Old Dominion Athletic Conference

The Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference. Of its 14 member schools, all but one are located in Virginia; the other full member is in North Carolina. The conference also has four associate members in Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Along with the American Southwest Conference (ASC) and Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC), it is the largest all-sports conference in Division III. The only larger D-III conference is the league for cross-country operated by the Middle Atlantic Conferences, with 17 members (for both men and women).

History

The conference was founded in 1975 as the Virginia College Conference. On January 1, 1976, the name was changed to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The 1976–77 season was the first in which championships were offered. In 1982–83, women's sports were added. In 1981, Catholic University joined the conference after leaving Division I's Colonial Athletic Association. In 1988, Virginia Wesleyan was added as a member, and, in 1990, Guilford became the first member located outside D.C. and Virginia. Maryville College was an all-sports member in the 1980s. In 1989 Catholic left the conference to became a charter member of the Capital Athletic Conference, returning in 1999 as a football-only member. The next school to leave the conference was Mary Baldwin College, which left in 1999 to join the Atlantic Women's Colleges Conference.