KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) hosted its 2021 Spring Meetings this past week to cap an unprecedented year. The final meeting involved the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Council, hosted by our partners McCownGordon Construction at their office in downtown Kansas City.

In addition to meetings and guest speakers, the Association also celebrated successes from the past year. That included completing all of its combined men’s and women’s conference basketball games — which marked being the only Division II Conference in the country to accomplish that. Overall, the MIAA only lost one scheduled baseball series to COVID-19 issues in all conference contests in all sports, during the 2020-21 academic year.

Additionally, the Association continued a tradition of competing for NCAA National Championships. Northwest Missouri State claimed the men’s basketball national title — its third in five years. Also, the MIAA had six other sports programs boast a top-four national finish to their season: Central Missouri baseball (national runner-up); Nebraska Kearney wrestling (national runner-up); Central Missouri women’s indoor track & field (fourth-place); Central Oklahoma women’s tennis (national semifinals); Central Missouri women’s basketball (national semifinals); and Pittsburg State men’s outdoor track & field (fourth-place). In addition, although not an MIAA sponsored sport, Central Oklahoma won its third-consecutive NCAA Women’s Rowing national championship.

Individually, five student-athletes were recognized for the highest academic achievement handed out by the NCAA during the postseason, the Elite 90 award. The Elite 90 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s 90 championships. The following individuals from the MIAA were honored: Josh Portillo (UNK wrestling), Gigi McAtee (UCM women’s basketball), Jaran Richman (NWMSU men’s basketball), Ian Barnes (UCM men’s golf) and Levi Wyrick (PSU outdoor track & field).

“I was very happy that we were able to meet in-person this summer,” said MIAA Commissioner Mike Racy. “It was good to see every one, and it was nice to celebrate our conference accomplishments from the past year and to plan for the 2021-22 academic year. While this past year presented many unique challenges, we look back on it with a sense of pride for all that the MIAA and its student-athletes accomplished.”

During the CEO Council, the following policies were approved:

• Creation of a basketball task force to research and review possible changes to the basketball playing days and format for the MIAA regular-season schedule
• A return to MIAA championship field sizes that were in place during the 2019-20 academic year
• A recommendation for home teams to determine when the National Anthem would be played during the pre-game timing protocol
• Creation of a Governance Task Force to conduct a COVID after-action evaluation and to review how the MIAA governance structure and constitution worked during the crisis

The CEO Council approved an extension to Commissioner Racy’s contract through June 2024. Racy was named the fifth full-time commissioner of the MIAA on Sept. 7, 2016

It was also announced that next year’s Chair of the CEO Council will be Steve Turner of Northeastern State University, while the Vice Chair of the Council will be Roger Best of the University of Central Missouri.

The conference office also hosted the MIAA Safety and Security Summit at Hy-Vee Arena on June 7^th. The Summit welcomed MIAA Security Chiefs/Directors, Athletics Facilities/Operations personnel and Athletics Administrators for a variety of presentations and group discussions. Hayley Hansen from the Husch Blackwell Law Firm provided a presentation on campus security, while Norman Smith from NPB Companies led the group in a discussion on private security at campus athletics events. The group also discussed and shared best practices on topics such as tailgating, fan arrivals and game environment.

The Institutional Representatives Council (IRC), Faculty Athletic Representative Council (FARC) and the Athletic Administrators Council (AAC) also held their spring meetings in-person in the past week. All of their meetings were held at the MIAA office at Hy-Vee Arena. Stan Wagnon, Director of Athletics at the University of Central Oklahoma and Theresa Grosbach, Associate Athletics Director/SWA at Missouri Western State University were elected to two-year terms as the chair and the vice chair of the AAC. Dr. John Mullican of Washburn University and Dr. Cole Shewmake of Pittsburg State University were elected to two-year terms as the chair and the vice-chair of the FARC. Jerry Hughes, Director of Athletics at the University of Central Missouri and Dr. Regan Dodd of Missouri Western were elected to two-year terms as the chair and the vice chair of the IRC.