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35|35 Anniversary Website
This is the 27th installment of a series of 35 moments, milestones, and facts that will be featured throughout the 2013-14 academic year to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Earlier this week, the Great Lakes Valley Conference was represented at the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Elite Eight for the 24th time since the league's inception in 1978. On Thursday, GLVCsports.com sat down with two individuals who played a role in covering five of the conference's seven national championships.
Roy Pickerill serves as the sports information director for Kentucky Wesleyan College and was witness to the Panthers' four national crowns as a GLVC member in 1987, 1989, 1999 and 2001. His counterpart Ray Simmons, who holds the same position at Southern Indiana, was on hand for the Screaming Eagles' 1995 NCAA Championship, which was led by two-time national player of the year Stan Gouard, who was recently named 2014 GLVC Coach of the Year following a successful year on the sidelines at UIndy.
Pickerill and Simmons also have a longtime affiliation with the NCAA Elite Eight as Pickerill has served as media coordinator for 21 years, while Simmons and USI are serving as host of the 2014 and 2015 events at Evansville's Ford Center. USI also partnered with the GLVC as co-hosts of the 2002 Elite Eight when it was held at the now-demolished Roberts Stadium in Evansville.
The longtime colleagues sat down with GLVCsports.com to relive those five national championships and talk about the national success of GLVC men's basketball, especially when it involved schools along the Ohio River, including Bellarmine, Southern Indiana, and former members Kentucky Wesleyan and Northern Kentucky.