Athletics · November 6, 2025
Ironclad Athletics Will Move to the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Conference in 2027
The move shortens road trips for most teams and aligns competition with universities of similar size and mission.
UW–Porter Falls’s varsity programs will leave their current conference for the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Conference beginning in the 2027–28 season, the athletics department announced. The new conference groups regional Division III universities of comparable enrollment and a shared academics-first philosophy.
The most concrete effect is travel: the median road trip for Ironclad teams drops from about 240 miles to about 130, cutting missed class time and overnight costs. Six of the nine other conference members are within a three-hour drive.
“Our student-athletes are students first, and every hour on a bus is an hour not in a lab or a study group. This move gives them that time back.”
— athletic director
The transition year is 2026–27, during which teams honor existing scheduling commitments. Conference tournament sites and the academic-support reciprocity agreement are still being finalized.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
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