I have been involved in college sports now for about two decades as a student-athlete, coach and athletics director, and I still get a rush out of watching competition like we saw at this week’s Division II National Championships Festival.

There’s nothing quite like it in college athletics. It’s true that several sports pair up their men’s and women’s championships within a division, and men’s lacrosse conducts an extravaganza that includes the Divisions I, II and III championships. But only Division II brings together different sports at the same place and time.

This approach does require occasional sacrifice. At times, some sports have been asked to modify their playing-season calendar to accommodate the festival. In other instances, championships have been conducted at locales outside their traditional areas of support, such as with field hockey in Pensacola in 2006, women’s lacrosse in Houston in 2008 and wrestling in Houston this year.

These deviations from the norm can disrupt routines, and we all can appreciate the frustrations that come with those disruptions. But we cannot lose sight of the festival’s enormous attributes. For example, we can all see an element of risk in conducting a championship outside its normal comfort zone, but we also can see the benefit of exposing the sport to a new area. That goes double for sports like field hockey and wrestling, which receive almost no network television exposure.

Perhaps more importantly, we can also see the benefits of bringing large numbers of student-athletes together to celebrate their achievements. This is my fourth festival, and at each one, the amount of student-athlete camaraderie has increased. By the time we reach the closing ceremony of each festival, the 1,000 individuals become one big team, irrespective of sport, race, gender or geography. It’s a great sight to see.

So, what’s next for the festival? The plan has always been to conduct them in three of every four academic years, which means that 2009-10 will be the off year. We’ll resume in 2010-11 at a time and place yet to be determined, hopefully bigger and better than ever.

I’m already looking forward to it, wherever it may be.

Jill Willson is former athletics director at Texas A&M-Kingsville and former chair of the Division II Management Council. She currently serves as a consultant to the division.