In 1984, the first and only ACC championships were held for gymnastics. The Wolfpack scored a 175.250 beating out Carolina, Maryland, and Duke for the crown. After that season Duke dropped their gymnastics program which left the conference with only three schools that supported the sport. With only three teams in the conference, the ACC did not recognize a conference championship.
“We didn’t have enough teams in the ACC,” coach Mark Stevenson said. “In ’83-’84 we beat Duke for the one and only ACC championship and two weeks or three weeks after we beat them, they dropped the program, which is pretty pathetic on Duke’s part.”
The Wolfpack and the rest of the ACC schools that sponsored a gymnastics team were left without a conference that would recognize them. Similar things happened in the Big East which had only three schools that sponsored programs as well as in the American East which was left with two schools.
According to Stevenson, West Virginia gymnastics coach Linda Burdette and himself first came up with the idea of combining the conferences into a league that could have a championship.
“From ’85 until we formed EAGL in ’96 we had no conference affiliation as far as a championship goes,” Stevenson said. “Linda Burdette and I sort of got it all started. Everybody [came] in [and] we hammered out, in two days, all of the articles for the league, came back to our athletic directors, got confirmation they would recognize us as a league so we could have a championship.”
After the local planning was complete, the coaches pleaded their case to a higher authority.
“We then sent all that into the NCAA so we could be listed as a competitive league by NCAA [standards],” Stevenson said. “That all went through, so we formed the EAGL championship.”
According to UNC-CH gymnastics coach Derek Galvin, the teams from the ACC would rather have an ACC championship, but are willing to work with what they have.
“We would love to have an ACC championship, and I know Mark feels the same way and I know Bob Nelligan of Maryland feels the same way,” Galvin said. “We would all love to have an ACC championship, but there aren’t enough teams in the ACC that sponsor gymnastics, so this is the next best thing for us.”
Galvin also noted that the EAGL championship sets the programs up for success in the postseason.
“It gives us an opportunity to get hot at the end of the season, to have a completion similar to NCAA format,” Galvin said. “It is another way to prepare our teams for the postseason tournament, and it is good for bragging rights.”
EAGL helps the teams that are members compete with the teams of other major conferences in terms of recruits as well. According to Maryland coach Bob Nelligan, the major gymnastics conferences are easily accessible to the public, and in order to compete you have to offer the student athletes what they want in a program.
“It definitely helps you with recruiting because if you look at the big conferences around the country – the SEC, PAC 10, Big 10 – Big 10 has a great TV show, you can watch them every night, SEC has their own TV network, so what we needed to do was to find a unique way of staying in that game,” Nelligan said.
Nelligan also noted that the level of competition and opportunities for improvement play a major role in an athlete’s college decision.
“Athletes are going to come to schools where they think they are going to get big scores,” Nelligan said. “They know they are going to travel, they know there is going to be good competition, and they know they have a conference championship.”
