The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a very well-known non-profit organization that plays a huge role in organizing championships. The primary objective of NCAA is to organize several athletic programs of various universities in the United States and Canada as well. The NCAA conducts 90 championships in 24 different sports. They conduct these championships for all the institutions who are registered members of NCAA. Each of the championship programs is run by a team of coaches from the member schools. The experts of each sport of the member schools form the committee of coaches.
1. The Core Values Of The NCAA
The NCAA has around 1117 college and universities as its members, around 100 athletic conferences and 50 affiliated sports organizations. The NCAA headquarters is at Indianapolis. Around 500 employees work at the headquarters, forming the resources, guidelines as well as managing the championship dates and the venues. The NCAA firmly believes on seven core values and shared commitment to the highest level of the integrity and the sportsmanship, constant pursuit of the academics and athletics, working on building an inclusive culture, and respect for the institutional autonomy. The other core values of NCA includes the collegiate model of athletics wherein the students participate as an avocation and enhancing the strength of the member institutions.
2. The Three Divisions Of The NCAA
There are three divisional championships namely Division I, Division II and Division III. The Division I has a set of sports which are classified as Division I Fall Sports, Division I Winter sports and Division I spring sports. Similarly, the other two divisions also have classification as fall, winter and spring sports.
Division I
The Division I schools are found to have the biggest student bodies and manage huge athletic budgets. They also offer a quantifiable number of scholarships to the needed people. Members of Division 1 are known for maintaining the academic standard for the student athletics. Around 350 colleges are in this membership. Nearly 1,70,000 student-athletes from this division compete from this division in the NCAA sports every year.
Division II
The Division II is quite unique as it offers the partial-scholarship to the student-athletes. This division features a very high championship-participation ratio and a robust community. The member schools are in 45 states of the United States and expand into Canada. This is the only NCAA division that conducts the National Championship Festivals and Olympic type of events every year.
Division III
The focus of the NCAA Division III is the academics. The division aims at the minimization of the conflicts between the athletics and academics. This Division III is the largest NCAA division in term of the number of participants as well as the total count of the schools. Nearly 450 institutes are the members of this division with nearly 2,00,000 student-athletes.
3. Championships Conducted By The NCAA
The sports which were channelled by the NCAA includes the basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, swimming and diving, wrestling, gymnastics, rowing, volleyball, rifle, tennis, skiing, football, fencing, lacrosse, soccer, softball, track and field, ice hockey, cross country, bowling, field hockey. The latest to join the list of sanctioned sports was the beach volleyball. For each of the sport sanctioned by NCAA, the organizations award trophies with the gold, silver, and bronze plating for the first, second and third place respectively. The winning teams usually have a permanent possession of the trophies they earned. The trophies remain with the victorious teams unless it is later found of some malpractice during the game.
4. Resources, Guidelines And Manuals For Championships
There are also several resources available for each of the division sports. Some of the prominent resources available to the members are the guidelines and practical measures for venue safety and security and the championship travel information as well. The rules of the NCCA are very precise and rigid. The member representatives usually serve on the various committees which form the rules, proposes the polices around the several college sports. The registered members of NCAA get to decide the rules to be adopted right from the recruiting rules, guidelines, resources, championship rules for various ports and the compliance to the championships and in successfully implementing them.
The official website of NCAA also provides the championship information, the requirements of each of the sports, the manuals, various links and the resources and the committee proceedings. You can view the upcoming NCAA volleyball tournaments in their twitter page. The NCAA conducts around 90 championships in the 24 unique sports across the three divisions. The NCAA conducts these championships in a very organized and disciplined manner.