The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) was born from a basketball association, which grew out of a tournament associated with a famous name — Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball.
The 1937 men’s basketball tournament, held in Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium, was the brainchild of Emil S. Liston, Naismith, Frank Cramer, and a group of Kansas City business leaders who wanted to provide Kansas City-area fans with exciting amateur competition and a framework for small colleges and universities to determine a national basketball champion. In 1938, the original eight-team tournament expanded to 32 teams. And in 1940, the first convention of the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) was held in downtown Kansas City.
In 1948, the NAIB took the historic step of opening that tournament to black student-athletes, becoming the first national intercollegiate athletics association to provide postseason opportunities where blacks and whites could compete side by side.
Then in 1952, the NAIB was transformed into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and the first all-encompassing set of rules and standards was adopted by the membership. A year later, the NAIA became the first national intercollegiate athletics association to accept historically black institutions as members.
In 1957, the Association’s headquarters moved from the campus of George Pepperdine College in Los Angeles to Kansas City to serve the membership from a centralized location.
With the Association’s new name came the addition of national championships in golf, tennis and outdoor track and field. Football, cross country, baseball and swimming and diving were added to the championships calendar in 1956. Wrestling (1958), soccer (1959), bowling (1962-78), gymnastics (1964-84), indoor track and field (1966) and men’s volleyball (1969-80) were later additions.
In 1976, the men’s basketball tournament was moved from Municipal Auditorium to Kemper Arena, also in Kansas City. It marked the first time since 1937 that the tournament had been held in a different arena.
In 1980, the NAIA membership voted to become the first national intercollegiate athletics association to offer athletics opportunities for both women and men. The championship calendar for women began that year with basketball, cross country, gymnastics, indoor and outdoor track and field, softball, tennis and volleyball. Soccer was added in 1984, and golf was included in 1995. Gymnastics was discontinued after the 1988 championship.
In 1985, the membership changed the NAIA voting structure to one institution, one vote. Effective August 1 of that year, each member institution in good standing received one vote at the annual meeting, rather than the representative voting structure of one vote per six members within each district.
Reflecting national sentiment for a greater accountability within intercollegiate athletics, the Council of Presidents moved from an advisory capacity to active leadership on August 1, 1986. As the Association’s board of directors, the Council of Presidents assumed responsibility for all budget and fiscal matters, employment and supervision of the President/Chief Executive Officer and National Office staff, and for continuing to review, evaluate and strengthen academic standards.
In 1992, the Association voted to move its headquarters from Kansas City to Tulsa, Okla. On August 1, 1993, the NAIA opened its doors in Tulsa and the Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship, which had been held in Kansas City for 56 years, moved with it.
During the 1993 NAIA National Convention in Atlanta, the membership voted to institute affiliated conference and regional groupings and discontinue the use of district play as a means of qualification for national championships, marking the first time since the NAIA’s creation that district competition would not be used. The 1994 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments were the first events in NAIA history to use conference and regional play to determine postseason participants. Beginning in August of 1994, every NAIA team or individual relied on conference and regional tournaments to earn postseason berths.
In 2000, the NAIA launched its Champions of Character® initiative, which promotes the five core values of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership.
The NAIA National Office moved to Olathe, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, in 2001. With that move, the men’s Division I basketball tournament, now formally the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship, returned to its original home—Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City.
In 2006, the Council of Presidents named Jim Carr President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association. Carr is the seventh executive officer for the NAIA and first served as Interim President and CEO during the eight-month search by the Council of Presidents. Carr joined the NAIA in July 1998 as managing director and general counsel and later was named chief operating officer while retaining the title of general counsel.
The NAIA relocated to its current offices at 1200 Grand in Kansas City, Mo., in 2007.
That same year, the NAIA completed a three-year study of regional realignment and ultimately the Council of Presidents approved a recommendation to transition to a direct qualification model for selected championships with the fall of 2008.
In 2009, the NAIA membership approved the concept of a national eligibility center. Later that year, the Council of Presidents approved a recommendation to establish a separate legal entity known as the NAIA Eligibility Center, which began reviewing records and issuing eligibility decisions for all first-time NAIA student-athletes in 2011.
As of 2022, the NAIA offers 28 national championships for the more than 60,000 student-athletes who participate at its member institutions.
For more information about the NAIA, please visit www.NAIA.org