Division II will host its fourth National Championships Festival – and its first winter-sports version – next week in Houston.

Champions will be crowned in five sports: wrestling, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, and men’s and women’s indoor track and field. Event finals in swimming will be contested on four straight nights from Wednesday, March 11, through Saturday, March 14. The track and wrestling competitions will be conducted Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14.

More than 900 NCAA Division II student-athletes – the largest participation in an NCAA championship event – will compete for the five team and 80 individual championship titles.

“The festival provides a powerful platform from which our coaches and student-athletes tell the Division II story – what Division II is about, what its members believe in and why the Division II student-athlete experience is so special,” said Division II Presidents Council Chair Stephen Jordan of Metropolitan State.

Division II launched its first festival in spring 2004 in Orlando. A fall-sports version debuted in Pensacola, Florida, in 2006, followed by another spring-sport edition last May, also in Houston.

“The festival approach, while not created specifically as part of the division’s branding campaign that chancellors and presidents began several years ago, certainly has contributed as something uniquely Division II,” Jordan said. “Our ability to combine championships, celebrate student-athletes’ athletic and academic abilities and provide ancillary events that engage the festivals’ host communities has evolved during the same period in which Division II has actively engaged in enhancing and promoting its identity.”

Student-athletes competing at the festival will have the opportunity to participate in opening and closing ceremonies, as well as attend other championships and support their peers while competing for titles in their own sport. There also will be social activities for student-athletes at the end of each day’s competition.

The wrestling and men’s and women’s swimming and diving competitions will be at the University of Houston’s Campus Recreation Center. The men’s and women’s track and field competitions will be at the University of Houston’s Athletics and Alumni Center.

All competition from the festival will be streamed live online at NCAA.com. Coverage will include four days of swimming and diving competition and two days of both wrestling and track and field. Links to each day’s video coverage can be found here.  

Community engagement

In keeping with Division II’s focus on community engagement, the festival will include several opportunities for student-athletes, athletics administrators and fans to participate in volunteer activities to benefit the Houston community.

The NCAA will host Youth Education through Sports (YES) Clinics in which girls and boys age 10-16 receive sports instruction from NCAA coaches and student-athletes while gaining conditioning tips, connecting with other local athletes and learning life skills and sportsmanship. The NCAA has worked with the Houston Independent School District and the Minority Education Academic Determination Group at the University of Houston to provide opportunities for about 400 area youth to participate in the YES clinics. They’ll be held at Texas Southern University’s Recreation and Wellness Center on Wednesday, March 11.

The NCAA also is offering Sporting Geography curriculum programs, which emphasize state requirements and guidelines for social studies and math education in grades four through eight. Nearly 30 Houston area elementary and middle school classrooms will participate in the curriculum in conjunction with the festival.

In addition, swimming and diving student-athletes will conduct a senior outreach program at the University of Houston Campus Recreation Center March 12 for about 50 senior citizens.

The NCAA News will provide daily coverage of festival events at www.ncaa.org.