to use the name existed from 1948 to 1954.

Dixie Conference (1930)

Formation and relationship with the SIAA

At the

Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was one of the first collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. Twenty-seven of the current Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) football programs were members of this conferen ...

(SIAA) annual convention in 1930, nine of the association's members announced the formation of the Dixie Conference to facilitate scheduling of games among the group.. The charter members were Birmingham-Southern College,

Howard College Howard College is a community college in the U.S. state of Texas with its main campus in Big Spring and branch campuses in San Angelo and Lamesa. History Howard County Junior College was established in Big Spring in 1945. 148 students be ...

(now Samford University), Southwestern of Memphis (now Rhodes College),

Centre College Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky. It is an undergraduate college with an enrollment of approximately 1,400 students. Centre was officially chartered by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1819. The college is ...

University of Chattanooga The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UT-Chattanooga, UTC, or Chattanooga) is a public university in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 1886 and is one of four universities and two other affiliated institutions in the ...

(now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga),

Spring Hill College Spring Hill College is a private, Jesuit college in Mobile, Alabama. It was founded in 1830 by Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile. Along with being the oldest college or university in the state of Alabama, it was the first Catholic college in ...

and

Mercer University Mercer University is a private research university with its main campus in Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1833 as Mercer Institute and gaining university status in 1837, it is the oldest private university in the state and enrolls more than 9,00 ...

;

Loyola University New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a private Jesuit university in New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , , However, at the SIAA convention the following year, Birmingham-Southern, Howard and Spring Hill resigned from the association. University officials at Chattanooga announced their resignation from the SIAA in 1932, explaining that they "saw no purpose in remaining in the unwieldy association after successful launching of the Dixie Conference two years ago". Two years prior to the SIAA, the Dixie Conference approved the use of scholarships in 1936.

Football champions

List of conference football champions by year:

Reduction then dissolution

After a university planning committee recommendation to either drop competitive football or to compete at the "big time" level, on June 3, 1939, Birmingham-Southern announced that it was ending its football program in favor of an enlarged intramural athletic program. Loyola followed suit the following December and also dropped football from the University's athletic program. The remaining slate of Dixie Conference membership lasted until the American entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, when several league schools suspended athletics.

Dixie Conference (1948)

Formation of ''purely amateur'' conference

In 1948, the administration of Florida State University, which had returned to coeducation in 1947 after more than 40 years as a women's college, wrote leaders at other southern institutions seeking to create a "purely amateur" athletic conference. The

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

had recently tightened its rules on the amount of money that could be paid to collegiate athletes, which caused difficulty for many established athletic programs. Florida State hoped to create a new conference based on the principle of complete amateurism, including no athletic scholarships. The original Dixie Conference lineup included, in addition to Florida State,

(now Samford University) from Alabama,

Stetson University Stetson University is a private university with four colleges and schools located across the I–4 corridor in Central Florida with the primary undergraduate campus in DeLand. The university was founded in 1883 and was later established in 1887 ...

and the

University of Tampa The University of Tampa (UT) is a private university in Tampa, Florida. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. UT offers more than 200 programs of study, including 22 master's degrees and a broad variety of majors, ...

from Florida, Lambuth College from Tennessee,

and

Oglethorpe University Oglethorpe University is a private college in Brookhaven, Georgia. It was chartered in 1835 and named in honor of General James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of the Colony of Georgia. History Oglethorpe University was chartered in 1834 in Mi ...

from Georgia, and

Millsaps College Millsaps College is a private liberal arts college in Jackson, Mississippi. It was founded in 1890 and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. History The college was founded in 1889–90 by a Confederate veteran, Major Reuben Webster ...

and

Mississippi College Mississippi College (MC) is a private Baptist university in Clinton, Mississippi. Founded in 1826, MC is the second-oldest Baptist-affiliated college or university in the United States and the oldest college or university in Mississippi. Histo ...

from Mississippi. Of the nine charter members, six (FSU, Howard, Millsaps, Mississippi, Stetson, and Tampa) played football.

Membership transitions

In 1949, Lambuth, Stetson and Tampa left the conference, while

Florida Southern College Florida Southern College (Florida Southern, Southern or FSC) is a private college in Lakeland, Florida. In 2019, the student population at FSC consisted of 3,073 students along with 130 full-time faculty members. The college offers 50 undergradu ...

joined. In December 1950, after winning the first three Dixie football titles without losing a single conference game, founding member Florida State withdrew to become an independent and began offering scholarships.

1951–1954

In the four years following the departure of Florida State, Millsaps won three conference football titles and Mississippi College won one. Citing "operation difficulties and limited competition between members", the league disbanded in December 1954 following the resignation of Howard, Millsaps and Mississippi College.

Football champions

List of conference football champions by year:

References

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