(Story taken from the Oglethorpe University
website)
ATLANTA, Ga. - The Oglethorpe athletics department
announced on Friday morning that it will be making the switch from
NCAA Division III to NCAA Division I competition beginning in the
fall of 2012. The switch, orchestrated by Stormy Petrel athletic
director Jay Gardiner, will include adding football to Oglethorpe's
growing list of sponsored sports.
"I'm thrilled to make this huge announcement," said Gardiner in a statement issued to the Associated Press. "We've been fooling around in Division III long enough, and it's time to win some D-I titles for the university."
Oglethorpe has accepted an invitation to become the 12th member of the Atlantic Sun Conference and will compete against the likes of Mercer, Kennesaw State and Lipscomb for conference supremacy.
Football will become the school's 17th varsity sport on the heels of adding men's lacrosse in 2010 and women's lacrosse in 2012. To accommodate Title IX requirements, the athletics department will be adding the sport of women's bowling with plans to convert the Emerson Student Center into a state-of-the-art bowling facility.
"We haven't beaten Georgia Tech in football since 1926, and I felt like letting the Jackets off the hook for over 85 years was long enough," said Gardiner, explaining the sudden switch to full scholarships and top-flight competition. He concluded with, "it's been my lifelong dream to become an athletic director of a D-I university and, quite frankly, this was the only way to make that dream happen. Go Petrels!"
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