(2-7-10) YES! The NAIA will survive the latest changes they are seeing in membership changes. However; the NAIA in the future will be a different looking association then what we knew from the past. The loss in the future of some very quality members to the NCAA will hurt the “core” of the NAIA. The schools leaving or looking to leave have been very solid and support a full-supplement of sports. The new NAIA will feature schools who have a smaller number of programs and also financial strength.

The future of the NAIA will rest on the addition of schools starting new athletic programs, National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) Division II members and United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) schools.

*1 - Three NAIA conferences that we know of have already added or are looking at adding members that have not even been accepted yet for NAIA membership. The Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference, and The Sunrise Conference have already announced new members who have not been accepted into the NAIA . The Sunrise Conference is looking at two schools who are for-profit schools. The NAIA has not recognized for-profit schools in the past, but that is expected to change in April. The Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference has verified that they have talked to a USCAA only school recently. Don’t be surprised to see other conferences doing the same to solidify the membership.

One issue the NAIA will have to keep a close eye on is the membership changes within NAIA conferences. Two conferences may not be around in the future due to departures of members to other NAIA conferences. The Gulf Coast Athletic Conference is down to four members after a large number left for the Southern States Athletic Conference and another one left recently for the Red River Athletic Conference. At one time one of the largest in numbers NAIA conference the American Mideast Conference is on the brink of being just a memory. Hit over the past several years of schools leaving for the NCAA, they also lost two members to the Mid South Conference and one to the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference in the past year. The remaining AMC members have yet to decide the future of the conference with possibilities of more members leaving in the future.

Another issue facing the NAIA is that many of their members are independents and most only sponsor a small amount of athletic programs. The NAIA has in place a conference to allow these members an opportunity of qualifying for championships, the Association of Independent Institutions. The issues facing these schools with changes in membership is scheduling other NAIA opponents due to the way present membership is spreading out.

*2 - The NAIA will also need to look at men’s and women’s basketball, which is the only NAIA sport played in divisions. This will depend on how many schools actually do leave to join the NCAA in either D2 or D3. There will have to b some adjustments made with scholarships offered. This thought will have to be looked at in-depth after membership issues settle down.

The NAIA is also updating the eligibility process for future NAIA athletes, something that many of the schools wanted to be incorporated. This will be a process that will be a time consuming process and a work in progress for both the NAIA and member schools. Most NAIA schools do not have compliance people in place like NCAA members are required to have. This process was installed after talks fell through between the NAIA and NCAA, as the NAIA had hoped to be included in the NCAA clearing house.

With the addition of future members from the NCCAA and the USCAA an issue that may be facing the NAIA is finances. Many of these new schools that are being accepted have limited finances for athletics and with the economy the way it is issues dealing with membership fees, etc will need to be considered. This will also force the leadership of the NAIA to consider structuring staff in a way to meet these changes.

We have had many people tell us that the NCAA is trying to “close-down” the NAIA. Had they wanted to do this they had everything in place to do it, yet they tightened the process to become a D2 member and actually turned away quality schools who applied. The NCAA basically shut the barn door before all the animals got out. We could have been talking about a mass exodus of NAIA members to the NCAA, had the NCAA accepted anyone who applied. The latest application process to D2 will still get a good group applying, but only 10 a year will be accepted. The new application may have already had schools drop out of the process. Many current NAIA members who have never considered moving to the NCAA are still committed to making the NAIA work because they still believe in the concept. This would be a good time for those members to step up and help with this new process.

The NAIA will survive all of this, but the key to making it work is to adjust to the new changes taking place in the association.

NOTES - added 2-9-10

*2 - New next year in the Chicagoland Conference will be a conference mandate that all the D2’s in the conference must play all the D1’s in the conference one time. In the past basketball was played according to divisions.