The first year of the transition from the NAIA to the NCAA is in the books for Oklahoma Baptist and it was a success.
On Friday, the NCAA announced the OBU Bison had fulfilled their responsibilities in Year One and the athletic program is now headed for Year Two.
“It was a lot of hard work that a lot people on our campus were involved in,” said Robert Davenport, OBU Director of Athletics. “And I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I want to say congratulations to all the people that were involved in putting all the information together and our campus community and our alumni.”
Oklahoma Baptist was sponsored by the Great American Conference in its bid to make the move to Division II. League commissioner Will Prewitt said he was certain the GAC’s 12th member would pass the NCAA evaluations for Year One.
“It’s no surprise,” Prewitt said. “They have great institutional commitment to athletics with president Whitlock and Athletic Director Davenport. It’s pretty obvious that whenever Oklahoma Baptist gets involved with anything athletically, they’re going to do it the right way. And it’s shown in their three NAIA Directors’ Cups.”
In their final season in NAIA play, the Bison brought home a third consecutive Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup award for its excellence an achievement in all sports.
“We look forward to having them on GAC schedules this fall and trying to work with them to get through Years Two and Three and have a full 12 teams eligible for conference championships,” Prewitt said.
OBU was allowed to compete in the NAIA during last year in its first year of the process, but that won’t be the case for the next two years. OBU will have full league schedules in the Great American Conference, although it won’t be eligible to play in postseason conference or national competition.
Davenport said the coming years of competition will be a little different, but the program will work hard to meet the challenge.
“Obviously, the new league and new division we’re going to be in will present some challenges. We’ve got some ground to make up.”
And although the Bison won’t compete for NCAA championships yet, there will still be opportunities following the regular season.
“We will be competing for championships at the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) level. And hopefully we will be competitive there and maybe even win a couple of championships there.
“But then, at the same time we hope to be preparing for full-fledged Division II membership. And when that time comes, we hope to be prepared to start that journey to start climbing the ladder to the Division II level.”
The Bison will still be able to schedule former SAC rivals and other NAIA schools for non-conference contests, but the OBU focus is firmly on the NCAA.