Athletic conference

John Carroll going to Wash U.

We have a bunch of brand-new matchups this year because of Wash U moving from the CCIW into the North Coast Athletic Conference, and so what you end up with is No. 8 John Carroll going to No. 18 Wash U, and that sounds epically normal.

And what you got in this game in St. Louis, Pat, is a Bears domination over the last three quarters of the game.

John Carroll scored first.

We'll hear a little bit more about that in Fast Five.

And Pat, Washington now holds head-to-head wins over DePauw and John Carroll.

Significant wins in the North Coast Athletic Conference race here, and we're only at the halfway point of the season.

Yeah, Aaron Keen, head coach of the Bears, will be our Fast Five guest.

For those who are not aware of that, Matt has been there at Butler since 2007 and So coming up on about two decades of collegiate coaching experience there, he's helped build the Bulldogs into one of the premier distance programs in the country, earning over 50 All-American honors, countless Big East titles.

He's been named Conference Coach of the Year 12 times with leading a men's team preseason, ranked number 16 in the NCAA this year.

But what really stood out to us preparing for this conversation is Butler's success extended beyond the track.

Under Coach Rowe's leadership, the program has consistently been one of the nation's best academic schools, including multiple top 10% finishes in NCAA academic progress rate rankings and some national leading team GPAs.

Well, Coach, we appreciate you coming on.

I guess we'll just start off with a little background.

This is Coach Rowe, Director of Cross Country and Track and Field at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, members of the Big East Conference.

Tell me if I'm wrong here.

So the next season, the Ducks fell back to earth and missed the playoffs.

He went to Detroit, made a name for himself nationally, winning a few Presidents' Trophies and Conference championships, and one Cup win.

But the thing about those Red Wings teams, they were loaded with Hall of Fame talent in their prime, and they only won a single Cup.

If there ever was a roster that should've been a dynasty, it's those Red Wings.

And coming from one independent liberal arts school to another independent Christian liberal arts school got me thinking that independent doesn't need to be isolated.

And so for as much as Grove City really leans into the athletic spirit of the President's Athletic Conference in Western Pennsylvania.

And for as much as we send individual students on occasion to academic conferences, it seemed like there wasn't yet an opportunity for high-quality, sort of honors-level students at Grove City to participate in a meaningful way with like-minded honors students at other kinds of colleges, conservative, Christian, or otherwise.

So I reached out to some friends that I still had at Hillsdale and I said, hey, let's try to find some way in which we can get together.

SWAC, you know, the Southwest State.

Athletic Conference.

It seems like they're making all the right moves and all the right decisions.

They had 18,500 plus, you know, in Hornet Stadium the other night.