It seems like every year about this time that I start reflecting on the year that it has been in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. I certainly mean no disrespect to the spring sports as their championships are yet to come. Moreover, it seems like spring is the transition time to the new athletic season and what will happen in the next 365 days not only in terms of the student-athlete side but on the legislative and administrative side.
The NAIA National Convention will run April 15th through the 19th in Kansas City, Mo. this month and there are several interesting amendments up on the docket. While most of the amendments come across to me as minor administrative house cleaning there is one amendment that I feel will help define the future of the NAIA.
Requirement of Six Championship Participating Sports
The proposed amendment from the Great Plains Athletic Conference would set a minimum required amount of sports in the NAIA to six. Currently, there is no minimum required amount of sports to be in the NAIA. The amendment targets schools that less than ideal athletic programs and provides distinction between the NAIA and schools that participate in the USCAA, NCCAA and ACCA.
Some may argue that the amendment takes from the spirit of the NAIA and some of the history by now requiring schools to add sports that might have been members for a number of years. I would argue that the ability to get to six sports can be achieved pretty easily. Take for instance adding men’s and women’s cross country. If you had no formal athletic program you could add cross country and get to six sports really easily. In the fall men’s and women’s cross country would count as two, winter would be men’s and women’s indoor track and in the spring it would be track and field. While it is not an ideal plan, a school could easily get to six sports with minimal added costs.
Additionally there could be special exceptions, which is a provision that is built into this proposal. For example, College of the Ozarks only has 4 sports. As an institution College of the Ozarks is a “work university” and a longtime member of the NAIA. It would be my thought process where they could fall into the exception bucket.
But I digress. The reason the minimum sport requirement is important is much like last year’s amendment that prevents schools accepted into the NCAA from participating in NAIA championships outside of their application year. These amendments define what the NAIA will be and who will be members of the NAIA in the future.
Clearly Defining What is the NAIA
That is one thing no one could define for me ten years ago about the NAIA. When asked the question “What is the NAIA?” the respondents could really only offer vague idealology of what we were told the NAIA was. The NAIA was “athletes of character” or “schools with the same mission” or “the right game for life”. But on paper, what was really the difference between the NAIA and NCAA DII or DIII? Scholarship levels? Championship travel reimbursement? An implied lack of rules and standards? A clearing house?
In reality there really isn’t much difference between an NAIA school and an NCAA DII or DIII school if you take a look at the broad stroke of small college athletics. All the schools have to fight for every dollar they are given, recruit constantly to find athletes and are underappreciated by the masses who would rather watch blowouts in round one of the DI championships than two teams at their level gutting it out in the national tournament as part of a two overtime thriller.
In the world of small college athletics, they are constantly fighting for every morsel and scrap left over after the big boys are done with their feasts.
The last year in the NAIA has helped to change and define what the organization will be the most since the switch from the NAIA Executive Committee as leadership to the Council of Presidents model.
At NAIA Convention 2010 in Cincinnati, the NAIA members voted on and drew a clear line in the sand by adopting the bylaw that prevents schools from participating in the postseason once they make the choice to leave the NAIA.
The NAIA also launched “Play NAIA” eligibility center last September which will act as a clearinghouse and provide clear, distinct decisions on new participant eligibility. It has also provided the NAIA with a revenue model that previously didn’t exist. Within four years the NAIA will have over 50,000 student athletes participating in its sanction sports each of whom have paid $60 to the eligibility center to become certified to play in the NAIA. That’s over 3 million dollars of revenue to the NAIA within the next 48 months that previously did not exist.
John Leavans, executive director of the NAIA Eligibility Center, spoke at the NAIA Eligibility Webinar earlier this spring. As part of that webinar he revealed that the NAIA already had 7300 athletes into the system and fully paid, well ahead of early expectations.
Over the past five years the NAIA has also shown night and day difference in terms of rules and enforcement. The NAIA has adopted more in sport discipline guidelines as well as new punishments enforced for schools that break eligibility rules.
By adopting the proposed sport minimum this spring the NAIA membership will carve one more piece of what clearly separates its governing body from the others of college athletics.
The NAIA by 2016
Ask the question “What is the NAIA?” in five years and the answer I feel will be even more clearly defined. Everything the Council of Presidents, NAIA committees and national office staff are currently working on will lend the NAIA to a cleaner, more concise national governing body.
We haven’t seen the end of changes and that only lends the NAIA to better positioning. I firmly believe in the near future we will see the NAIA move from two divisions of basketball back one division with schools given the opportunity to offer eight scholarships as a compromise between NAIA DI and NAIA DII. (Currently DII’s have five scholarships and DI’s have 11 scholarships)
The NAIA will have fewer members by 2016 and no one is debating that. But with the reduction in membership the NAIA will gain schools and strengthen conferences with a tighter fit to the NAIA’s new standards. Given the current NCAA membership initiatives, coupled with new programs coming into the NAIA, the optimal number of members will move from the current total of 289 to around 250-270 active members.
The NAIA will also begin reimbursing postseason travel at a higher rate. Even with the loss in membership the NAIA will have more dollars to go around due to the money derived from the eligibility center. While the NAIA will likely never reimburse at a 100% rate for postseason travel they will certainly find a higher rate in which to reimburse.
It is my sincere hope that the NAIA and the Victory Sports Network can find even more ways to partner and raise the level of national promotion of NAIA athletics. We currently work together on several small projects but with the changing time in the world of media we could partner together for something bigger than ever imagined.
The face of college athletics is constantly changing and it will never get to a point where things will stop. It’s a business, businesses must adapt or else they will not survive. The NCAA and NAIA are both adjusting to fit the needs of their clients and the NAIA is making an attempt at clearing defining what they will be in the near future.