CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Big South Conference Athletic Directors voted Monday to allow Presbyterian College football student-athletes to become eligible for postseason All-Conference awards during the 2008 season.

This new mandate by the Big South Conference will allow PC to be entitled to earn All-Conference accolades in 14 varsity sports during the 2008-09 school year. The Big South Conference does not sponsor men’s and women’s lacrosse.

The All-Conference eligibility for its football student-athletes was not the only accomplishment picked up by PC Director of Athletics Dr. William B. “Bee” Carlton and PC Head Coach Bobby Bentley earlier this week.

Originally not scheduled to play new Big South Conference foe Stony Brook until 2011, Bentley and Carlton were able to work out a scheduling arrangement with Stony Brook Athletic Director Jim Friore and SBU Head Coach Chuck Priore to add the Seawolves to the Blue Hose football schedule in 2009 and 2010. The newly scheduled games allow Blue Hose football team to compete against every Big South football-playing member beginning in 2009.

The Blue Hose will now travel to Stony Brook on Oct. 3, 2009, while the Seawolves will visit Bailey Memorial Stadium for the first time on Oct. 2, 2010.

The newly scheduled contests with Stony Brook now allow the Blue Hose to become eligible for the regular season Big South Conference football championship beginning in 2009. Eligible for the regular season championship in all of its other 13 varsity sports that the Big South sponsors in the 2008-09 school year, PC will now become officially eligible for regular season championships and All-Conference honors and awards in every sport sponsored by the Big South beginning with the 2009-10 school year.

The Blue Hose are not eligible to compete in either a conference tournament or an NCAA Division I tournament until the 2011-2012 school year, except for PC men’s tennis and softball.

PC men’s tennis and softball are being placed on the “fast-track” allowed by NCAA regulations that permit two Olympic sports to be eligible for championships after only two transitional seasons. The PC men's tennis and softball programs will both be eligible to play in the Big South Conference Tournament and advance to the NCAA Championships in the spring of 2010.

Overall, the 2008-09 school year will be the second year of PC’s transition into NCAA Division I athletics. The Blue Hose are scheduled to receive full NCAA Division I status in 2011-12. All PC teams at the time will become eligible for Conference and NCAA postseason play and awards. Also in the 2011-12 school year, PC will become officially included in all NCAA Division I statistical categories.