The Centennial Convention was chock full of one-of-a-kind events — ranging from a premiere showing of a major movie to lively panel discussions involving important people in the Association’s history — and generally had a look and feel befitting a 100th-birthday celebration.

However, it also was just the latest stage in the evolution of an event that continues to seek new ways to celebrate accomplishments — especially by student-athletes — while ensuring delegates are able to conduct business effectively.

This year’s mix of important legislative initiatives and unique celebratory events combined to attract the Convention’s largest attendance since 1997. The registered-delegate count was 2,144, but Convention staff members say a total of 2,758 people attended the event, including guests, exhibitors, media and about 75 students who took advantage of a special registration fee to participate.

While much of the spike in attendance is attributable to an unplanned one-of-a-kind event — the historic override vote that attracted Division I delegates to Indianapolis to debate scholarship limits and overturn recent increases in three of four women’s sports — all three divisions posted increased delegate counts.

Upon arriving in Indianapolis, those delegates worked hard: The Division III membership marched through 29 proposals, including 21 that were designated for roll-call voting, in wrapping up a four-year “Future of Division III” initiative, while Division II disposed of 40 proposals, including eight that were decided by roll call.

In addition to pressing buttons on voting machines for the first time since 1997 in the override session, Division I delegates also debated proposals that ultimately will be decided this spring by the Division I Board of Directors.

The legislative work was memorable enough, but an array of special programming outside of business sessions left delegates with little down time during the Convention weekend.

Friday night, they gathered to view a Hollywood depiction of the 1966 Texas Western College basketball squad in the film “Glory Road” and meet team members — two weeks before the movie topped American box-office charts with screenings in more than 2,300 theaters.

Saturday afternoon, they gathered for an opening business session that featured emotional acclaim for two Indiana native sons who received the NCAA President’s Gerald R. Ford Award — retired University of California, Los Angeles, basketball coach John Wooden and former United States Sen. Birch Bayh, a chief sponsor of Title IX legislation.

That same night, they convened at Indianapolis’ Murat Theater for the Honors Celebration, which took advantage of a new format to give all of the night’s award recipients —including student-athletes receiving Top VIII recognition — an opportunity to offer remarks during interview segments led by broadcaster and former Silver Anniversary Award recipient Jack Ford.

The Convention also offered an array of panel discussions that not only sought to educate attendees on a variety of topics but — in some sessions — also featured individuals who have played important roles in recent Association history, ranging from former NCAA officers to participants in early women’s championships.

There were so many panels scheduled this year that delegates had to choose which to attend and which to miss. However, they now can catch up with sessions they could not attend at www.ncaa.org, by following the “media and events” pull-down menu to “events,” then selecting Convention links leading to a Web page devoted to the 2006 Convention. There, they will find a link to video for each of the Association-wide menu sessions.

Evolving celebration

As special as this year’s Convention clearly was, much of its programming fit the national office staff’s multiyear effort to create a more celebratory atmosphere at the Convention, said John Johnson, NCAA director of promotions and events, who added that delegates are responding positively to those efforts.

“They feel the difference,” he said, referring to long-time Convention attendees with whom he spoke during this year’s event. “It’s something they desire. It’s the one time we come together as one Association.”

Student-athletes were the focus of much of that celebratory activity — ranging from the elegant staging of the Honors Celebration to a brief tribute involving members of the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee during the opening moments of that division’s business session.

Every Convention — not just this year’s event — provides an opportunity to feature the achievements and role of student-athletes in the NCAA, and the event’s staff has been working for years to ensure time is devoted during the annual gathering to that purpose.

This year’s Honors Celebration took advantage of the availability of a two-hour block of programming time on the ESPN family of cable channels to give emcee Ford an opportunity to interview the Top VIII honorees.

“We’re trying to put the student-athlete at the forefront, so that when you walk away from it, you’re inspired,” Johnson said.

He acknowledged that some who attended the event may have been uncomfortable with the pace of the program — designed to accommodate the television broadcast — and said membership reaction to the new format and its advantages and disadvantages will be considered by the NCAA Honors Committee when it discusses the honors program’s future presentation.

“It’s such a great story,” Johnson said of the program’s student-athlete focus. “If we can make the format more friendly to broader consumption, then we hope this will open the door to better broadcast air times, and that our broadcast partners will see value in the program, which in turn would expose the great stories to more of the general public.”

Student-athletes weren’t just the focus of Convention programs; they also were much more visibly present as attendees than ever before.

In addition to members of the three divisions’ Student-Athlete Advisory Committees, student-athletes were present as participants in the Career Connections job fair. Johnson attributed some of the increased presence to the reduced registration rate that was made available to college students, and he noted that some students who came to Indianapolis primarily for the job fair were so attracted by other events at the Convention that they chose upon arrival to register and participate.

Johnson said new components of the Convention also were greeted favorably by attendees, including a trade show that featured about 60 exhibitors.

Sunday evening featured a delegates reception in the NCAA national office and Hall of Champions, followed by NCAA President Myles Brand’s one-on-one interview with legendary news broadcaster Walter Cronkite to cap the weekend’s activities.

As usual, the Convention staff is soliciting reaction to all aspects of the Convention through an annual survey of the membership.

Looking ahead

The Centennial Convention certainly won’t mark an end to the evolution of the gathering; in fact, it’s not even the end of the Centennial celebration.

While the 2007 Convention in Orlando, Florida, may not offer as broad an array of programs as this year’s event, it will continue to feature — and perhaps improve on — components that have been introduced in recent years, such as the Association-wide education sessions (which increasingly are featuring current topics, expert panelists and greater interaction among participants). The daily Convention issues of The NCAA News will also return.

It also will introduce at least one new component — the Conference on Intercollegiate Athletics and Higher Education in America, an academic meeting focusing on intercollegiate athletics in the context of higher education.

If the conference — featuring juried research, theory and critical thinking about college sports over the past 100 years — is well-received, it, too, could become an annual event.

Additional programming isn’t the only new wrinkle for future Conventions. The 2009 Convention will bring a couple of significant new features: a fresh location in Washington, D.C., and a shift in dates from early to mid-January. That year’s Convention will be January 14-17, just a few days before that year’s presidential inauguration ceremonies in the nation’s capitol.

The shift in dates moves the Convention from its usual Friday-Monday format to the Wednesday-Saturday before Martin Luther King Day. The change serves several purposes, primarily ensuring that the Convention will be staged at attractive properties through 2019 while eliminating conflicts with the Bowl Championship Series.

Meanwhile, even though the Association has not met in Orlando since 2001, the 2007 Convention there will have a relatively familiar feel because the host hotel — the Gaylord Palms Resort — is similar to the 2005 Convention site, the Gaylord Texan Resort. In 2008, the Convention returns to Nashville, Tennessee.

January 30, 2006