AMERICUS — After a long day of work at his local YMCA, Anthony Sargent was asleep early Wednesday evening when Georgia Southwestern men’s basketball coach Mike Leeder woke him with the news.

It’s the news that GSW Associate Athletics Director Jaclyn Kaylor had been waiting on for more than a week. She received that much-anticipated phone call Wednesday morning, and now the university can breathe a sigh of relief as it was declared and official member of NCAA’s Division II.

“Today was kind of what we’ve been waiting for three years,” said Kaylor, who has held five other titles since coming to GSW in 2004. “This is a culmination of all of our hard work. We’re just so excited for the kids that have with us for three years now, waiting and waiting to be able to go to the postseason, and now we can say ‘here’s your chance.’ ”

Sargent, the Peach Belt Conference’s leader in scoring and 3-pointers made, has been at GSW for one season, but was excited once he learned the team is now eligible for the postseason.

“We have the chance to try and do something now,” said Sargent. “We’ve got more to look forward to. It’s going to be hard to get into (the postseason), but it will be a lot better this time around.”

GSW started the process three years ago with an exploratory phase in which the athletics department learned what goals it had to accomplish in order to gain Division II membership. Then the past two years, GSW has worked toward implementing those goals, and Kaylor said she was confident the university wouldn’t be turned down.

“I don’t think they had any objection of us coming,” she said. “I know how hard we’ve worked to get to this point. The only thing that separates us now from any other Division II school in the country is money. We’re smaller, and we’ve got less people and less of a budget. Other than that, we’re ready to go.”

Athletics Director Randolph Barksdale said the outcome has been a team effort with GSW President Dr. Kendall Blanchard, compliance coordinator Jennifer Rodkey and Kaylor.

“With Jaclyn, Jennifer Rodkey and all the coaches, they did everything they were supposed to do,” he said. “The waiver was the first thing and when we had that in play, it worked out like we hoped it would. A lot of credit also goes to Dr. Blanchard who came in midway through the process and solidified our efforts.”

The biggest challenges that faced the university were compliance and eligibility. Moving from the NAIA level, a new set of rules and policies had to be learned and put into action. Four new positions were hired including a compliance coordinator, head athletic trainer, men’s soccer coach and sports information director.

Head baseball coach Bryan McLain spoke for the entire coaching staff when he spoke of their hard work and dedication to the process.

“Seeing all the effort they’ve put in, along with the good comments we’ve had, their hard work got us here,” he said.

Said Leeder: “From watching the process from afar, this is quite an accomplishment. I’ve watched more paperwork and documentation go out the door, and to watch that come to fruition, I don’t know if anyone’s worked harder than that foursome to get it done.”

GSW looked into moving toward Division II in 1996, but for uncertain reasons, it pulled out of the process. McLain, who enters his fifth season as head coach and 13th overall with the baseball program, said GSW has had a lot of growth since that first exploratory phase, including an on-campus baseball and softball complex, and the addition of the men’s and women’s soccer programs.

Kaylor said the move will help every program in recruiting, and the university is excited for the future of GSW athletics.