TheNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), founded in 1906, is the major governing body for intercollegiate athletics in the United States and currently conducts national championships in its sponsored sports, except for thetop level offootball. Before the NCAA offered a championship for any particular sport, intercollegiate national championships in that sport were determined independently. Although the NCAA sometimes lists these historic championships in its official records, it has not awarded retroactive championship titles.
Prior to NCAA inception of a sport, intercollegiate championships were conducted and usually espoused in advance as competitions for the national championship. Many winners were recognized in contemporary newspapers and other publications as the "national intercollegiate" champions. These are not to be confused with the champions of early 20th-century single-sport alliances of northeastern U.S. colleges that were named "Intercollegiate League" or "Intercollegiate Association." These leagues generally included some of the colleges that later became theIvy League, as well as an assortment of other northeastern universities.
Even after the NCAA began organizing national championships, some non-NCAA organizations conducted their own national championship tournaments, usually as a supplement to the NCAA events. A notable example is that of NCAA Division III men's volleyball. Although theNCAA Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship, established in 1970, was in theory open to D-III schools, none had received a berth in that tournament. As a result,a separate championship event, open only to D-III schools, was created in 1997. That event was discontinued after its 2011 edition once the NCAA announced it would sponsoran official Division III championship starting in 2012.
The historical championship event outcomes included in the primary list section were decided by actual games organized for the purpose of determining a champion on the field of play. Lists of other championships for collegiate athletic organizations are referenced in later sections (see Table of Contents). It doesnot includeHelms Athletic Foundation orPremo-Porretta Power Poll selections, which were awarded retrospectively.[1][2]
Championship game outcomes prior/concurrent to NCAA inception
Tournament was played at the Chicago World's Fair and included Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Yale, Amherst, Wesleyan and Vermont.[3]William McKinley attended the opening game.[4] It was organized by the Columbian National Inter-Collegiate Baseball Association, notably by its secretary,Amos Alonzo Stagg, then the new head football coach at the University of Chicago.[5]
1904 Hiram College won the 1904 Olympic Games collegiate championship tournament, def. Wheaton College, 25–20, and Latter-Day Saints University (later, Brigham Young University), 25–18.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
1908 Chicago def. Pennsylvania, 2 games to 0 (21–18, 16–15)[12][13]
Amateur Athletic Union annual United States championship – College teams were runners-up in 1915, 1917, 1920, 1921, 1932, and 1934. Four college teams won the championship (final game results):[14]
1916 Utah def. Illinois Athletic Club, 28–27
1920 New York University def. Rutgers, 49–24
1924 Butler (Indiana) def. Kansas City Athletic Club, 30–26
1925 Washburn College (Kansas) def. Hillyard Shine Alls, 42–30
1920 Pennsylvania def. Chicago, 2 games to 1 (24–28, 29–18, 23–21)[15]
1935 LSU def. Pittsburgh, 41–37, in an intersectional "Rose Bowl" sponsored by the American Legion, played on April 13 atConvention Hall inAtlantic City.[26][27]
† The first IFA three-weapon trophy was awarded in 1923. However, all three weapons (foil, épée, saber) were contested in the IFA tournament as early as 1920.[56]
TheNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has never conducted a national championship event at the highest level ofcollege football, currently itsDivision I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Neither has the NCAA ever officially endorsed an FBS national champion. Since 1978, it has held achampionship playoff at the next lower level of college play. Prior to 1978, no divisions separated teams, and champions were independently designated by "selectors," composed of individuals and third-party organizations using experts, polls, and mathematical methods.[96] These efforts have continued and thrived for the higher FBS level. From the beginning, the selectors' choices have frequently been at odds with each other.[97] The NCAA has documented both contemporaneous and retroactive choices of several major national selectors in its officialNCAA Football Records Book.[96] These selections are often claimed aschampionships by individual schools.
1899 No team title. Yale gymnasts won 4 out of 6 individual events, shared a tie for victory in one event and also won the individual all-around. 19 schools participated.[98]
In 1903, the Western Conference instituted an annual conference championship meet.[102] Although early interest was expressed by the Intercollegiate Association in establishing a recognized national championship event with the Western Conference,[103] that interest did not reach fruition. In later years, the University of Chicago, a perennial Western Conference power, participated in several of the annual championship meets of the Intercollegiate Association.
1917 Chicago def. 2nd-place Haverford, 14½ – 10[104][105][106]
1918 not held
1919 not held
1925 Navy def. Chicago, 33 – 12, in a dual meet between winners of the Intercollegiate and Western Conference championship meets.[107]
"[I]n the twenty year period from 1910 to (the end of 1929) ...Navy has participated in 91 tournaments and dual meets and won 87 of them, including all seven of the intercollegiate championship events entered."[108] (Those seven events were conference, not national, championships.) Navy was so strong that the Intercollegiate Association asked Navynot to participate in the 1926 championship meet.[109] Navy was not a participant in the 1926, 1927 and 1928 meets.
1944 Penn State won the NationalAAU team title during a five-year hiatus in the NCAA championships for World War II.[110]
Amateur Athletic Union conducted annual National Ice Hockey Championships during 1931–1948, except during most of the World War II years.[111] College teams won the championship on at least two occasions:
1940 Minnesota[112] def. Amesbury, 9–4, and Brock-Hall, 9–1[113][114]
1942 Boston College[115] def. High Standard H.C., 3–2, Massena H.C., 9–8, and defending champion St. Nicholas H.C., 6–4[116]
The first intercollegiate lacrosse tournament was held in 1881 with Harvard beating Princeton in the championship game. New York University and Columbia University also participated. From 1882 through 1970 (excepting 1932–1935), theUnited States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association and the collegiate lacrosse associations from which it evolved chose annual champions based on season records. These associations were the ILA (1882–1905), IULL (1899–1905), USILL (1906–1925) and USILA (1926–1970).[117][118] In 1912 and 1921, the USILL conducted championship games between the winners of its Northern and Southern Divisions. Efforts to conduct such games in other years during its existence were unsuccessful.[117]
Men/Coed (year of conversion to Coed undetermined)
In the contemporary press, the type of competition utilized for this match was referred to as "shoulder-to-shoulder." This distinguished it from the "telegraphic" or "postal" form of competition.
* The Intercollegiate Rifle Team Trophy was presented to the NRA by theSons of the American Revolution in 1928, when it was first awarded for annual rifle competition.[119]
† NRA document[119] states that there was no competition in 1946.
The indoor intercollegiate match was a single annual indoor match open to teams of any college. It was held in telegraphic form using the indoor ranges of each competing school.
(This competition is not to be confused with the NationalROTC outdoor rifle team championship for the William Randolph Hearst Team Trophy (first awarded circa 1922[161]), which was not open to all students.)
Beginning in 1921, an intercollegiate winter sports championship was held annually at Lake Placid, New York, and involved colleges from the US and Canada. It combined events from downhill and slalomskiing,cross-country skiing, andski jumping, as well asspeed skating,figure skating, andsnowshoeing in some years. The overall winning team received thePresident Harding Trophy. Prior to the 1940s, in end-of-year accounts of national sporting champions, major newspapers regarded the winning team at Lake Placid as intercollegiate champion.
In the late 1930s, a major annual "four-way" (downhill, slalom, jumping and cross-country) intercollegiate event began in Sun Valley, Idaho.[175][176] From the start it attracted not only college teams from the West, but also strong teams that traditionally participated in the Lake Placid meet, such as Dartmouth.[177][178] After interruption by World War II, it usurped the older event.
Newspaper coverage referred to the 1946 and 1947 Sun Valley winners (Utah and Middlebury, respectively) as national champions.[179] A few days earlier than the 1947 Sun Valley meet, a similar skiing competition was held in Aspen, Colorado, overlapping the start date of the Sun Valley event.[180] In 1948 and 1949, Aspen, rather than Sun Valley, hosted the national "four-way" intercollegiate ski championships.[181][182][183][184]
All of these competitions were held in the middle of the ski season rather than at the end. Then in 1950, an official annual post-season national championship event was established.[185] This event served to influence the NCAA to add skiing as a sponsored sport, with the first NCAA title event occurring in 1954.[186]
The Intercollegiate Ski Union (ISU), a conference of schools primarily in the Northeast, also conducted annual championship events for its members.[187] However, its geographic reach was more limited than the other competitions described.
During the periods 1926–35 and 1946–58, annual champions were selected bycollegiate soccer associations based on regular season records. All are considered unofficial. For the period of 1936–45, each year's outstanding teams claim unofficial national championships. See alsoIntercollegiate Soccer Football Association.
The Soccer Bowl[258] (played in 1950–52) attempted to settle the national championship on the field for the 1949, 1950 and 1951 seasons. The Soccer Bowl championship games were played in January, 1950; January, 1951; and February, 1952, respectively.
^abcdIn 1943 and 1947, NYU also won the AAU national senior indoor track and field meet. Villanova did so in 1957, as did the University of Pennsylvania in 1918. These are the only occasions that a college team won this open AAU title prior to collegiate sponsorship of the sport by the NCAA.[261][262]
* University of Chicago won the1904 Olympic Games collegiate championship meet, defeating Princeton, Illinois, Michigan State and Colgate.[266]
† A contemporary source[267] states, as part of an "international athletic games" (similar to the Olympics) in Chicago on June 28 – July 6, 1913, "The national intercollegiate track and field meet was won by the University of Michigan," with Southern California second and Chicago third.
Until 1969, men's trampoline was one of the events that comprised the NCAA gymnastics championships. The NCAA continued to bestow a national title in trampoline for two years.[268][269][270] For several years, there was an annual membership vote on whether to remove it as an NCAA competition, resulting in removal by 1971.
This was a championship solely forNCAA Division III schools. It was discontinued after its 2011 edition when the NCAA announced it would organize an official Division III championship starting in 2012.
TheAmateur Athletic Union (AAU) has since 1926 conducted United States championship tournaments for women's amateur teams. On 28 occasions, small college teams (all from the central U.S.) have won the AAU women's basketball championship:[276]
United States Bowling Congress (formerly American Bowling Congress and Women's Intercollegiate Bowling Congress)[277]
Year and Champion
Year and Champion
Year and Champion
Year and Champion
Year and Champion
Year and Champion
1975 Wichita State
1984 Indiana State
1993 William Paterson (NJ)
2002 Morehead State
2011 Maryland Eastern Shore
2020cancelled
1976 San Jose State
1985 West Texas State
1994 Wichita State
2003 Central Missouri State
2012 Webber International
2021 Wichita State
1977 Wichita State
1986 Wichita State
1995 Nebraska
2004 Pikeville (Kentucky)
2013 Maryland Eastern Shore
2022 Stephen F. Austin
1978 Wichita State
1987 West Texas State
1996 West Texas State
2005 Wichita State
2014 Robert Morris-Illinois
2023 McKendree
1979 Penn State
1988 West Texas State
1997 Nebraska
2006 Lindenwood (Missouri)
2015 North Carolina A&T
2024 Wichita State
1980 Erie Community College (NY)
1989 Morehead State (Kentucky)
1998 Morehead State
2007 Wichita State
2016 Webber International
2025 Jacksonville State (Alabama)
1981 Arizona State
1990 Wichita State
1999 Nebraska
2008 Pikeville
2017 McKendree (Illinois)
2026
1982 Erie Community College
1991 Nebraska
2000 Morehead State
2009 Wichita State
2018 Lindenwood
2027
1983 West Texas State
1992 West Texas State
2001 Nebraska
2010 Webber International (Florida)
2019 Robert Morris–Illinois
2028
TheNCAA from 2004 has sponsored a women's team championship, apart from the USBC national championships. There were 80 schools in all divisions participating in NCAA bowling as of April, 2018.
The National Women's Rowing Association (NWRA) sponsored an annual open eights national championship from 1971 to 1979, among college and non-college teams. (There were no eights before 1971.) During this period, only in 1973 and 1975 did a college team win the national eights championship outright. According to US Rowing Association, contemporary news reports in 1976 and 1977 do not mention a national collegiate title.[284] Beginning in 1980, the NWRA sponsored the Women's Collegiate National Championship, including varsity eights. In 1986 the NWRA dissolved after recognizing US Rowing's assuming of responsibility as the national governing body for women's rowing.
NWRA Open National Championship,Eights top college finishers, 1971–1979 (champion in parentheses):
TheAAU conducted senior women's national track and field championships for all athletes, both indoors and outdoors, beginning in the 1920s. Two college teams won numerous championships in each sport against other clubs from throughout the country.
Tuskegee Institute won the AAU national title 14 times in 1937–1942 and 1944–1951.Tennessee State won national outdoors 13 times in 1955–1960, 1962, 1963, 1965–1967, 1969 and 1978.[290]
Tuskegee Institute won the AAU national indoor championships four times in 1941, 1945, 1946 and 1948.Tennessee State won the national title 14 times in 1956–1960, 1962, 1965–1969 and 1978–1980.[290]
^ESPN, ed. (2009).ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Men's Game. New York, NY: ESPN Books. pp. 526,529–87.ISBN978-0-345-51392-2.
^"Monthly Record".Outing, an Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Sport, Travel and Recreation. Vol. XXII. September 1893. pp. 115–116. Retrieved2010-04-12.
^"NCAA Tournament History". "The tournament now determines the national champion, but that wasn't always the case. Until the 1950s, the NIT was just as big a tournament as the NCAA, and teams often chose to enter the NIT and bypass the NCAA tourney.". Archived from the original on 2013-05-14. Retrieved2013-02-12.
^Davies, Richard O. (2007). "Sports in American Life: A History." Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated. p. 155.ISBN9781405106474. "In 1938, [Ned] Irish invited 16 teams to compete in a new tournament that he called the National Invitation Tournament ..., and it would be the premiere college basketball event for more than a decade. The following year, the NCAA responded by creating its own tournament, but it did not surpass the NIT as the premier postseason tournament until the 1950s."
^Augustyn, Adam, ed. (2011). "The Britannica Guide to Basketball." Rosen Education Service. p. 17.ISBN1615305289. "New York City basketball writers organized the first National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1938, but a year later the New York City colleges took control of the event. Until the early 1950s, the NIT was considered the most prestigious U.S. tournament ..."
^Roth, John (2006). "The Encyclopedia of Duke Basketball." Duke University Press. p. 272. "During its early years the [NCAA] tourney was overshadowed by the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in New York."
^Glickman, Marty (1999). "The Fastest Kid on the Block: The Marty Glickman Story." Syracuse University Press. p. 75.ISBN0815605749. "The first big tournament I covered was the 1946 National Invitation Tournament, the NIT, at Madison Square Garden. It, not the NCAA, was the big college basketball tournament in those days. Later the NCAA flexed its muscles to dominate college basketball, and the NIT became little more than an also-ran tourney. In its time, though, the NIT was enormous."
^McPhee, John (1999). "A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton." Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 114-115.ISBN0374526893. "In the 1940s, when the N.C.A.A. tournament was less than 10 years old, the National Invitation Tournament ... was the most glamorous of the post-season tournaments and generally had the better teams. The winner of the National Invitation Tournament was regarded as more of a national champion than the actual, titular, national champion, or winner of the N.C.A.A. tournament."
^Hooper, Matt (2009-10-10). Noel, Tex (ed.). "How many national titles can Alabama really lay claim to? Better yet, why is there more than one answer? (republished with permission from the Birmingham Weekly)".The College Football Historian.2 (9). secsportsfan.com Intercollegiate Football Researchers Association.ISSN2326-3628.
^Frank Moore Colby, ed. (1900).The International year book: a compendium of the world's progress during the year 1899. Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 394. Retrieved2010-09-24.In 1899 the first important intercollegiate gymnastic association meeting was held, the result being as follows: Horizontal bar, E. B. Turner, Princeton, and R. G. Clapp, Yale, tied, 12 points; side horse, F. J. Belcher, New York University, 10 5/6; parallel bars, R. G. Clapp, 12⅓; flying rings, R. G. Clapp, 11 1/6; club swinging, R. G. Clapp, 13½; tumbling, W. L. Otis, Yale, 10; all-around championship, R. G. Clapp, Yale, 7 5/6 points.
^"College Gymnasts' Annual Meeting".American gymnasia and athletic record, Volume 1, No. 5. January 1905. p. 167. Retrieved2010-09-23.With a view to bringing about a recognized national championship in collegiate gymnastics, Secretary T. H. Burch, Jr., of Columbia, was authorized to correspond with the Western Intercollegiate Gymnastic Association with the view of an affiliation, arranging for the Western champion team to meet the Eastern champion team in some city of the middle West, the winner of this competition to become known as the national champion. This course was heartily indorsed by all of the collegians present, and is one that has been the object of achievement for some years.
^The Cap and Gown. Vol. XXII. University of Chicago. 1917. p. 300. Retrieved2010-04-12.
^"Athletics".The University of Chicago Magazine. Vol. 9, no. 7. May 1917. p. 307. Retrieved2010-04-12.
^Louis Bordo captained the 1944 undefeated Lion team that won the National AAU team title (curated display). University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State All-Sports Museum. 5 April 2017.
^"Year-by-Year Results"(PDF).Boston College Hockey Media Guide 2011-12. 2011. p. 115. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2016-10-08. Retrieved2016-05-17.
^abcdefghijklmBenjamin Shambaugh, ed. (Apr 1923)."The rifle team".Iowa Journal of History and Politics.XXI (2). State Historical Society of Iowa:260–264. Retrieved2010-06-05.
^"Rifle Team Wins Championship".The Pennsylvania Gazette ...: Weekly Magazine of the University of Pennsylvania. Vol. 17. May 23, 1919. pp. 797–798. Retrieved2010-04-12.
^ Written atSan Francisco."Huskies Win Rifle Crown".The Pasadena Post.Pasadena.International News Service. May 12, 1932. RetrievedJune 6, 2024.University of Washington captured first place in the senior national intercollegiate rifle team matches, Ninth Corps Area Headquarters announced here today. The winning score was 7811. Washington State College won second place with 7732.
^ab"Here and There".Christian Science Monitor. December 10, 1939. p. Sports 12. Archived fromthe original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved2010-08-27.
^Reid, Walter, ed. (1940). "Athletics — Minor Sports — Skiing".1940 Tyee. Vol. 41.Associated Students of the University of Washington. p. 216.National Inter-Collegiate Champions: The Husky ski team is the National Intercollegiate champion as the result of the National Collegiate Ski meet held at Sun Valley during Christmas vacation.
^"TIPS TO TOURISTS".Chicago Daily Tribune. September 24, 1939. p. Part 8, F6. Archived fromthe original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved2010-08-27.
^Richards, Janice, ed. (1941). "Athletics — Minor Sports — Skiing".1941 Tyee. Vol. 42.Associated Students of the University of Washington. p. 268.Starting the season by capping the Intercollegiate meet at Sun Valley [...] Next year will see everyone back. According to Coach Cotton Wilcox, the Huskies will challenge Dartmouth to determine U.S. Collegiate supremacy.
^Smith, Edwin, ed. (1942). "Athletics — Minor Sports — Skiing".1942 Tyee. Vol. 43.Associated Students of the University of Washington. p. 204.led the Huskies to victory in the Sun Valley Intercollegiates [...] Washington's second squad finished second.
^"Part Three Historical Records, U.S. Adult & Senior National Championships".The USTA. United States Tennis Association. 2004. pp. 459–460. Retrieved2021-05-23.
^Keith McCanless."Iowa's First National Championship"(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2009-02-05. Retrieved2010-09-14.The Wolverines [in 1969] possessed the very best trampolinists in the world, two of which had previously each won individual world trampoline titles in consecutive years. ... The Wolverine's trampoline team [was] the strongest in the world[.]
^The Penn State Wrestling Club (2008).A Century of Penn State Wrestling. Penn State Wrestling Club Centennial Committee. pp. 18–21.ISBN978-0-615-19200-0.
^abcTricard, Louise Mead (1996).American Women's Track and Field – A History, 1895 through 1980. Jefferson, North Carolina, U.S.: McFarland & Co., Inc.
