The Southern Athletic Association (SAA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III that began play in the 2012âÂÂ13 school year. It was formed in 2011 by seven former members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and independent Berry College.
On March 9, 2023, Trinity University and Southwestern University of Texas announced they would join the SAA as full members, beginning in the 2025âÂÂ26 academic year.
On May 26, 2024, BirminghamâÂÂSouthern College announced that it would close at the end of the 2023âÂÂ24 school year (more precisely, on May 31 of that year).
On June 11, 2024, Hendrix College announced it would return to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) at the end of the 2024âÂÂ25 school year.
On July 23, 2024, Maryville College was accepted to the SAA as a full member, to join beginning in the 2026âÂÂ27 academic year. Maryville's football and women's golf would join SAA competition as an associate member, beginning 2025âÂÂ26.
Every member in the history of the SAA, whether current, former, full, or associate, has been a private school.
The SAA currently has eight full members.
Two schools, the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), announced their intention to become affiliate members of the conference for football, effective in 2015. Both are members of the University Athletic Association (UAA), which at the time had a football scheduling alliance with the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). However, after the 2012 season, the NCAC adopted a full round-robin football schedule, making it impossible for that conference to fill in all of its non-conference dates with the four UAA members that sponsor the sport.
Over the summer of 2015, Chicago and WashU announced that they would leave the SAA after two seasons of competition in order to join more geographically-convenient conferences. WashU will maintain its football affiliation with the UAA for the 2017 season before joining the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in 2018 as a football-only member. For nearly a year, Chicago did not announce a future league affiliation, but it announced in May 2016 that it would become a football-only member of the Midwest Conference in 2017.
On November 18, 2015, Trinity University and Austin College announced they would affiliate with the SAA for football, renewing a relationship that was lost when the SAA split from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. As a result, the SCAC will no longer offer football as a sport from 2017. On August 13, 2020, Austin College announced it would move to the American Southwest Conference as a football-only affiliate beginning with the 2021 season, committing to at least four years as an affiliate.
On August 19, 2021, the conference announced that Southwestern University, a current football-only affiliate member of the American Southwest Conference, would join the SAA as a football-only affiliate effective with the 2023 football season. On March 9, 2023, the SAA announced that Southwestern University and Trinity University will join the SAA as full members in 2025.
The SAA currently has one affiliate member, which will become a full member in 2026.
Five schools have been SAA affiliate members but have since either left the conference or upgraded to full membership.
The Southern Athletic Association sponsors 11 men's sports and 12 women's sports. The members mostly sponsor all the sports in the conference except that Oglethorpe University does not have a football team.
Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Southern Athletic Association which are played by SAA schools: