The annual winner of the Sun Belt Conference’s football regular season will take
home the H. Wright Waters Trophy as the league approved the honor at its recent
conference meetings in San Destin, Florida.
Waters
served as Commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference from 1998 through 2012 and is
largely responsible for football becoming a league sponsored sport. The
Sun Belt had been a viable entity on the nation’s collegiate athletic map since
its founding in 1976, but Waters made the call for a serious approach to
gaining access to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Due to his leadership,
the league played its inaugural season under his watch in 2001.
“The
best word to sum up Wright Waters’ tenure as Sun Belt Conference Commissioner
is ‘transformational,’” said Sun Belt Conference President and Troy University
Chancellor Dr. Jack Hawkins. “His leadership brought football to
our league, put the Sun Belt in the Football Bowl Subdivision and,
consequently, we are stronger academically, athletically and financially today
than at any time in history. Naming our football championship trophy after
Wright Waters is an appropriate way to honor this visionary leader who changed
the Sun Belt Conference for the better.”
