Ovcsports.com is a website of official website
Title
Official Internet Site of the Ohio Valley Conference
Description
Entering its 58th year, the Ohio Valley Conference continues to build on the success that has made it the nation's eighth-oldest NCAA Division I conference. In 2003, the OVC extended its geographical footprint into Alabama for the first time, expanding the league’s membership to a record 11 institutions with the addition of Jacksonville State University and Samford University.
The OVC's proud past dates back to 1948, but seeds for the new league were actually planted in 1941. It was then that Roy Stewart, the athletics director at Murray State, Charles (Turkey) Hughes, the athletics director at Eastern Kentucky, and Kelly Thompson, the public relations director at Western Kentucky, first broached the idea of forming a new conference. Discussions were put on hold by World War II, but reemerged Feb. 27-28, 1948 at the Kentucky Hotel in Louisville as the three original institutions combined with Morehead State, Louisville and Evansville to form the OVC.
In the 1950's, the OVC became a pioneer on a much more significant scale socially. During times of racial segregation, league member Morehead State became one of the first non-traditionally black mid-southern institutions to accept a black student. In 1958, Marshall Banks earned athletically-related aid at Morehead, which signed a second black athlete, Howard Murphy, a year later. In 1961, Murphy earned all-conference recognition as a halfback in football. With racial barriers broken, the rest of the institutions in the league began to provide educational and athletic opportunities to African-Americans.
