Welcome to the redesigned Empire 8 website! This is just one of the many new and exciting developments within the conference for 2007-08.
We are very proud and excited to welcome Stevens Institute of Technology in its first year as a full Empire 8 member. Stevens is a tremendous academic institution with high admission standards and student-athletes who are dedicated to their studies and achieve high grade point averages while excelling in their respective sports. Stevens is dedicated to enhancing the quality of experiences for its student-athletes and fields extremely competitive athletic teams. The Ducks have dominated the Skyline Conference and fielded many national contenders. Last year Stevens’ men’s basketball and soccer teams competed in the NCAA Sweet 16 while its volleyball team advanced to the Elite Eight and a few other teams also participated in NCAA Tournament play. For these reasons and more Stevens is a perfect fit for Empire 8 and we are ecstatic about our future with this fine institution.
With the increased athletic competition in our already challenging conference, we are also pleased to be able to bring you the action right to your computer. This year many of our regular season and conference championships events will be videostreamed live on Empire8.tv. You can also access archived events on the site for viewing on demand. We are excited to be able to allow friends, family, and institutional alums from all over the globe the ability to watch our institutions and their fine student-athletes compete regardless of how far away they may be.
Further demonstrating our commitment to the quality experiences and recognition of our student-athletes and teams, we have added 27 individual awards this year including a “Most Valuable Player” honor for all Empire 8 Championship Tournaments. That pushes our total number of annual individual awards to 249 and this does not include the more than 1,000 t-shirts we annually give to each member of our respective conference champions or the almost 850 student-athletes we recognize as All-Conference and nearly 1,000 student-athletes who earn Empire 8 Presidents List honors by achieving
a 3.75 GPA or higher. 2007-08 is also the first year of the Empire 8 Field Hockey Championship Tournament and the first time our tennis conference has moved to a four-team Championship Tournament format.
Empire 8 continues to be the most influential athletic conference in the country when it comes to advocacy and education of student-athlete welfare issues. We recently proposed to the NCAA that it host a Hazing Summit in conjunction with the 2008 Convention. We then lobbied fellow NCAA member institutions, athletic conferences, and hazing professionals to express their support of the summit and the NCAA announced it will host the groundbreaking summit on Thursday, January 10, 2008. We feel this is a tremendous opportunity for the NCAA membership to educate itself on hazing issues and become more proactive in educating its student-athletes on this critical student-athlete welfare issue. We hope it raises the level of awareness on the subject and compels members to act. Empire 8 also continues to be the national leader in sportsmanship education and policy and will be honored as 2007-08 Sportsmanship All-American Conference by the Institute of International Sport on National Sportsmanship Day to take place on March 4, 2008. To celebrate National Sportsmanship Day, student-athletes from our respective institutions will visit local schools to speak to boys and girls about the value of “Competing with Honor and Integrity.”
Last but not least, let’s not forget about this great website! The new Empire8.com has more information and resources, polls for our great fans to participate in, a listing of all games that will be videostreamed on Empire8.tv and events that will have livestats or audio feeds. It also has a great new look. We think this is a top-notch site and hope you enjoy it.
As always, thanks for your support of Empire 8.
Sincerely,
Chuck Mitrano
Commissioner
Click here to view Commissioner Mitrano's biography