Q-and-A: NAIA leader says the focus remains on 'education-based athletics'
· Yahoo Sports
Apr. 3—MITCHELL — Plenty of sports fans will be watching the Final Four this weekend.
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It's as big of a college sports event as there is every year.
Marc Burchard will watch as well. But when he sees the NCAA's big-money take on a postseason basketball tournament, he looks at the TV and has a simple response: "We're not that."
Burchard is the NAIA's Director of Championships, and coming off the NAIA's basketball championships for the women in Sioux City, Iowa, and the identical men's championship in Kansas City, Missouri, he remains as steadfast as ever that the NAIA's latest marketing tagline — "The Right Way to Play" — still holds firm.
"With every decision that we make, I think we always ask ourselves a question: How is this going to impact the student-athlete? They are centered in our decision-making priorities," Burchard said. "We focus ourselves on education-based athletics. A little bit different than monetary athletics that you see on TV all the time. We pride ourselves on that approach."
A native of Tucson, Arizona, Burchard was a former NAIA baseball athlete at Baker University in Kansas. He has worked on NAIA championship events for the last 10 years. He was in Mitchell recently to present Dakota Wesleyan University two-sport standout Landon Ruesink with the NAIA's A.O. Duer Award, which goes to a top academic and community minded student-athlete.
In conjunction with that event, Burchard also spoke to the Mitchell Rotary Club about his role and some of the key issues within the NAIA, and he also answered a few questions from the Mitchell Republic. Those questions and answers have been formatted below in a Q-and-A format and edited for readability and clarity.
Q: What is the NAIA's relationship with how NIL is handled? How does it differ from what the NCAA does?
A: We were the first, believe it or not, to implement name, image and likeness. Now, that's a little bit different than what you're seeing on TV. Our name, image and likeness, the intention there was local businesses can get a student-athlete in this community to promote their products or businesses. It was not meant for booster clubs to pool their money and sign an athlete for $500,000 to come to (Indiana University). It was a much more simple approach. And that's where we find ourselves today. We provide student-athletes an opportunity to make more than a financial gain, but also promote themselves in the professional world. ... Now that toothpaste is out of the tube, and (the NCAA is) struggling to put it back in the tube, and let's just say, they're wrestling against it. I feel like we have the best organization. We have an advantage, too.
In the NAIA, there's always a place for somebody to play if they're willing to go the distance with their college career. I came from Arizona to Baldwin City, Kansas, to play baseball. There's always a location or a school that will give you a way for you to continue your education and your career.
Q: We hear about schools struggling or closing all the time. How does that affect the NAIA and do some NCAA schools consider moving to NAIA?
A: Yeah, 100%. Right now, it is a very volatile situation in higher education. A lot of schools are closing. ... A bunch of mergers are happening. Right now, we're currently in active discussions with about 7 to 12 Division II and Division III schools about rejoining or joining again for the first time. ... There is a level of pride, I think, that some administrators feel from their alumni base, they see as it is going down a level. I don't see it's going down a level.
If you look at our post-season models, compared to Division II, their post-season models, they go through regions. So you play your conference opponents three, four times a year before you get to a national tournament. Our national tournaments are true national tournaments. Yes, we're regionalized. Yes, we keep finances in focus to make sure we don't fly teams across the country and rack up huge bills. But we have a true national tournament. Our goal is for a student-athlete to play against a team they may never see again. You're going to play a team from Indiana, or from California, or from Texas.
Q: The other big buzzword of college athletics is the transfer portal. We're seeing at the Division I level, you've got guys that are on their fourth school. What's the NAIA's take on multiple transfers, and how does that process work?
A: This goes with talking about our institutions and our conferences. Some conferences have inter-conference policies on transferring. We leave that up to them, to be honest.
We have a national policy that you must have a written release from the institution to waive what we call a residency period. (Editor's note: The residence period is 16 calendar weeks, but students also can get immediate eligibility if they transfer within the NAIA and they're cleared by the NAIA national office.) We're a lot more nimble on that, in my opinion. ... We don't have a transfer portal. I don't ever foresee that coming to NAIA at all.
Q: There was discussion about giving one more year of eligibility to all athletes (five years to play five seasons). What is the update on that?
A: We had a task force with presidents and athletics directors. What they found out was they were trying to build the airplane as they were flying, so to speak. There's a lot to untangle with that in regards to how do you handle medical redshirts, financial aid. They are still studying that.
There is more than likely going to be legislation on our convention agenda for that topic next year. For what that exactly looks like, we're still working on putting those policies together. But it's definitely still on the table. ... Some (schools) like that, some aren't as sure.
Q: In 2022, the NAIA went to one division and a 64-team tournament bracket for men's and women's basketball. What's been the NAIA's review of how that's gone?
A: I think it's been a success, so far. I think there was a fear in the beginning of Division I and Division II and how both of them would fare. To be honest, we haven't seen a drop-off in the competition level. If you look at the teams that qualify for Sioux City and Kansas City, it's kind of split in the middle. All of the final four, on the women's side, were previous Division II schools: Dakota State, Dakota Wesleyan, Dordt and Marian (Ind.). ... So I think that fear did not come to fruition, thankfully. I think it's been an outstanding success, to be honest.
I also like the fact that we've been able to have campus games. I think that drives the level of excitement to get to Kansas City or to get to Sioux City. I think you have those local games, those are highly attended. For those institutions, it's not meant to be a home game. It's meant to be a national tournament event, but having a great crowd helps promote that good experience for us.
Q: It was a big deal for Mitchell to host NAIA basketball this year. What is the process to pick a host? Because it doesn't just follow the top-16 seeds all the time. So how does that typically work or what is the process there?
A: There's a facility certification process that we go through to make sure that the facilities meet all the specs we need to have, all the amenities they need, locker rooms, concessions, streaming, replay capabilities, all those types of things. After that, once you're certified, there's an actual bid process that you have to submit on an annual basis. So just because you're certified doesn't mean you're automatically eligible. ... Each year, you have to submit a bid. Once we have those bids, we kind of review things on three different criteria.
One is seed, because along with a host bid, if you're awarded to host a first or second round, that means you're in the tournament. We want to make sure that's a deserving team, and not to take away an at-large position. So, we have a national selection committee that we kind of lean on a little bit for each sport and that's site selection determination.
Ultimately, the site selections are made by the national office in conjunction with the feedback from the selection committees. The other one is geography. ... We want to make sure we're not overloading and having five sites out west to where everyone's going to have to fly there.
It's kind of a mix-and-match. You mentioned the No. 11 seed in the women's bracket. I think it was Faulkner (in Montgomery, Alabama). You need a site down in the southeast to schools that could drive. And there's a centralized location there. So that's part of that piece.
The other aspect is financial. Again, it kind of goes in line with seed and geography, but financially, you know, are they located near a major airport? ... Those are the three things I would kind of look at.