With Horizon League Ban Reversed, UIC Sports Teams Are Moving Full Steam Ahead Toward Conference Championships
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Championship dreams are alive again for UIC student athletes, after the Horizon League decided this week to reinstate athletes' postseason eligibility.
As CBS 2's Matt Zahn reported Wednesday, the Flames wasted no time in competing for a Horizon League championship – with one sport now in competition for conference titles and the finish line coming next week for another.
The UIC student athletes got the news they were hoping for.
"Everyone was going crazy. Texts were flying everywhere," said UIC junior and distance runner Bailey Moran. "It was a good time."
"Now that it's back, like I said, it's a roller coaster – so we're back up on like the high now," said UIC senior and distance runner Carlos Cabrera.
"We just had this taken away from us," Moran continued. "Now we're leaving next week for our conference championship."
The timing was especially crazy for the swimming and diving team. They had to figure out how they were even going to get to Indianapolis for their conference championships that started Wednesday.
"When we got the call yesterday that, hey, we're back in it, we took a bit of a pause – and really a few minutes of doing that, it was like OK, what do we need to do? Number one was get in touch with the athletes, let them know what's going on. But also, we had to find hotels. We had to find transportation," said UIC swimming and diving coach Tim Loeffler. "So in a matter of three to four hours, we did that, and made it down to Indy last night. When we got to the pool deck this morning to kind of practice and warm up, I think that's when it really hit them – like, OK, we're here, and this is happening."
Maybe the coolest thing about the reinstatement is the students athletes feel their voices were heard. They were asking for support on social media, and Cabrera, Moran, and other track and field team members were even handing out flyers at their last meet for people to sign a petition on their behalf.
"It was kind of amazing seeing all the people that had our backs," said Cabrera. "It wasn't even just like people affiliated with UIC. It was like other teams in the conference were having our backs."
"Our voices – we all feel like the support we had in our voices really made an impact," added Moran.
The UIC Flames teams had been banned from conference championships because the school did not give a full year's notice before leaving the Horizon League for the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Horizon League said, "UIC administrators rejected any alternative solutions and did nothing to help the student-athletes they claimed to care about."
It should be noted the school did pay the requisite exit fee and then applied for a special waiver of the bylaw with regard to a full year's norice, which was denied.
This doesn't normally happen, although the America East Conference did the same thing to Stony Brook and the Colonial Athletic Association to James Madison when they announced they were leaving those leagues at the end of the school year.
