Yankee Conference
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The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. It once sponsored competition in many sports, but eventually became a football-only league. Although not under the same charter, it is essentially the ancestor of today's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) football conference.
The Yankee Conference was formed in 1938 as the New England Conference and became the Yankee Conference in 1947. It dropped support of all sports except football in 1975. Over the years, many schools outside its original New England base joined the league.
It existed until 1997, when NCAA legislation limiting the influence of single-sport conferences over policy became effective, and then merged with the Atlantic 10 Conference (A10).
Institutions which were members of the conference at the time of its merger with the A10 were:
- University of Connecticut†
- University of Delaware
- James Madison University
- University of Maine†
- University of Massachusetts†
- University of New Hampshire†
- Northeastern University
- University of Rhode Island†
- University of Richmond
- Villanova University
- The College of William & Mary
and former member
- University of Vermont† (left after the 1974 football season)
† Denotes a charter member of the conference which joined at its formation in 1938 and remained until its 1997 demise.
Of the 12 final members of the Yankee Conference, two no longer play football in Division I FCS (Football Championship Subdivision), known as Division I-AA before 2006 and still widely referred to by that designation:
- Boston University dropped football after the 1997 season.
- UConn, which was a member of the Big East Conference for other sports, moved to Division I-A, now Division I FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), after the 1999 season. The Huskies started their transition to I-A in 2000 and became a full I-A member in 2002. In 2004, UConn became a football member of the Big East, and earned its first-ever bowl bid.
The remaining schools played in the A10 football conference until the 2006 season, after which all of that conference's members joined the new CAA football conference.
