Colonial Athletic Association

The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is a NCAA Division I college athletic conference whose full-time members are located in East Coast states from Massachusetts to Georgia. Most of its members are public universities, with four in Virginia alone, and the conference is headquartered in Richmond. The CAA was historically a Southern conference until the addition of five Northeastern schools (all five from rival conference America East) after the turn of the 21st century, which added balance to the conference.

The CAA was founded in 1979 as the ECAC South basketball league. It was renamed the Colonial Athletic Association in 1985 when it added championships in other sports (although a number of members maintain ECAC affiliation in some sports). As of 2006, it organizes championships in 21 men's and women's sports. The addition of Northeastern University in 2005 gave the conference the NCAA minimum of six football programs needed to sponsor football. For the 2007 football season, all of the Atlantic 10 Conference's football programs joined the CAA football conference, as agreed upon in May 2005.

The CAA has expanded in recent years, following the exits of longtime members such as the United States Naval Academy, University of Richmond, East Carolina University and American University. In 2001, the six-member conference added four additional universities: Towson University, Drexel University, Hofstra University, and the University of Delaware. Four years later the league expanded again when Georgia State University and Northeastern University joined, further enlarging the conference footprint. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) left for the Atlantic 10 Conference in July 2012, Old Dominion University will be leaving for Conference USA in 2013, Georgia State will depart in 2013 to join the Sun Belt Conference, and the College of Charleston will join from the Southern Conference in 2013.

On the playing field, the CAA has produced 16 national team champions in five different sports (the most recent being the Villanova Wildcats who won the 2009 Division I FCS football championship), 33 individual national champions, 11 national coaches of the year, 11 national players of the year and 12 Honda Award winners. In 2006, George Mason became the first CAA team to reach the Final Four. In 2011, the VCU Rams became the second CAA team to reach the Final Four, as well as the first team to win five games en route, due to their participation in the First Four round.

Full-time members

 * Notes:

Pink background indicates departing members. Blue background indicates future members. †  - Georgia State will leave for the Sun Belt Conference in July 2013. †† - Old Dominion joined the league as a charter member in 1979, left in 1982 to join the Sun Belt Conference, re-joined the CAA in 1991, but will depart for Conference USA in July 2013. ‡ - Towson joined the league as a charter member in 1979, left in 1981 to join the ECAC-Metro Conference, and re-joined the CAA in 2001. ^ - College of Charleston will join in fall 2013, after leaving the Southern Conference.

Membership timeline
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Sports
The CAA sponsors championship competitions in eleven men's and twelve women's NCAA sanctioned sports. More than a dozen schools are associate members in five sports.

Regular Season Champions
Note: The conference was known as the ECAC South from 1979–1985.

History of the Tournament Final
The tournament will be held at the Richmond Coliseum through the 2013-14 season under an extension signed in September 2010. However in December 2012, the CAA announced that the 2014 through 2016 tournaments will be held at the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the first time the tournament will be held outside the state of Virginia.

Men's Tournament Championships and appearances in CAA Tournament Finals by School
‡Former member of the CAA

Women's Tournament Championships and appearances in CAA Finals by School
‡Former member of the CAA

Football
The CAA football conference was formed in 2005, although it did not begin play until 2007. In the 2004–05 academic year, the CAA had five member schools that sponsored football, all of them as football-only members of the Atlantic 10 Conference (A10). In 2005, as previously noted, Northeastern accepted the CAA's offer of membership, giving the CAA the six football-playing members it needed under NCAA rules to organize a football conference. At that time, the CAA announced it would launch its new football conference in 2007. Next, the CAA invited the University of Richmond to become a football-only member effective in 2007. Once UR accepted the offer, this left the A10 football conference with only five members, less than the six required under NCAA rules. As a result, the remaining A10 football programs all decided to join the CAA on a football-only basis, spelling the end of A10 football, at least under that conference's banner. Since the CAA football conference had the same members as the A10 the previous year, it can be said that the CAA football conference is the A10 football conference under new management.

With that in mind, the CAA football conference's oldest ancestor is the New England Conference, founded in 1938 by five state-supported universities in that region plus Northeastern; four of the public schools are currently in the CAA football conference. After the departure of Northeastern in 1945, the remaining members affiliated with the University of Vermont to form the Yankee Conference under a new charter in 1946, with competition starting in 1947. That conference, which over time came to include many schools outside its original New England base, eventually dropped all sports other than football in 1975, and merged with the A10 in 1997. Every school that was in the Yankee Conference at the time of the A10 merger and still fields an FCS-level football team (nine out of the final 12 members of the Yankee Conference) is in the CAA football conference.

On May 31, 2006, Old Dominion University announced that it would start a football team to begin play in 2009. ODU joined the CAA football conference in 2011. On April 17, 2008, Georgia State University announced that it would start a football team to begin play in 2010 and join the CAA football conference in 2012. The team is playing in the 70,000 seat Georgia Dome, but is restricting ticket sales to just over 28,000 for virtually all its games. However, GSU will play only the 2012 season in the CAA, and will not be eligible for the conference title, as it will begin an FBS transition in advance of its 2013 move to the Sun Belt Conference.

Since the CAA began play as a football conference in 2007, a member team has played in the FCS Championship game four times, with Delaware making it in 2007 and 2010 and Richmond and Villanova winning it in 2008 and 2009, respectively. In 2007, the CAA set records with 15 national player of the week honorees and by sending five teams to the national championship playoffs. The very next season, in 2008, they broke that record with 19 national player of the week honorees and tied their own record by again sending five teams to the national championship playoffs for the second straight year. At the end of the 2008 season, the CAA had six Top 25 teams with four placing in the Top Ten. Players from the CAA received 78 All-America honors.

In the opening weekend of the 2009 season, CAA teams defeated three Division I FBS teams. William & Mary and Richmond took down teams from the ACC (one of the six conferences whose champions receive automatic Bowl Championship Series berths), respectively Virginia and Duke, while Villanova defeated Temple from the MAC. The following weekend saw New Hampshire defeat another MAC team, Ball State (which had gone through the previous regular season unbeaten, but ended 2009 2–10). All four of the CAA teams to defeat FBS teams qualified for the 2009 FCS playoffs and won their first-round games; Villanova and William & Mary reached the semifinals, and Villanova won the FCS championship.

Northeastern—the school whose 2005 move to the CAA enabled the creation of the CAA football conference—dropped football after the 2009 season. President Joseph E. Aoun and the board of trustees endorsed the move after an extensive, two-year review of the athletic program by its director, Peter Roby. The decision to eliminate football followed six straight losing seasons and sparse game attendance at a school whose ice rink often sells out for hockey.

On December 3, 2009, Hofstra announced that the university would no longer be sponsoring football. The decision follows a two-year review of sports spending at Hofstra. School officials stated there are no plans to cut any other sports at the Long Island school. Hofstra cited costs and low student interest—only 500 students would attend home games despite free tickets—as reasons to drop the program. Due to the reduction of the conference, the CAA did not use the division format for the 2010 season. Even though Old Dominion began conference play in 2011 and Georgia State will do the same in 2012, the divisional format is not likely to return in the immediate future, as the CAA will lose football members in both 2012 and 2013. UMass will depart for FBS and the Mid-American Conference in 2012 followed by Georgia State's departure for the Sun Belt and Old Dominion for Conference USA.

The 2010 season started with the biggest non-conference win of the CAA's short history, when James Madison defeated nationally-ranked Virginia Tech (FBS #13 at the time) of the ACC. JMU won 21-16 on September 11, at Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium.

Current members
The CAA football conference has the following members:
 * Albany
 * Delaware
 * James Madison
 * Maine
 * New Hampshire
 * Richmond
 * Rhode Island
 * Stony Brook
 * Towson
 * Villanova
 * William & Mary

Former members
The former members of the CAA football conference are:
 * Northeastern 2007–2009, dropped football
 * Georgia State (program began in 2010, joined CAA play in 2012, and leaves for the Sun Belt in 2013)
 * Hofstra 2007–2009, dropped football
 * UMass 2007-2011 (moved up to FBS, joined Mid-American Conference for football in 2012)
 * Old Dominion 2012 Season

Additionally, former members of its ancestor conferences (New England Conference, Yankee Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference) include:
 * Boston U.: 1971–1997, dropped football
 * Connecticut: 1938–1999, moved up to Division I-A (now FBS), joined Big East Conference for football in 2004
 * Northeastern: 1938–1945 (New England Conference)
 * Holy Cross: 1971, became independent, now in Patriot League
 * Vermont: 1938–1973, dropped football

Future members
On August 7, 2012 CAA Football announced that Albany and Stony Brook would be joining the football conference in 2013. Both will be full members of CAA Football but will not be joining the Colonial Athletic Association for other sports which will remain in the America East Conference for both schools.

Regular Season Champions
Note: The conference was known as the ECAC South from 1983–1985.

List of CAA regular season champions.

Facilities
Notes:
 * Future members highlighted in gray.
 * Departing members highlighted in pink.
 * Albany currently uses University Field for its home football games, but will move to the new Bob Ford Field when it opens in 2013.
 * Georgia State started football in 2010, but did not join the CAA football conference until 2012. That season will be its only CAA football season, as it will move to the Sun Belt Conference in 2013.