For the last half-decade, rumors about Fairfield University’s future in the MAAC have been mumbled around the conference. The Stags have watched the wheels of realignment turn, and now, it’s their time.
Fairfield will leave the MAAC/Metro Conference on July 1, 2027, after 46 years in the conference and join the Coastal Athletic Association for the 2027-28 athletic season, per a University release on Friday. ESPN first reported the move on Monday. The university was a charter member of the conference in 1980, leaving just Iona, Saint Peter’s, and Manhattan as the remaining schools from the inaugural season.
The Stags have been an affiliate member of the CAA since the 2014-15 academic year, with their men’s lacrosse team competing in the league. Fairfield field hockey – which the MAAC/Metro does not sponsor – announced that it would be joining the CAA for the 2026 season as well, making Fairfield a two-sport affiliate member.
Going back to at least 2021, Fairfield’s athletic department has been targeting a conference move, with the CAA in mind. The Stags have built towards an increase in operating budgets in order to match a higher-level conference than the MAAC, and it has paid off on the field and court. Fairfield has won three consecutive Commissioners’ Cups in the MAAC. It will have a chance for a fourth in the 2026-27 academic year, its last before leaving the conference.
“This decision is indicative of the upward trajectory of Fairfield University as an elite academic institution of national prominence and reflects our continued aspirations to achieve comprehensive competitive excellence in the modern Division I landscape,” Fairfield athletic director Paul Schlickmann said in the release.
Fairfield has also invested in facilities, with a new practice gym and the $51 million Leo D. Mahoney Arena, a 3,500-seat basketball and volleyball arena, the best facility in the MAAC.
In 2022, Schlickmann hired Carly Thibault-DuDonis as head coach of the women’s basketball team and has committed the resources to building and sustaining a powerful mid-major program. The Stags have won three consecutive MAAC Women’s Basketball Championships, going 67-2 against MAAC opponents in the process.
In return, Thibault-DuDonis has pledged allegiance to the program, and praised Schlickmann and President Mark Nemec’s leadership.
“I love the people that I’m surrounded by,” Thibault-DuDonis said after winning the MAAC Championship in 2026. “Not just the administrators, but the other coaches in our department, the energy of our student athletes, it’s truly unlike anywhere I’ve ever been.”
“The process is ongoing,” Thibault-DuDonis told Mid-Major Madness in March before the MAAC Tournament. “What I love about this year is as the college landscape continues to change with the transfer portal, NIL, and all these different ways that affect college athletics, I’m so affirmed in what we are building because there’s such a high-level investment from the top down from our president and our board of trustees all the way through our athletic director. That to me is more affirming than we have to go win an NCAA Tournament game, that we are making this such an elite program.”
However, Fairfield men’s basketball has not been as successful. While the Stags made the MAAC Championship Game in both 2021 and 2024, Fairfield has only finished with a winning record in MAAC play twice in the last nine seasons, albeit both have come in the last three seasons.
Last year’s 11-9 campaign and trip to the semifinals was sparked by growth of a freshman class throughout Chris Casey’s third season at the helm.
The Stags have had one of the top roster budgets in the MAAC over the last few years, and will certainly have a competitive budget in the CAA.
“Paul Schlickmann and (Mark Nemec), they’re all aligned, and three years ago, they did a great job of getting a jump start on this and trying to get an NIL program together, and it’s grown each year,” Casey told Mid-Major Madness in May. “I think we’re doing all the right things here.”
In addition to women’s basketball, Fairfield won MAAC Championships in volleyball, men’s swimming & diving, women’s swimming & diving, Esports (Valorant), and women’s lacrosse in 2025-26.
The move takes the MAAC, which is rebranding to the Metro Conference on July 1, down to 12 schools. Meanwhile, the CAA will move back to 14 teams, which was the number it had from 2023 to 2025 before Delaware left for Conference USA.
MAAC Commissioner Travis Tellitocci released a statement.
Heading into next season in the Metro Conference, Fairfield women’s basketball returns many key pieces, including All-MAAC First Team duo Meghan Andersen and Kaety L’Amoreaux, now seniors, looking to win their fourth championship in four years. As for men’s basketball, the Stags return three of their four freshman starters – Declan Wucherpfennig, Tony Williams, and Halon Rawlins – for their sophomore seasons.
Less than a week before the conference officially adopts the Metro moniker, the league is shaken up. MAAC Commissioner Travis Tellitocci told Mid-Major Madness that he learned of Fairfield’s discussions with the Coastal earlier in the week, but said that he and the membership was not surprised to learn of the move, citing the aforementioned rumors that have been circulating for a number of years now.
“Any time you lose a member,” Tellitocci said. “Especially a charter member, I think you’re disappointed, but obviously, we wish them well.”
Asked whether he sees further expansion as a likely outcome for the conference, Tellitocci answered that the landscape is fluid.
“In terms of conference realignment,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s something that will never stand still. I think you always have to be ready. I equate it to a coaching search as you’re in the same realm of always looking at what options are and trying to be strategic as well. So I don’t think it’s something that will ever stop, to be honest with you.”
“We will continue to have conversations with our membership about what the next steps look like going forward in terms of membership. Those are conversations that we have all the time. It’s not when somebody comes or goes, it’s a constant conversation.”
Asked whether he has had discussions with membership about potential future realignment in the conference in the wake of the Fairfield news, Tellitocci declined to comment.
