With each passing season, the Sun Belt Conference continues to challenge itself, and its competitors, in all aspects of intercollegiate athletics. Not content with being simply the youngest football conference in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, the conference has shown that it can rise each and every season that comes along.  Since the birth of the league as a FBS member league in 2001, the evidence is clear that the conference is indeed rising above competitors and peer conferences.
 
At no time has league athletic success been more obvious than during the course of the last several football seasons. In recent years, Sun Belt members have participated in as many as six bowl games, a 50 percent increase in the league’s former high-water mark and only a decade removed from a “one-bowl league” moniker in its formative years.
 
The Sun Belt has earned due respect in the FBS over the last several years by consistently beating teams from peer conferences, winning bowl games and upsetting Power Five teams.  In fact, the 2018 football season was direct evidence of the Sun Belt’s success as the conference broke its record for non-conference wins in a single season. The 24 total wins eclipsed the previous mark of 22 set in 2016. Additionally, the Sun Belt’s 21 regular season non-conference wins broke the record of 19 that was set in 2013. The Sun Belt also had the best non-conference winning percentage of any Group of Five Conference this past season.

The Sun Belt gained much notoriety and notice during the last several football seasons, but that has by no means been the league’s only hallmark. Men’s basketball – the league’s symbol of success in its formative years – had another successful season in 2018-19 as a number of significant achievements took place. There was a three-spot improvement in the Sun Belt’s conference RPI ranking and four Sun Belt teams qualified for the postseason, tying the conference record.
 
Women’s basketball saw a nine-spot improvement in conference RPI ranking this past season and had a record number of teams in the postseason with seven participants.  Appalachian State capped off a stellar season with a 76-59 WBI championship victory over North Texas.

Those league successes stories have been more public in recent years, in part because the Sun Belt itself has been progressive and in the forefront of the digital media world. The league continues to adapt to the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics and continues the process of evolving to better serve its membership, keeping the pledge it made at its founding to be a league of opportunity. Athletic and academic programs who have shown progressive thinking and the desire to improve have always found a home in the Sun Belt.

The Sun Belt’s partnership with ESPN was revamped in 2018 and is the most significant and extensive multimedia rights agreement in conference history.  Highlights of the contract include that: a minimum of 500 events a year will appear on an ESPN platform beginning in 2020-21 and that, every Sun Belt football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball game will be viewable on an ESPN platform. It was also announced that, linear network football games at Sun Belt home venues will expand to a minimum of 10 games a year on a combination of ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, that all Sun Belt Championship events will be viewable on an ESPN platform each academic year that will give exposure to all 18 conference sports and that digital productions will expand to include regular-season competition in Sun Belt sports that have received only limited coverage previously.
 
Opportunity for Sun Belt growth and success extends beyond television deals.  The Sun Belt annually awards nearly $70 million in student-athlete financial aid, an increase of 130% from five years ago, to more than 3,100 student-athletes, while also providing life experiences such as team building, domestic and foreign travel, community service, mentoring and recognition through honors and awards.  Sun Belt institutions are also leaders in providing career services and the tools to assist in the pursuit of personal goals. Each member employs full-time academic advisors and on average nearly two dozen tutors for academic support.  

Sun Belt leaders also understand many of the challenges that are being faced on their campuses. This past spring the Sun Belt hosted a Diversity and Inclusion Summit with the goal of educating the membership on current data and finding opportunities to create policies that will help increase diversity. The year prior, the Sun Belt hosted a mental health summit aimed at putting mental health awareness out front and reaching to erase the stigma associated with mental health and the need to seek help.
 
The Sun Belt has nationally-respected programs in nearly every NCAA sport offering and remains a fixture on the national scene while remaining heavily involved in the conduct and competition of college athletics. But it also provides opportunities for success on many unique and different levels. In athletic parlance, the Sun Belt has upside and its newest mantra of “Rise Above” is just as applicable now as when it was founded as a home to some of the nation’s premier basketball programs.
 
In its very first season as a conference in 1976-77, one of those Sun Belt programs reached the pinnacle of NCAA men’s basketball competition when UNC Charlotte earned a berth in the NCAA Men’s Final Four. That type of success set the bar very high, but the league’s four-decade history is sprinkled with landmark success in all seasons.
 
This past fall, the Sun Belt had its most volleyball teams in the postseason in conference history with Texas State in the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship and Appalachian State, Little Rock and Arkansas State in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. The Bobcats earned their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory with a 3-1 triumph over Rice in the first round before suffering a second-round loss to fifth-seeded Texas.

In the spring, baseball and softball continue to put the league in the national spotlight with deep runs in postseason play and high visibility in national polls. Coastal Carolina reigned supreme at the pinnacle of college baseball, winning the College World Series for the 2016 season. Louisiana’s baseball team ranked No. 1 nationally recently and reached the NCAA Super Regional round in 2014 and 2015. In softball last season, the Sun Belt sent multiple teams to the postseason for the eighth straight year with UTA capturing the 2019 National Invitatonal Softball Championship title. A perennial national power, Louisiana advanced to the NCAA Division I Softball Championship for the 21st consecutive season. The Ragin' Cajuns have been to the NCAA Super Regionals seven times and NCAA 
Women’s College World Series three times.

Georgia Southern represented the Sun Belt in the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship this past season. The Eagles took fourth place at the NCAA Stanford Golf Regional to qualify.  On the individual side, Steven Fisk finished second in the finals for the Eagles.

In men’s tennis, South Alabama defeated nationally ranked Tulane, 4-1, in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championship.
 
Just as important as on-field success, the Sun Belt’s commitment to academic excellence remains a league symbol. The league’s record book for grade point averages and academic honors is a constantly-changing document, seemingly with each year’s success outdoing the previous year. This past spring, 21 league programs were recognized for outstanding performance in the classroom, with those teams earning NCAA Public Recognition Awards for APR scores in the top 10 percent nationally.  

Philanthropically, the Sun Belt Conference and the American Cancer Society maintain a close relationship. Some of the awareness campaigns the two have partnered on includes Suits and Sneakers, a nationwide event during basketball season that unites coaches and Cover Your Bases, a sun safety initiative during baseball and softball season.

The Sun Belt Conference and the AutoNation Cure Bowl also partnered in benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).  Sun Belt schools participated in Pink Saturday games and displayed specially designed pink Sun Belt Kicks Cancer kicking nets on their home sideline during games throughout the month of October.

The Sun Belt Conference and the College Football Playoff Foundation annually partner to recognize teachers through the CFP Foundation’s Extra Yard for Teachers platform.  Each Sun Belt football-playing institution received a $10,000 grant from the CFP Foundation to use in their respective local communities to recognize teachers for their hard work and dedication and to provide classroom supplies and professional development resources.

The conference is currently comprised of 12 institutions – Appalachian State, Little Rock, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana, ULM, South Alabama, UTA, Texas State and Troy – and competes in the FBS as a 10-team league. Little Rock and UTA are full Sun Belt members in all sports other than football. The league also have two associate members in men's soccer, Central Arkansas and Howard. 
 
The mix of members also gives the league vitality and diversity across the South. The mix of regions and  cultures provides a rare opportunity for student-athletes and staffers to experience many environments and the chance to experience that diversity without leaving their own campuses.

Many individuals from Sun Belt institutions have brought distinction to their alma maters, and not just in athletics. For every All-Pro linebacker DeMarcus Ware (Troy) and NFL Man of the Year Charles Tillman (Louisiana), world ranked golfer and US Open winner Dustin Johnson (Coastal Carolina) and for every World Series MVP David Freese (South Alabama) hailing from Sun Belt schools, there are also U.S. presidents (Lyndon Johnson, Texas State), business icons (Chick-fil-A president Daniel Cathy, Georgia Southern) and nationally known entertainers (Ludacris, Georgia State; Tim McGraw, ULM and George Strait, Texas State).
 
These proud alumni, as well as those who represent the dozen league institutions, are proof that the Sun Belt Conference is a league of excitement, a league of opportunity and one that continues to provide the promise of success with each new day.