Gulf Coast Athletic Conference


The Gulf Coast Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference made up entirely of historically black colleges and universities and affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics's Division I. Member institutions are located in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

History

The GCAC was established in 1981, with the following charter institutions: Belhaven College, Dillard University, Louisiana College, Spring Hill College, Tougaloo College, William Carey University and Xavier University of Louisiana. The first sports were men and women's basketball and men's tennis, with other sports soon following.
The University of Mobile was admitted in October 1985, Southern University at New Orleans was granted admission in May 1986, Loyola University was admitted in April 1995, and Louisiana State University in Shreveport became a member in April 2000. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced Dillard and Xavier to cancel all athletic competition for 2005-06 and Loyola and Southern-New Orleans were able only to compete partially. All schools returned to competition in 2006-07, although in most cases with a reduced number of sports.
Louisiana College left the GCAC to join the American Southwest Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III in 2000. Belhaven also left in 2000, only to re-join in 2002; while Talladega College, which joined in 1999, left in 2002. In 2010, Belhaven, Loyola-New Orleans, Spring Hill, Mobile and William Carey left the GCAC to join the Southern States Athletic Conference. In 2010 LSU-Shreveport left the conference to join the Red River Athletic Conference. Edward Waters College and Fisk University joined to replace the departed schools in 2010. Philander Smith College also joined the GCAC in 2011. Talladega College re-joined the conference starting in the 2011-12 academic year. Talladega had been a member of the GCAC from 1999-2002.
On April 17, 2018, it was announced that Rust College will join the GCAC in the 2018-19 season.

Member schools

Current members

Former members

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1981 till:2025
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:5 left:5 bottom:50 top:5
Colors =
id:line value:black
id:Full value:rgb # all sports
id:FullxF value:rgb # non-football
id:AssocF value:rgb # football-only
PlotData =
width:15 textcolor:darkblue shift: anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:FullxF from:1981 till:2000 text:Belhaven
bar:1 color:FullxF from:2002 till:2010 text:
bar:2 color:FullxF from:1981 till:end text:Dillard
bar:3 color:FullxF from:1981 till:2000 text:Louisiana College
bar:4 color:FullxF from:1981 till:2010 text:Spring Hill College
bar:5 color:FullxF from:1981 till:end text:Tougaloo College
bar:6 color:FullxF from:1981 till:2010 text:William Carey
bar:7 color:FullxF from:1981 till:end text:Xavier
bar:8 color:FullxF from:1985 till:2010 text:Mobile
bar:9 color:FullxF from:1986 till:end text:Southern–New Orleans
bar:10 color:FullxF from:1995 till:2010 text:Loyola
bar:11 color:FullxF from:1999 till:2002 text:Talladega College
bar:11 color:FullxF from:2011 till:end text:
bar:12 color:FullxF from:2000 till:2010 text:Louisiana State–Shreveport
bar:13 color:FullxF from:2010 till:end text:Edward Waters College
bar:14 color:FullxF from:2010 till:2014 text:Fisk
bar:15 color:FullxF from:2011 till:end text:Philander Smith College
bar:16 color:FullxF from:2013 till:2015 text:Voorhees College
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1982
TextData =
fontsize:L
textcolor:black
pos: tabs:
text:^"Gulf Coast Athletic Conference membership history"
  1. > If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following three options Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space.
<#

Conference sports

SportMen'sWomen's
Basketball
Cross Country
Softball
Tennis
Track & Field Outdoor
Volleyball

Conference champions

Conference Baseball Champions