The Big South Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I. A non-football conference, the Big South began sponsoring football in 2002, its football teams are part of the Football Championship Subdivision. The Big South, founded in 1983, is rooted in the South Atlantic region of the United States, with full member institutions located in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia. Associate members are located in Alabama and New Jersey. Charter members included Armstrong State, Campbell University, Baptist College, Coastal Carolina University, Radford University and Winthrop University; the expansion of membership occurred during the'90s. Some of those members are the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Davidson College, Liberty University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Towson University, Elon University, High Point University and Birmingham–Southern College; the Big South Conference began sponsoring football in 2002, with Charleston Southern and Liberty fielding teams.
In that same athletic year, VMI joined the conference for all sports, but left to re-join the Southern Conference in 2014. Presbyterian College joined the conference in 2007, moving up from Division II, became eligible for regular-season championships and conference honors during the 2008–09 athletic year. Gardner–Webb, a football-only member since 2002, joined the conference for all sports on July 1, 2008. Campbell rejoined the Big South for all sports except football in the 2011–12 athletic year. Longwood University accepted an invitation to join the Big South on January 23, 2012, membership formally began July 1 of that year. In 2014, following the departure of VMI, the conference returned to a single-division structure. On September 1, 2015, Coastal Carolina announced they would leave the conference following the 2015–16 school year to transition to FBS-level football and the Sun Belt Conference. On June 30, 2016, the day before the school joined the Sun Belt, Coastal Carolina won the 2016 College World Series in baseball.
This was the first time in conference history. In September 2016, the Big South and the Atlantic Sun Conference announced a football partnership that combined the two conferences in that sport. Under its terms, any members of either conference that add or upgrade to scholarship football, provided they fall within the current geographic footprint of the two leagues, automatically join Big South football. At the time of announcement, the only ASUN member that played scholarship football, Kennesaw State, was a Big South football member; the partnership provides a guaranteed football home to the leagues' non-scholarship football programs should they upgrade to scholarship status. In November 2016, Campbell announced that it would begin offering scholarships and move its football program from the Pioneer Football League to the Big South in 2018. In December 2016, the University of North Alabama, ASUN, the Big South Conference announced that, effective in 2018, the school will leave the Division II Gulf South Conference and will join ASUN in non-football sports and the Big South in football.
UNA has won three Division II NCAA national championships in football and has won at least a share of the Gulf South Conference football championship for four consecutive seasons through 2016. Three months Liberty announced that it would begin a transition to FBS football in July 2017 and leave the Big South football league in 2018. Liberty and the Big South agreed in 2017 that the school would continue to house all of its non-football sports in that conference for the immediate future. Once Liberty became a full FBS member at the start of the 2019–20 school year, it would have technically become a Big South associate member. However, Liberty's plans would change several months as it instead announced in May 2018 that it would move its non-football sports to the ASUN effective that July. In November 2017, the University of South Carolina Upstate and Hampton University announced that they would be leaving the ASUN and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to join the Big South, starting in the fall of 2018.
On November 19, 2017, Presbyterian College announced it would be moving its football program to the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League. Presbyterian's last Big South football season will be 2019; the Blue Hose will remain a member of the Big South in all other sports. The Big South's most announced membership change is the July 2021 arrival of North Carolina A
Patrick Edward Dobson, Jr. was an American right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians. He was best known for being one of four Orioles pitchers to win 20 games in their 1971 season. Born in Depew, New York in 1942, Dobson signed with Detroit in 1959. After spending seven years in the minor leagues and winter ball, pitching both in relief and starting, he made his debut with the big team in the 1967 season after starting the season 4–1 with a 1.47 ERA in six starts for the AAA Toledo Mud Hens. Dobson would spend the next 2 1/2 years as a reliever and spot starter for the Tigers including pitching 4 2/3 innings of relief in the team's 1968 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Unable to claim a spot in the Tigers' rotation of Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain, Earl Wilson, Joe Sparma, Dobson was traded to San Diego in 1969 along with Dave Campbell for a young Joe Niekro.
After going 14–15 with 185 strikeouts and a 3.76 earned run average as the staff ace for the last-place Padres, he was traded to Baltimore on December 1 as part of a six-player swap. In 1971 Dobson had a winning streak of 12 games and a scoreless inning streak of 23. On September 24, he recorded a 7 -- 0 shutout against the Indians. Dobson posted a 20–8, 187, 2.90 season record, was part of the Orioles' "Big Four" pitching staff along with Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Jim Palmer. Baltimore went on to win 101 games, with the distinction of having four 20-game winners in a season. On November 2, 1971, Dobson threw a 2–0 no-hitter against the Yomiuri Giants in Tokyo, it was the first no-hit game in the Japanese-American baseball exhibition history. Dobson was an All-Star in 1972, his 2.65 ERA was a major improvement from his 20-win season, but he went 16-18, tying for the AL lead in losses with Yankee Mel Stottlemyre. On November 30, 1972, he was traded to the Braves along with Davey Johnson in a five-player trade for Earl Williams.
After starting the 1973 season 3–7, Dobson was sent to the Yankees on June 7 for four minor league players. Escaping Atlanta, he again finished the season with a 9 -- 8 record for the Yankees. Dobson started the 1974 campaign weakly. However, Dobson anchored the Yankees' pitching staff in the second half of the season, finishing with a 19–15 record and a 3.07 ERA, the best numbers that year for a Yankee pitcher. After a slumping 11–14, 4.07 in 1975, Dobson was traded to the Indians, recovered in 1976 with a 16–12, 3.48. After his 3–12, 6.16 record in 1977, he finished his career. In his 11-season career Dobson had a record of 122–129, with 1,301 strikeouts, a 3.54 earned run average, 74 complete games, 14 shutouts, 19 saves, 2,120 ⅓ innings pitched in 414 games. After his playing days, Dobson became a respected pitching coach with the Brewers, Padres and Orioles. From 1989 to 1990, he was the manager of the Fort Myers Sun Sox of the Senior Professional Baseball Association, leading the team to a 37–35 record and a playoff berth in his first season and an 11–14 record at the time of the league's demise on December 26, 1990.
In 1997, Dobson joined the San Francisco Giants organization and worked as an advance major league scout and assistant to general manager Brian Sabean. Dobson died from leukemia in 2006 in San Diego, California at the age of 64, one day after being diagnosed with the disease, he is survived by multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 1968 Detroit Tigers season Career statistics and player information from MLB, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs Pat Dobson at Find a Grave "Former Orioles 20-game winner Dobson dies at 64" ESPN.com
TROX-1 is a drug which acts as a potent blocker of the Cav2 type calcium channels. It was developed as a potential analgesic after the discovery that the selective Cav2.2 blocker ziconotide is an active analgesic with similar efficacy to strong opioid drugs but comparatively milder side effects. Unlike ziconotide, TROX-1 is not so selective, blocks the Cav2.1 and Cav2.3 calcium channel subtypes, but it has the great advantage of being orally active, whereas ziconotide must be administered intrathecally, by injection into the spinal fluid. In animal studies of TROX-1, analgesic effects were observed with similar efficacy to NSAIDs such as naproxen or diclofenac, anti-allodynia effects equivalent to pregabalin or duloxetine