The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ( NAIA ) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to their student athletes. Around $ 1.3 billion in athletic scholarship financial aid is awarded to student athletes annually.
23-724: The Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference ( AIC ) was an athletic conference in existence from 1927 or 1928 to 1995 affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The conference membership consisted entirely of colleges and universities in the state of Arkansas . Some references indicate that the league started competition in 1927 while others list a 1928 date. The league seems to have competed in baseball and basketball in 1927-28 and started football competition in 1929. Some references list football championships for 1927 and 1928 while others do not so these may have been unofficial titles that anticipated
46-1361: A part of any of these conferences play in the Continental Athletic Conference , formerly the Association of Independent Institutions. *- Denotes that the conference sponsors football. †- Denotes a football-only conference. 1952 in sports 1952 in sports describes the year's events in world sport. England Spain Italy Germany France Portugal Victorian Football League South Australian National Football League Western Australian National Football League NBA Finals Spain Events England Australia India New Zealand South Africa Men's professional Men's amateur Women's professional Steeplechases Hurdle races Flat races Speed Skating World Championships Australia England France USA Davis Cup Awarded retrospectively by
69-499: A series of do-it-yourself home improvement videos, became the first college student-athlete known to have profited from an endorsement under the current rules. The NAIA sponsors 16 sports in which it conducts 28 annual championships (13 for men, 13 for women, 2 co-ed). The NAIA recognizes three levels of competitions: "emerging" (15 or more institutions sponsoring as varsity and declared), "invitational" (25 or more institutions sponsoring as varsity and declared for postseason, Approval of
92-705: A women's division in the spring of 1975 and held the first women's national championship volleyball tournament that fall. In 1997, Liz Heaston became the first female college athlete to play and score in a college football game when she kicked two extra points during the 1997 Linfield vs. Willamette football game . Launched in 2000 by the NAIA, the Champions of Character program promotes character and sportsmanship through athletics. The Champions of Character conducts clinics and has developed an online training course to educate athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators with
115-751: The Chuck Taylor Most Valuable Player award since 1939, as well as the Charles Stevenson Hustle Award ("Charlie Hustle"), which was the basis for Pete Rose 's nickname, given to him by Whitey Ford . From 1992 to 2020, basketball was the only NAIA sport in which the organization's member institutions were aligned into divisions. Effective with the 2020–21 academic year, the NAIA returned to a single division for both men's and women's basketball. The NAIA has 21 member conferences, including 9 that sponsor football. Member institutions that are not
138-588: The 2023–24 season, it had 241 member institutions , of which two are in British Columbia , one in the U.S. Virgin Islands , and the rest in the continental United States , with over 83,000 student-athletes participating. The NAIA, whose headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri , sponsors 28 national championships. CBS Sports Network , formerly called CSTV, serves as the national media outlet for
161-572: The NAIA was split into two divisions in 1970, based on enrollment (Divisions I and II); it was consolidated back into a single division in 1997. The 1948 NAIB national tournament was the first intercollegiate postseason to feature a Black student-athlete, Clarence Walker of Indiana State under coach John Wooden . Wooden had withdrawn from the 1947 tournament because the NAIB would not allow Walker to play. The association furthered its commitment to African-American athletes when, in 1953, it became
184-576: The NAIA, in partnership with the National Football League (NFL), announced the addition of flag football as a varsity sport for female student-athletes. The NAIA became the first collegiate governing body to sanction the sport at the varsity level. Women's flag began during the 2021 season as an emerging sport with about 15 teams. Name, image, and likeness reform — In October 2020, the NAIA passed legislation that allows student-athletes at its member institutions to be compensated for
207-527: The NAIA. In 2014, ESPNU began carrying the NAIA Football National Championship . In 1937, James Naismith and local leaders, including George Goldman and Emil Liston, staged the first National College Basketball Tournament at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri , of which Goldman was director, one year before the first National Invitation Tournament and two years before the first NCAA tournament . The goal of
230-516: The National Administrative Council), and "championship" (40 or more institutions sponsoring as varsity, Minimum of two Invitationals held, Approval of the National Administrative Council). The association conducts, or has conducted in the past, championship tournaments in the following sports (year established). The NAIA men's basketball championship is the longest-running collegiate national championship of any sport in
253-597: The United States. The tournament was the brainchild of Dr. James Naismith , creator of the game of basketball; Emil Liston , athletic director at Baker University ; and Frank Cramer, founder of Cramer Athletic Products. The event began in 1937 with the inaugural tournament at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 2017 men's championship marked the 80th edition of what has been tabbed College Basketball's Toughest Tournament. The tournament has awarded
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#1732793213514276-670: The conference. In 1983, the conference sanctioned women's sports for the first time. Prior to this most women's teams competed in the Arkansas Women's Extramural Sports Association (AWESA) which was founded in 1965 and later renamed as the Arkansas Women's Intercollegiate Sports Association (AWISA) in 1973. In 1993, Central Arkansas and Henderson State elected to move to the NCAA Division II Gulf South Conference and were followed by
299-430: The exception of cheerleading and dance. The NAIA began sponsoring intercollegiate championships for women in 1980 , the second coed national athletics association to do so, offering collegiate athletics championships to women in basketball, cross country, gymnastics, indoor and outdoor track and field, softball, swimming and diving, tennis and volleyball. The National Junior College Athletic Association had established
322-479: The first association to admit colleges and universities from outside the United States. The NAIA began admitting Canadian members in 1967. Football – The NAIA was the first association to send a football team to Europe to play. In the summer of 1976, the NAIA sent Henderson State and Texas A&I to play 5 exhibition games in West Berlin, Vienna, Nuremberg, Mannheim and Paris. Flag football – In May 2020,
345-585: The first collegiate association to invite historically black colleges and universities into its membership. In 1957, Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State) became the first historically Black institution to win a collegiate basketball national championship. In 1959, Southern University became the first HBCU to win the NAIA Baseball championship. In 2024, NAIA instituted a ban on those transgender men who have begun transgender hormone therapy and all transgender women from competing in women’s sports, with
368-405: The new rules and did not strictly enforce them. In December 1955 several AIC schools declared that they would no longer play SAU or Tech due to unspecified violations of the rule and neither school was able to compete for titles in any sport during the 1956 and 1957 school years. This situation was finally resolved in 1959 when a compromise was reached and Southern Arkansas and Tech were "restored" to
391-475: The old AIC school's swimming programs a chance to compete for championships. Full member (all sports) Shared championships are shown in italics : Following are the AIC regular-season conference champions from 1928 to 1995 (showing shared championships in italics ) NOTE: Information is incomplete. NOTE: Information is incomplete National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics For
414-557: The remaining public schools in 1995 which marked the end of the conference. Two of the remaining private schools, Ouachita Baptist and Harding, were accepted into the Lone Star Conference . The other private school, John Brown University, joined the Sooner Athletic Conference as the AIC dissolved. The New South Intercollegiate Swim Conference was formed after the dissolution to provide several of
437-478: The skills necessary to promote character development in the context of sport. In 2010, the association opened the NAIA Eligibility Center, where prospective student-athletes are evaluated for academic and athletic eligibility. It delivers on the NAIA's promise of integrity by leveling the playing field, guiding student-athlete success, and ensuring fair competition. Membership – The NAIA was
460-533: The start of the league's football competition. In 1941, with many member institutions suffering from reduced male student populations, the AIC suspended competition in order to save gasoline and other resources necessary for the war effort. Competition was not resumed until the 1945 season. In December 1952 the AIC schools implemented new "amateurism" rules that no scholarships or subsidies would be offered to athletes beyond those that were available to regular students. Southern Arkansas and Arkansas Tech were opposed to
483-556: The tournament was to establish a forum for small colleges and universities to determine a national basketball champion. The original eight-team tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1938. On March 10, 1940, the National Association for Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) was formed in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1952 , the NAIB was transformed into the NAIA, and with that came the sponsorship of additional sports such as men's golf, tennis and outdoor track and field. Football in
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#1732793213514506-487: The use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). According to an NAIA press release, student-athletes can now "receive compensation for promoting any commercial product, enterprise, or for any public or media appearance", and can also "reference their intercollegiate athletic participation in such promotions or appearances." The NAIA had allowed student-athletes to receive NIL compensation since 2014, but had not previously allowed them to reference their status as such. The NAIA
529-499: Was several years ahead of the NCAA in NIL reform; the NCAA did not adopt NIL reform until 2021, after its hand was forced by multiple states passing legislation to allow student-athletes to receive such compensation, most notably California . In December 2020, Chloe Mitchell, a volleyball player at NAIA member Aquinas College who at the time had more than 2 million followers on TikTok with
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