The USA South Athletic Conference (formerly the Dixie Intercollegiate Athletic Conference or the Dixie Conference) is an intercollegiate athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member schools are located in North Carolina and Virginia.

History

The Dixie Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was founded in 1963 as a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) with the philosophy that participation would be strictly amateur, so no athletic financial aid or scholarships would be awarded by its affiliate institutions. The six charter members were Charlotte College, College of Charleston, Methodist College, North Carolina Wesleyan College, St. Andrews Presbyterian College, and Lynchburg College. In 1973, when the National Collegiate Athletic Association divided into a three-division format, the Dixie Conference left the NAIA and moved into the non-scholarship NCAA Division III. On June 30, 2003, the conference changed to its name to the USA South Athletic Conference. During the 2010–11 school year, changes to the membership of the USA South were announced. Three colleges announced plans to join the USA South Conference beginning in the 2012–13 season while one departed the league. Piedmont College, LaGrange College, and Maryville College joined the Great South Athletic Conference on July 1, 2012. Shenandoah University left the USA South on the above date, to become a full member of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), a league in which it held associate membership in several sports. Christopher Newport University left the USA South after the 2012–13 season to join the Capital Athletic Conference in all sports except for football which remained a USA South affiliate member through the 2015 season. On May 10, 2012, Covenant College and Huntingdon College announced plans to leave the Great South and join USA South Athletic Conference beginning in the 2013–14 season. On May 6, 2015, the USA South announced that Agnes Scott College, Salem College, and Wesleyan College would leave the Great South Athletic Conference and join the USA South beginning in the 2016–17 school year. The conference announced the future arrival of three more schools during the 2015–16 school year. First, it announced on December 9, 2015, that Brevard College, transitioning from the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Conference to Division III, would join for 2017–18 and beyond. Then, on May 4, 2016, two more incoming members were announced: Berea College, nearing completion of a transition from the NAIA to Division III, and Pfeiffer University, transitioning from the Division II Conference Carolinas to Division III. Both joined in 2017–18 as well. On June 27, 2017, Ferrum College, a conference member since 1988, announced that it would leave for the Old Dominion Athletic Conference after the 2017–18 school year. On December 11, 2019, the USA South announced the addition of Southern Virginia University who joined in the 2021–22 academic year. Later changes to the USA South membership came on March 8, 2021, when Averett University revealed its intention to leave the USA South and join Ferrum College in the ODAC as a full member in the 2022–23 academic year, and on November 22, when Belhaven University, then a member of the American Southwest Conference, was at first accepted for membership in the conference also for 2022–23. On February 18, 2022, the USA South Conference presidents announced a restructuring of the conference, resulting in all of its members outside North Carolina and Virginia—Agnes Scott, Berea, Covenant, Huntingdon, LaGrange, Maryville, Piedmont, and Wesleyan—leaving the USA South to form the new Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS) for the 2022-23 academic year. They were joined by incoming member Belhaven. CCS members sponsoring football, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, and women's golf remain in the USA South as associate members for those sports.

Chronological timeline

Member schools

Current members

The USA South currently has 10 full members, all private schools, with Meredith as the league's only secular institution.

Associate members

The USA South has five associate members, all private and faith-based schools that are full CCS members. All became charter CCS members in the 2022 conference split. Belhaven had been originally announced as an incoming USA South member for 2022, but instead opted to join the CCS for that school year.

Former members

The USA South has twenty former full members, all but four were private schools:

Membership timeline

Sports

The conference sponsors championships in the following sports:

Men's sponsored sports by school

Departing members are displayed in red.

Women's sponsored sports by school

Departing members are displayed in red.

Conference facilities