“This has been in talks for years; we were looking for a league after the Summit League started to shift. It’s a great league with top-notch people, but it started to shift west. We looked at the institutions we had the most in common with and landed Horizon League.” – Kelley Hartley Hutton, Athletic Director at Purdue Fort Wayne
Purdue Fort Wayne announced that it will join the Horizon League. Here are a few key details of the announcement:
–Purdue Fort Wayne will begin competition during the 2020-2021 academic year.
–The Horizon League Board of Directors approved the university’s application for membership this week.
–The Mastodons will officially join the League on July 1, 2020.
The Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons are now entering their second full season of play under the Purdue brand, which was adopted in July 2018 as part of the university’s realignment under the Purdue University system.
The university fields teams in 16 NCAA Division I sports and will sponsor 15 teams in the Horizon League.
Now those teams will compete in a league with a makeup closer to home, and, as Hutton explained to CollegeAD, the change will mean a lot to student-athletes.
“We had student-athletes there this morning and they were so excited,” said Hutton. “That was such a wonderful reminder of why we are in this business and what this is about. This is about their lives and their ability to compete at a high level because they are well rested because they not on a bus for 12 hours or hanging out at airports for hours.”
Purdue Fort Wayne is located at the center point of the League, an average of 170 miles from each member.
The Horizon League currently includes ten universities: Cleveland State University, University of Detroit Mercy, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Northern Kentucky University, Oakland University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Wright State University and Youngstown State University.
“We are excited to welcome Purdue Fort Wayne to the Horizon League family,” said Horizon League Commissioner Jon LeCrone. “The Mastodons align with the Horizon League’s mission, vision and core values and is located in the middle of our geographic footprint. Their addition will bring competitive potential, especially in men’s basketball, and an engaged and vitalized community. Purdue Fort Wayne is the right school at the right time.”
This story first appeared in The NightCap, CollegeAD’s evening newsletter. The NightCap delivers the day’s college athletics news in simple bullet points, giving you what you need to know in just a few lines. Get The NightCap today.