Higher Ed Utah

(KSL, Cedar City) – Southern Utah President Michael T. Benson announced Monday that Southern Utah will join the Big Sky Conference, leaving the Great West Conference and Summit League. The announcement ends months of speculation on whether or not the Thunderbirds would join the Big Sky.

“This is huge news for the university,” Benson said in front of a crowd of over 700 students, athletes, coaches and community members huddled inside the Sharwan Smith Center’s Rotunda. “I want to thank first and foremost our student athletes. If they did not perform past their academic and physical competition, we would not be here today.”

SUU Athletic Director Ken Beazer said he is working to get all of SUU’s athletic teams into the Big Sky by 2012.

“We will move as soon as the schedules can fit,” he said. “We’ll work with the Big Sky for things to work for all sports — obviously there’s a lot of things we have to move around.” Beazer said SUU knew it would get an invitation from the Big Sky 10 days ago and said the two will work out details in the upcoming weeks to make the transition by 2012.

The news affects all of the T-Bird programs except baseball, gymnastics, softball, or men’s golf.

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