HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – The Southern Conference wrapped up its 2024 spring meetings at the Sonesta Resort in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, last Thursday. The three-day meetings were attended by the institutional presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, senior woman administrators and faculty athletic representatives, as well as Southern Conference staff.
 
During the meetings, 18 conference bylaw changes were unanimously approved including clarifying and strengthening conference membership policies. Also, the league adopted a non-conference men’s basketball scheduling policy for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons.
 
Among the business conducted, NCAA representation spoke about the allocation of damages as part of the settlement of anti-trust lawsuits and a conference graduate scholarship was approved to be named in honor of recently retired Wofford athletic director Richard Johnson.
 
At the Honors Reception on Wednesday evening, the SoCon recognized the league’s annual award winners, 10 SoCon postgraduate scholarship winners and the 2024 SoCon Hall of Fame class.
 
Among the institutional awards, the Barrett-Bonner Award, given annually to the school with the highest percentage of its student-athletes on the SoCon Honor Roll, went to Mercer for the ninth consecutive year, as the Bears had 78.5 percent of their student-athletes earn the necessary 3.0 GPA for inclusion on the SoCon Academic Honor Roll. The D.S. McAlister Award, presented annually to the school judged by the league’s administrators and head coaches to have exhibited the highest degree of sportsmanship, went to The Citadel for the third straight season and sixth time overall. The Graduation Rate Award went to Samford, which paced the league in the latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate data with a score of 98. It was the Bulldogs’ fourth straight Graduation Rate Award win.
 
Following the institutional awards, five new members were inducted into the SoCon Hall of Fame. The five honorees were Davidson’s Terry Holland, Furman’s Dick Sheridan, UNCG’s Paul Chelimo and Ali Lord and Western Carolina’s Kevin Martin. Chelimo, Lord and Martin were in attendance, while Holland and Sheridan were inducted posthumously. Holland was represented by his wife, Ann, and Sheridan was represented by his eldest granddaughter, Isabella.
 
Samford was awarded the Commissioner’s Cup for fielding the best men’s programs in the league for the second straight season, while the Bulldogs’ women’s programs were recognized for winning the Germann Cup, which honors the school with the top women’s programs, for the fourth consecutive season and the sixth time overall.