SHENANDOAH, Texas -- In an announcement made today, the NCAA has awarded two championships to the city of Shenandoah and the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference for the 2014-18 seasons.
The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, along with the Shenandoah Convention & Visitors Bureau, have been announced as hosts for the 2015 and 2017 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. The competition will take place March 18-21 and March 15-18, respectively, at the Conroe Independent School District Natatorium.
The SCAC hosted the 2013 NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships at the same facility.
"We really want to thank everyone who put in a bid," said Mark Lewis, NCAA executive vice president of championships and alliances. "The competitiveness of the bids made it extremely difficult for the sport committees to select sites as there just weren't spots for all of the great bids we received. Ultimately the sites that were selected will provide our student-athletes, coaches and fans the best experience possible."
The new NCAA championship bid process creates the largest host site announcement ever, spanning 82 championships across a four-year cycle. Previously, selection announcements varied by sport. This process now gives the NCAA and host sites more time to plan each.
Bidding for 82 of 89 NCAA championships began in July and 1,984 bid applications were ultimately submitted. Each sport committee, per division, selected the host sites it believed would provide the ultimate experience for the respective student-athletes, resulting in 523 total championship event sites awarded. The seven championships not included in the process due to preexisting site arrangements are: Division I baseball, Division I men's basketball, Division I football, Division I men's and women's golf, Division I softball and Division III women's ice hockey.
The 2015 and 2017 NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships will be the third and fourth national championships the conference has hosted. In addition to the 2013 event, the SCAC also served as host of the 2007 Men's and Women's Soccer Championships at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
"The SCAC office is proud to lend its support to the 2015 and the 2017 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Championships," said SCAC commissioner Dwayne Hanberry. "We certainly believed that the 2013 event was a huge success and the fact that the NCAA has awarded the City of Shenandoah the championships again in 2015 and 2017 seems to validate our efforts."
For more information on all of the NCAA championship sites awarded, log on to www.ncaa.com/site-selections.