TRAFFORD, Pa. (pacathletics.org) - The Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) has accepted Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio as an affiliate member in the sport of men's volleyball, beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.
The vote to accept Hiram took place at the PAC Presidents' Council meeting in April, 2023.
“On behalf of the PAC Presidents’ Council, I am very pleased to officially welcome Hiram College as an affiliate member in the sport of men’s volleyball,” said Saint Vincent College President Father Paul Taylor, O.S.B., who is serving as chair of the PAC Presidents’ Council during the 2022-2023 academic year. “Hiram College’s dedication to academic excellence and student success makes it a very good fit as a PAC affiliate member.”
Hiram's affiliate membership in the PAC will begin on July 1, 2024, with their initial season of men's volleyball competition in the conference to be in the spring of 2025. The 2025 spring will also be the first season for men's volleyball as a varsity sport under the PAC banner. The conference announced in December, 2022, that it would be adding men's volleyball as its 24th league-sponsored sport after unanimous approval from the Presidents' Council at its meeting that month.
A previous member of the PAC from 1971-89 before moving to the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC), Hiram joined the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) in the fall of 2000 and will continue to compete as a full member of the NCAC. The NCAC does not sponsor men's volleyball, so the Terriers have competed as affiliate members of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) in men's volleyball since 2019.
“The PAC is thrilled to welcome Hiram College back as an affiliate member in men’s volleyball,” said PAC Commissioner Joe Onderko. “Hiram is an outstanding academic institution, and the Terrier athletic program has a tremendous history of success. With their past history as a conference member, it was a natural fit to welcome them as our first-ever men's volleyball affiliate member.”
"We are excited and looking forward to our men's volleyball team partnering with the Presidents' Athletic Conference," said Hiram Director of Athletics Scott Pohlman. "We have a fairly long history of great competition with the men's volleyball teams in the PAC. By partnering with the PAC, our men's volleyball team will have less travel and reduce missed class time. I believe this is a good fit for both Hiram and the PAC."
Three current PAC schools field men's volleyball programs in Geneva College, Saint Vincent College and Thiel College and they, along with Hiram, will transition to the PAC when league play begins in 2024-25.
Those four schools will be joined by current PAC members Bethany College and Chatham University, who will begin men's volleyball programs in 2023-24, and Grove City College will start men's volleyball varsity competition in 24-25.
Now with seven teams committed, the PAC meets the minimum six-team requirement for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which concludes in late April following the Division III regular season that runs through early April.
In 2023, there were 11 conferences in Division III which received automatic bids to the 16-team NCAA Tournament. When the PAC begins play in the spring of 2025, a full round-robin schedule will be played before competing in the conference tournament to determine the winner of the PAC's automatic bid.
About Hiram
Hiram College is located in Hiram, Ohio and is a full member of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). Hiram sponsors 23 varsity sports, including 12 men's teams and 11 women's teams. Hiram is a nationally respected liberal arts school. Its ability to offer a distinctive learning environment, focusing on close student-faculty interactions, international study opportunities and experiential learning, provides the landscape for distraction-free learning.
About the PAC
The Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC), built on the basic belief that an athletic program is an integral part of college life but not an entity in itself, looks back on over sixty years of growth and ahead to years of continued academic and athletic excellence. The league’s name clearly reflects its founding principle that operational control of all aspects of intercollegiate athletics is ultimately the responsibility of the presidents of each member institution, and thus active presidential leadership and oversight is paramount in conference administration.
Currently comprised of 11 select, private institutions -- Allegheny College, Bethany College, Chatham University, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Geneva College, Grove City College, Saint Vincent College, Thiel College, Washington & Jefferson College, Waynesburg University and Westminster College, as well as Carnegie Mellon University and Case Western Reserve University as affiliate members in the sport of football -- the PAC remains a unique organization in this day of high-pressure intercollegiate athletics, with academics at the center of each member’s philosophy.