Waters with FAU President Saunders

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.”