The South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SAIAA) was an intercollegiate athletic conference with its main focus of promoting track and arranging track meets. Its member schools were located in the states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia.
The SAIAA was first formed in 1912[1] and remained active until 1921. The conference disbanded in 1921, and six of its schools became founding members of the Southern Conference along with eight other schools from the southeast United States. Those six SAIAA schools were: North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland and Washington and Lee.[2]
The following universities were members of the SAIAA at some point during its existence. Where known, the school's name is followed by the period of its membership in the conference. Italicized years indicate a confirmed year of membership, but may not be exhaustive. Track meets were held in 1911, and 1912 was the first season of play for all sports.[3][4][5][6]
There is no evidence in exhaustive searches of newspaper archives that the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association ever sanctioned college football. The list of champions has been derived from compiling football records of schools that belonged to the association that sponsored track and field events. The terminology "South Atlantic" was used generically by various publications to describe teams in the Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and North Carolina area.
^Brian Leung; Terry Holland (15 September 2016). 100 Things Virginia Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die. Triumph Books. p. 160. ISBN978-1-63319-674-2. One interesting poing about Gooch is that not only was he a football player at UVA, but he was also a star. As a senior quarterback in 1914, he was part of the team that split the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association title with Washington & Lee and was named to the All-Southern team.