The coveted letter from the National Collegiate Athletic Association arrived one day in February.
It was early and it was good news.
On Tuesday morning inside the W room at the Mississippi University for Women’s student union, athletics director Jason Trufant delivered the official news that this campus has really awaited since an F3 tornado ripped apart its gymnasium and athletics program in November 2002.
The W has been accepted as a provisional member into NCAA Division III, beginning with the 2019-20 school year.
“It truly is humbling and honoring,” Trufant said, proudly delivering the news at a podium strategically situated between two blue NCAA D-III logos placed on easels. “We feel we are perfectly aligned.”
A provisional status means that a school enters a four-year period in which it transitions to full membership in the NCAA.
“We’ll do it in three,” Trufant said.
The school is adding indoor and outdoor track and field for both men and women, and also women’s golf. Once that is completed, The W will have 17 varsity sports, all added to the school’s athletic program in 30 months.
In addition, women’s and men’s lacrosse is already being talked about.
Already this year, the school’s women’s basketball program won a national championship in the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association. The men’s golf team finished third nationally.
While The W is a provisional member of NCAA D-III, it will maintain its ties to the USCAA, Trufant said. The Owls will continue to play teams on the Division I, II and III levels, and NAIA schools.
However, NCAA D-III is where the Owls hope to be in three years. Trufant said the Owls would be eligible to compete for NCAA D-III championships in their third year as a provisional member. That would be in the 2021-22 school year.
The conversations have long been going on. Trufant visited John Cohen, the athletics director at Mississippi State University, to talk about the growth in The W’s athletic program and the NCAA, and to get some advice. He has been talking with athletic directors at two other schools, located in New York and Texas, that are also becoming NCAA D-III provisional members.
Trufant says he expects The W to have about 250 student-athletes in the next school year.
The school currently is offering varsity programs in men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s golf, baseball, softball and women’s volleyball.
Unlike a school like Mississippi State, which offers full scholarships in all its sports in NCAA D-I, Division III schools do not offer scholarships but there is a high level of recruiting that takes place.
The W is planning to build a baseball field behind Pohl Gymnasium. Currently, The W’s baseball team plays at Columbus High School and its soccer teams play at the Columbus Soccer Complex.
The gym was one of 26 buildings on The W’s campus hit by the tornado in 2002, and it was the one that had the most destruction. Without an athletic facility for its teams, the school shut down all of its varsity sports programs.
Paul Bowker is the former sports editor for The Dispatch.
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