College Athletics Making an Eternal Difference: The NCCAA

When most people think of American college athletics, they think of schools like North Carolina, Notre Dame, Southern Cal, Georgia and other big schools who have a history of championship caliber athletics. These schools are members of the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), which was founded back during the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other smaller colleges became members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which is about as old as the NCAA. However, another college athletic association is making a lasting difference in the lives of it's student-athletes, coaches and the communities where it's member institutions reside. It is the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA).

According to its mission statement, the NCCAA was incorporated "to provide a Christian-based organization that functions uniquely as a national and international agency for the promotion of outreach and ministry and for the maintenance, enhancement and promotion of intercollegiate athletic competition with a Christian perspective".
It was founded in Canton, Ohio in 1968, and during that year ,launched its first national tournament in men's basketball in Detroit, Michigan. Lee College (now Lee University) won that first NCCAA national tournament.

There are currently 96 member schools in the NCCAA, and most of these institutions also have memberships in the NAIA and NCAA Div. ll and lll. The NCCAA is divided into two divisions: liberal arts colleges, which offer athletic scholarships, and Bible colleges, who like NCAA Div. lll, do not offer athletic scholarships. The Bible colleges have done well against the liberal arts schools, but in 1975, the Bible colleges decided to go along with a plan to place them in the Div. ll level while the liberal arts schools stayed at Div. l. In 1973, the NCCAA decided to add national competitions in sports such as men's soccer, cross country and track & field. Today, the NCCAA holds national competitions in 23 different sports for both men and women. Some former and current member institutions have produced both professional and Olympic athletes.

As exciting as the athletic competition is in the NCCAA, the organization believes that there are more important things than winning a national tournament. The NCCAA exists for outreach and ministry. As part of every NCCAA national tournament, each participating team is required to participate in a Christian Service Project (CSP). These are opportunities in which student-athletes and coaches go out into the community of the city in which the tournament is held and participate in a variety of service projects. CSPs include visiting children's hospitals, serving the Salvation Army, Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs, Habitat for Humanity, doing yard work around the community, writing to soldiers overseas, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, reading to children in public schools, visiting the elderly in nursing homes, and much more. NCCAA student-athletes and coaches have devoted thousands of hours to these projects, thus "being doers of the Word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22).

Many former NCCAA student-athletes and coaches have gone on to more prominant, and even famous roles. Here are a few examples. Dr. Homer Drew was president of the NCCAA from 1985-87 and coached men's basketball at Bethel College in Indiana during that time. Eleven years later, Dr. Drew would go down in NCAA Tournament history as he would lead the Crusaders of Valparaiso University to an improbable upset win over Mississippi on a last second shot by his son, Bryce Drew.
All Christians in America and around the world know of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA., which was founded by the late Jerry Fallwell in 1971. Nine years later, the men's basketball team of Liberty Baptist College, as it was then known, won its first NCCAA national championship. Though Liberty is now an NCAA Div. l school and no longer a member of the NCCAA, there first and, as far as I know, only national championship came as an NCCAA member. Los Angeles Dodger fans will know the name of Kevin Malone, the club's General Manager. What they don't know is that Malone went to Tennessee Temple University, an NCCAA Div. l school in Chattanooga, TN. The NCCAA's first national tournament in any sport was in 1968 and it was in Men's Basketball. Since then, Tennessee Temple has won 7 NCCAA national titles in Men's Basketball, the most of any member school.
Another former member school, Azuza Pacific University, has produced four Olympic athletes, one former NFL running back and one MLS soccer player. Track and Field star Brian Clay, an APU alum, won a gold medal at both the 2008 and 2004 Summer Olympics. In the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, Clay posted the best score in Olympic history in his event. The other three Olympians from APU were Shot Put and Discus Thrower Vivian Chukwuemeka (06), Cyclist Julie Ertel (99) and Track & Field star Innocent Egbunike (86 & 93). Christian Okoye was a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs back in the late 80s, and former APU Soccer star Steven Lenhart is a member of the Columbus Crew of the MLS.

Another former NCCAA student-athlete will be getting a lot of attention in the next few months as the NFL tries to avoid a possible work stoppage. DeMorris Smith, the head of the NFL's Players Association, is an alum of NCCAA/NAIA member Cedarville University, where he ran Track. Those who know high school sports in the state of Georgia will no the name of Dr. Ralph Swearngin, who is currently the president of the Georgia High School Association (GHSA). From 1987-89, Dr. Swearngin, who was at member school Atlanta Christian College at the time, served as president of the NCCAA. There are many other former NCCAA student-athletes and coaches making a difference for Christ. They are fulfilling the goals of the NCCAA. As it states on the organization's web site, "the NCCAA game plan is to produce true winners: a game plan that will carry an individual through his or her entire life. The game plan is devised to draw out the student-athlete’s greatest potential – body, mind and spirit". For more information on the NCCAA and its member institutions, the reader can go to www.thenccaa.org.