fictional American Union of Interscholastic Athletics (Crossroads 5/14)

[kb105]

On 4/22/2024 at 7:36 PM, Blindsay said:

and I concur that high level math hurts

Definitely!

---

As previously mentioned, next up is the Ft Dummer Atlanteans

Uniforms

Spoiler

---

Background

Spoiler

          Fort Dummer State University has its origins closely tied to its former sister school, Lyndon State College. Both were founded in 1911, one being a one-year technical school and the other being a one-year teacher training school. Fort Dummer State was designated as the technical school. By 1944, both would be made into colleges, with Fort Dummer being named Brattleboro Technical College and Lyndon State being named Lyndon Teachers College. In 1961, the Vermont State Colleges System (VSCS) was founded and brought in both schools, with Brattleboro Technical College changing to Brattleboro State College. In 1964, Brattleboro State was put up for university status with the introduction of their nuclear engineering department, the first in the state. After becoming an accredited university in the state, they left the VSCS and began operating closely with the only other public university in the state, the University of Vermont. The only controversy was the name. The state legislature wanted to change the name to either Southern Vermont University or Vermont State University while the city leaders and school administration wanted to simply change the name to Brattleboro State University. After months of infighting and threats to pull funding and university status, a name was selected. The name was changed to reflect Brattleboro’s historic landmark, Fort Dummer State Park, and would be named Fort Dummer State University. Aside from that snafu, the school was on a rather positive trajectory. The school continued to focus on more technical majors, becoming one of the leaders in what we now call STEM fields in Northeast public universities as they sought to add more and more majors lacking from the University of Vermont. Amongst the biggest projects the university has undergone is with the attempt to build a nuclear reactor on campus after years of helping facilitate and conduct research at the Yankee facility in Vernon, which shut down in 2014. Today, the nuclear engineering program remains the university’s crown jewel with 10% of graduates receiving a diploma from that department. The enrollment remains steady at around 9,000 to 10,000 undergraduate students with around 500 nuclear research students. 
          Athletics has always been a major part of the school’s identity. The first team to compete was in the school’s first year as BTS where a group of boys created a club football team who would compete against local high schools and athletic clubs. This first club team called themselves the Vermont Atlantis Club, either as a reference to the recently flooded Fort Dummer or a confusion with ‘Athletic’. Either way, Fort Dummer athletics and the idea of Atlantis have always been tied closely together. The first school sponsored teams were basketball, baseball, and football in 1964. They operated in the Yankee Conference as the Ft Dummer State Atlanteans. They would compete in the Yankee conference up until the NCAA divided their members into three divisions. Unable to financially keep up with the Division II teams, Fort Dummer State sought membership with the NESCAC in 1973. In the smaller division, Fort Dummer had a much easier time competing, although they never found much national success. By the 1990s, they had become a mid-tier conference team in all of their sports and had begun losing millions. In 2010, the athletics program was shut down amid financial hardships related to the recession. However, the alumni and town fought hard to bring the sports teams back as both a source of school pride as well as a supplement to the town’s economy. In 2012 a group of donors were able to finance the revival of the athletics program, which led to an invite from the AUIA. In the AUIA, Fort Dummer was able to continue a rivalry with former Yankee conference foe, Green Mountain Central, as well as forge new ones with the likes of Pebblewater and UBerk.
 

Spoiler

---

Next up will be the first outside the contiguous states

[HobbesTHero]

Really like the Mushers logos. Good job on that.

[kb105]

On 4/29/2024 at 10:42 AM, HobbesTHero said:

Really like the Mushers logos. Good job on that.

Appreciate it, the primary took a while to make sure all the proportions looked correct to the actual Alaskan Malamute.

---

Before I release the first team of a new conference, I thought I should show the logo for said conference. The Cascadia Interscholastic Conference, or Cascadia XII/12 for short, houses twelve teams across Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. The conference is headquartered in Seattle, which is also where the championship game/tournament for football (Lumen Field) and hockey (Climate Pledge Arena for semis and championship, accesso ShoWare Center in Kent and Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett split the first three rounds) are held. The championship tournament for basketball is held in Portland's Moda Center while the baseball tournament is alternated between Melacula Field in Idaho Falls, ID and Dehler Park in Billings, MT.

 

[kb105]

 

Uniforms

Spoiler

 

---

Background

Spoiler

          Matanuska Valley University first began classes in 1921, starting off as the Wasilla Creek Schoolhouse and mostly served miners and other adults as well as local school children. In 1938, a second building was added to the town and the school was renamed the Wasilla Upper School (taught the equivalent to 10th grade to 2nd year of college) and the Wasilla Lower School. Over the years, the structure of the schools would change and in 1965, the first college was built in Wasilla, Matanuska Valley College. Unlike traditional 4-year colleges, MVC implemented a hybrid apprenticeship-college where they had 5-year programs, focusing mainly on the oil/natural gas and agriculture sectors. Beginning in the late 1970s, MVC began transitioning to a more normal model of a 4 year college and embraced programs that would feed into the industries of nearby Anchorage. In 1988, MVC would become a four-year university, called Matanuska Valley University, as well as opening multiple new schools, among them being business, engineering, and aeronautics. By the early 2000s, MVU housed the state's highest rated Colleges of Aeronautics as well as one of the best Aerospace Engineering departments west of the Rockies. Although being a private university, they now hold the most students attending on campus in Alaska with around 17,500.
          Athletics at Matanuska Valley actually predate its MVC days all the way to 
World War II. The first football game in the school’s history is recorded as a December 1943 match against Fort Richardson in Anchorage. This is also the origins of the Mushers name, as a heavy snowstorm fell the night before the players were set to leave and the railway would not run. A handful of players, having experience in dog sledding, traveled around 33 miles over two days carrying 20 players, coaches, and staff along with the equipment. The Mushers went on to tie the military men with a score of 6-6. Seeing as the average age of the team was 15 years old and the Fort Richardson team had multiple officers over the age of 25 playing against them, the school claims the result as a win. Despite football being the first exhibition played by students, it was hockey that was first sanctioned by the school in 1978 where they played outside of a sanctioned league of conference, instead playing local colleges and even some semi-pro teams. Administration had a desire to expand their athletics department as early as the mid 80s, and basketball, baseball, skiing, and rifling were all added by the mid 90s. Football, despite being heavily pushed by their longtime athletic director, was never added, as no other college in the state sponsors a team and travel would have been very difficult. All sports were eventually phased out in 1998 as the department began experiencing financial problems and the school did not want to commit any more funding to the seemingly pointless endeavor. Despite the 14 year hiatus, MVU was very excited to join the AUIA, alongside fellow Alaskan university, Ketchikan. For the first time ever, the Mushers had a varsity football team, who after a few years of sorting out their program have begun to gain traction with a conference title and a few tournament appearances. Baseball and Hockey have also made a few postseason runs as well as conference titles, while basketball has yet to break through with a conference title.

Spoiler

 

*Some notes

 - Week 0 matchup is a kickoff classic held at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas

 - Week 18 is the Quarterfinals matchup (Round 2 of 4) at Lumen Field in Seattle. The field design is replicated across the playoffs (location and team endzones changed accordingly), minus the championship game.

---

[kb105]

 - Primary Logo: The primary logo has a double meaning. The obvious is that it is a diesel piston for Cummins, who was founded and still headquartered in Columbus, IN, famous for their improvements on the diesel engine and a leader in that industry. The second meaning is one of civic pride, as the piston is also a torch, with the flame shape and color modeled after the one seen on the 

state flag of Indiana.

---

Uniforms

Spoiler

 

---

History

Spoiler

          Indiana Crossroads University opened in the fall of 1959 as Crossroads College, completely funded by J. Irwin Miller and the Cummins Foundation. Crossroads first offered just five degrees, architecture, business management, accounting, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering. The first few years saw great growth, although the school took a major hit in both faculty and enrollment as IU-PU Columbus was formed and the better benefits and lower tuition caused many professors and students to switch/transfer over. This led to a few years of what some people associated with Crossroads call the ‘Dark Ages’ as the school struggled to stay afloat and would likely have gone bankrupt if not for the Miller family and other Cummins executives influx of cash to the endowment. By 1985, the two schools were able to coexist peacefully and Crossroads began to flourish. In 1992, the school established a state of the art alternative fuel research facility, funded wholly by the Cummins company and began the process for university accreditation, which they received in 1998. With the accreditation, Crossroads College would become Indiana Crossroads University and would thus begin their ascension to be the largest private university in the state with an enrollment of around 15,000 in 2018.
          Crossroads has competed athletically since their first year as a college in baseball, football and basketball (hockey was later added in the 90s). Their greatest period of success prior to the AUIA began during the academic ‘Dark Age’ as enrollment requirements were slightly lowered. They were first members of the Indiana Collegiate Conference and competed in the NAIA. In 1971, Crossroads made the move to the Mid-Central College Conference (now Crossroads League) where they continued to be dominant. However, their dominance of the conference along with being the only nonsectarian colleges led to friction among the fan bases and the institutions alike. This tension culminated after the 1993-94 season when Crossroads swept the conference titles and was voted out from the conference (they also won the Central States Collegiate Hockey league title and ACHA title, both of which they had begun competition in the previous season as a new program). This booting out of the MCCC led to Crossroads finding a new home with fellow Indiana institution, IU-Southeast, in the River States Conference, where they would continue to compete in until 2012. The RSC allowed for stiffer competition as Crossroads would not win a conference title until 2002 in football. That would end up being the one and only conference title for the school, although they had plenty of opportunities. That is why Crossroads made the jump to the AUIA, where they hoped to have better success, which they immediately saw in the form of postseason appearances in both hockey and basketball in the first year.

---

Football Matchups

Spoiler

---