National Collegiate Athletic Association at Northeastern?

It's September 2010, and it is time for college football to start. All the students at Northeastern must be very excited about following our football team. However there is one issue standing in the way of this happening - NEIU does not belong to the NCAA. The question is "why doesn't the school participate in the NCAA?" Is it because the school doesn't want any sports here, or the school doesn't have the resources to bring big time sports to the campus? Many students are in favor of having teams that can compete against other schools.

After speaking with Dave Merrill, associate director of campus recreation, it became obvious that there are good reasons why NEIU does not have division one sports teams. The main reason is cost. The university is putting their resources into academics and art Programs. The decision to take funds away from the athletic department was made by a former president of the university, This decision was not made lightly.At one time, Northeastern did belong to the NCAA. That was in the mid to late 1990s. It would be extremely difficult to establish a new athletic program. There would have to be a heavy commitment from school authorities, as well as proper funding, to keep the programs going. At this point, funds would have to come from the student body. In these slow economic times, this may seem unrealistic, but funds would probably have to be taken away from other programs as well.

Therefore, NEIU has gone in a different direction. Northeastern has intramural sports, such as basketball and football. These are performed within the NEIU community. In other words, teams are put together with the students that attend school and are willing to participate. Northeastern also has sports clubs which do compete with other schools around the country. They compete in men and women's volley ball as well as women's soccer. These are considered spectator sports, but they are not on the same level as other universities involved with the NCAA

Due to the lack of funds available, and other hurdles, it seems that Northeastern Illinois University decided to take the athletic program in the direction of intramural sports clubs.

Future articles will investigate how other local schools have gotten started with the NCAA. Maybe the NEIU community can use those schools as an example, which may open the door for NEIU to become a part of the NCAA in the future.