Friday Quick Hits -- DYK Edition

In the mood for a Random Facts post for the Big South today, so it's a bunch of quick hits-- "Did You Know?" style!

--Of the ten current Big South members, three trace their schools' origins to the 1800's: Presbyterian College, VMI, and Winthrop. Of those, only VMI (pictured) harks back to before the Civil War...founding dates: PC-1880, VMI-1839, WU-1886.

--Before departing the subject of age, let it be known that Gardner-Webb (1905) is not far behind that eldest group of schools, and that Radford (1910) is on the verge of its centennial!

--The Sasser Cup, awarded to the institution with the greatest overall athletic success in a given year, has been earned by five different institutions--but only three are active in the Conference right now: Coastal Carolina (9 wins), Liberty (7), and Winthrop (2). Founding member Campbell has won the award three times, and will return to vie for the Cup starting in 2011, when the Fighting Camels rejoin the Big South. Outside of those schools, only former member UNCG has taken the trophy (3 times).

--The Big South awards championships in 18 different sports, but some members have additional competition outside the Conference umbrella: GWU--swimming, wrestling; LU--wrestling; PC--lacrosse; RU--field hockey, swimming; & VMI--lacrosse, swimming, wrestling, rifle. You'll also likely be seeing more lacrosse and swimming among member schools in the coming years.

Moving on to a brief football discussion...

BIG SOUTH FOOTBALL MEDIA DAY 2009 is only three weeks away as I write this--the event will be Friday, July 31st, in Charlotte, NC. Of course, you can watch the online coach/player interview sessions streamed live for FREE via BigSouthSports.com, so put that in your schedule. We're sitting eight weeks out from the opening weekend of the 2009 season. The very first game will feature the Chanticleers on the road for a Thursday game (9/3), but the other six Big South football teams share opening day on that Saturday (9/5). Liberty and CSU will be the ones with the highest-profile opponents, as the Flames face West Virginia and the Bucs go to Florida.

If you want to get a jump on following Big South football before Media Day, you can follow a couple of the programs on Twitter right now: @LibertyFootball for Flames-specific updates, or @gwucoach for Steve Patton's comments and observations.

Finally, a SHOUT-out for all our hard-working folks at High Point and UNC Asheville, the two member schools that somehow didn't get mentioned anywhere else in this post, because I don't want to leave anybody out today! While we're on the Twitter-tip, you can follow them too: @HighPointSports and @ashevilledogs.

Here's hoping everybody within SHOUT-ing distance has a good weekend--enjoy...