Forging a Path: The History of the NAIA

[00:00:00] On March 12, 1937, Central Missouri State wins the very first national basketball tournament, which later forms to the NAIA, which today is the second largest college athletic organization in the country. Here's a story behind the NAIA. Today on Daily Sports History.

[00:00:32] Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive in this sports history every day. Now the NAIA stands for National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and it all started in 1937 when James Nacement, the creator of basketball in some other local leaders in Kansas,

[00:00:58] put together a tournament for basketball. There's known as the National Intercollegiate Basketball tournament, and it happened in Kansas City, Missouri. I know you might think, what didn't James Nacement create basketball back in Massachusetts?

[00:01:14] Yes, he did, but later on he took a job teaching and coaching the Kansas University J-Hawks and was their very first basketball coach. This tournament that they held in 1937 was the first of its kind to try to stay to national championship for basketball.

[00:01:33] This was two years before the NCAA had tournament, at the time the NCAA was more organized around football. James Nacement, of course, always loved basketball as it was his creation. So he put it together a tournament in two years later,

[00:01:49] then the NCAA followed with their own tournament, but seeing as the NCAA was more focused on football, they went into formal organization for basketball. And that's when they formed the NAIA IB, the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball, to help schools that were more focused on basketball than football.

[00:02:08] And the one thing that NAIA was always known for, was being innovative and being ahead of everyone else. In 1948 was the first time they allowed integration into college basketball.

[00:02:23] It was the first time anyone did. At Indiana State, Clarence Walker, coach by the legendary John Wooden, played in the NAIA IB tournament, which in the Indiana State left the NCAA because they would not allow him to play.

[00:02:40] Then in 1952, they changed their name to the NAIA, because they were adding other sports. They introduced golf, tennis and track and field. And then four years later, they would add football.

[00:02:55] Then the next year in 1953, they were the first collegiate organization to invite historically back institutions to be members. In 1957, one of those historic black colleges that was invited to the state won the National Championship.

[00:03:15] Always being ahead of the pace in 1980, they decided to add women's championships along with their min sports and add a nine women's championships. Again, ahead of the NCAA. In 2008, adopted the Champions of Character, emphasizing character development among their student athletes.

[00:03:40] In 2014, they started to do a showcase to allow athletes better chances to connect with coaches to get recruited. In 2019, they were the first also to add name, image and likeness for student athletes.

[00:03:57] Now today, the NAIA schools offer over a billion dollars in scholarship and have over 240 members and continues to be our adding members to this day.

[00:04:08] With over 80,000 student athletes participating with sports that include baseball bowling, cheering dance cross country, lacrosse football, soccer golf, tennis volleyball wrestling and track and field. You may not know the NAIA very well because they're mainly for smaller institutions.

[00:04:32] The NCAA grew far larger than the NAIA ever did because their focus was more on football. They're basketball as it was more established at the time and allowed them to get more traction with bigger state schools that you see today.

[00:04:50] But smaller private schools that wanted their own way chosen the NAIA because different is they're more flexible and willing to adapt to changes quicker as we've seen as they were the first to allow African Americans to play and allow women to play.

[00:05:08] But that doesn't mean their aren't great players have came out of the NAIA. Basketball Hall of Famers will succeed in this kind of way. Both play at NAIA schools football Hall of Famers, Mel Blunt, Walter Peyton, but ourselves and Jim Thorpe all attended NAIA schools.

[00:05:27] They have multiple gold medal Olympians that attended NAIA schools. Now if you don't know much about NAIA today there's a structure and college is kind of broken down is you have the NCAA division one.

[00:05:41] Those are the ones that are on TV all the time your Alabama's, your Notre Dame's, USC's those are the big schools those are division ones they give out most scholarships full rides.

[00:05:52] It's their players then there's division two this is a smaller division and they don't give as much scholarships for their still scholarships institutions. And they give just a few more scholarships than the NAIA and the NAIA allow for scholarships as well.

[00:06:09] And they are on par with division two in NCAA on competition level. These teams do play each other every now and then and it does allow for great competition.

[00:06:22] And then there's three in college in the NCAA which is our schools that offer no scholarship at all just the opportunity to play sports again.

[00:06:31] And those are generally seen to be just a little under in a IA and competition level but they can't the higher levels such as Wisconsin whitewater or mountain union who wouldn't championship every year. In football can compete with higher level in AI or division two schools.

[00:06:48] It's kind of the breakdown and then I is kind of looked down as a great opportunity because it doesn't focus so much on what you did before.

[00:06:58] There there's they allow for people that struggled in high school academically the chance to continue their education which is great because some of us didn't learn well or went in the right situation and this allows you with that chance.

[00:07:15] So their their academic standards aren't as high to get in but you have the chance to do better while in college.

[00:07:22] And I think that's why a lot of these institutions join the NAIA because it's more flexible and they can allow more students to join and it's a great organization that continues to grow. Thank you for joining us today on Daily Sports History.

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