Editing Southern Conference (section)

==History==
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{| class="floatright" style="font-size: 95%; border: 1px solid #a2a9b1; color: black; padding: 0.2em; background-color: #f8f9fa;"
|+ style="font-size: 1.15em;" |Conference Commissioners
|-
|[[Wallace Wade]]
|1951–1960
|-
|Lloyd Jordon
|1960–1973
|-
|[[Ken Germann]]
|1974–1986
|-
|[[Dave Hart]]
|1986–1991
|-
|Wright Waters
|1991–1998
|-
|Alfred B. White
|1998–2001
|-
|Danny Morrison
|2001–2005
|-
|John Iamarino
|2006–2019
|-
|[[Jim Schaus]]
|2019–2023
|-
| Michael Cross
| 2023–present
|}

{{Further|1955 All-Southern Conference football team}}
Talks of a new conference for [[Southern United States|Southern]] athletics had started as early as fall of 1920.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3021318/the_charlotte_observer/|work=The Charlotte Observer|title=Southern Conference Talked By College Men|page=8|date=February 28, 1921|access-date=August 16, 2015|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref> The conference was formed on February 25, 1921, in [[Atlanta]] as fourteen member institutions split from the [[Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association]].<ref name="SoConH"/> Southern Conference charter members were [[University of Alabama|Alabama]], [[Auburn University|Auburn]], [[Clemson University|Clemson]], [[University of Georgia|Georgia]], [[Georgia Institute of Technology|Georgia Tech]], [[University of Kentucky|Kentucky]], [[University of Maryland, College Park|Maryland]], [[Mississippi State University|Mississippi State]], [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|North Carolina]], [[North Carolina State University|North Carolina State]], [[University of Tennessee|Tennessee]], [[University of Virginia|Virginia]], [[Virginia Tech]], and [[Washington and Lee University|Washington & Lee]]. In 1922, six more universities—[[University of Florida|Florida]], [[Louisiana State University|LSU]], [[University of Mississippi|Mississippi]], [[University of South Carolina|South Carolina]], [[Tulane University|Tulane]], and [[Vanderbilt University|Vanderbilt]] joined the conference. The first year of competition for the conference was in 1922, effective January 1.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3021327/the_charlotte_observer/|title=Southern Conference, With 15 Colleges as Members, Is Formed At Atlanta Meeting|page=24|date=February 27, 1921|work=The Charlotte Observer|access-date=August 16, 2015|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3023590/news_and_observer/|work=News and Observer|date=October 16, 1921|page=15|title=Too Many Practice Games And Too Few Real Battles|author=[[Fuzzy Woodruff]]|access-date=August 16, 2015|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref> The new rules banned freshman play.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3021335/the_atlanta_constitution/|page=2|work=The Atlanta Constitution|title=Drastic Rules Are Adopted By New Southern Conference To Keep College Sports Clean|access-date=August 16, 2015|date=February 27, 1921|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref> Later additions included [[Sewanee: The University of the South|Sewanee]] (1924), [[Virginia Military Institute]] (1924), and [[Duke University|Duke]] (1929).

The SoCon is particularly notable for having spawned two other major conferences. In 1932, the 13 schools located south and west of the Appalachians (Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, University of the South (Sewanee), Tennessee, Tulane, and Vanderbilt) all departed the SoCon to form the [[Southeastern Conference]] (SEC). In 1953, seven additional schools (Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest) withdrew from the SoCon to form the [[Atlantic Coast Conference]] (ACC).<ref name="SoConH"/> The ACC and SEC have gone on to surpass their parent conference in prestige; while the ACC and SEC are considered "power" conferences in Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A), the SoCon dropped to Division I-AA (FCS) in 1982, four years after the top division was split into two levels in 1978.

The SoCon became the first league to hold a post-season basketball tournament to decide a conference champion. Although first played in 1921, it did not become "official" until 1922, and in its first few years included teams which were not conference members.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://issuu.com/soconsports/docs/2014-15_mbk_media_guide/0 |title=2014-15 Southern Conference men's basketball media guide |date=Dec 17, 2014 |website=Issuu  |publisher=Southern Conference |access-date=August 16, 2015}}</ref> Held at the [[Municipal Auditorium (Atlanta)|Municipal Auditorium]] in Atlanta from February 24 to March 2, 1922, the first meeting was won by North Carolina who defeated non-member Mercer in the Finals 40–25.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.soconsports.com/fls/4000/socon/files/bktny/all_time_mbk_tny_results.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=4000 |title=Southern Conference Tournament Results |website=Southern Conference}}</ref> The SoCon Basketball Tournament continues as the nation's oldest conference tournament. The next-oldest tournament overall is the [[SEC men's basketball tournament]], founded in 1933, but that event was suspended after its 1952 edition and did not resume until 1979. With the demise of the [[NCAA Division II|Division II]] [[West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference]] in 2013, whose tournament had been continuously held since 1936, the next-oldest conference tournament in continuous existence is now the [[ACC men's basketball tournament]], first held in 1954.