The Oklahoma Baptist Bison have successfully made it through the three-year transition and have received a recommendation of full membership.
On Friday, it was announced but the NCAA that OBU was one of five schools approved by the NCAA Membership Council, along with Cal State-San Marcos, Corcordia (Calif.), Concordia Portland and EmBry Riddle (Fla.).
OBU athletic director Robert Davenport talked about the effort by the entire campus to get to this day.
“It’s a culmination of a lot of work from a lot of people,” Davenport said. “Obviously, in the athletic department, we’ve been right in the middle of it. And Steve Fluke, my Associate A.D. for Compliance, has done the lion’s share of the work, it seems like. And we would be kind of up a creek without him.
“But it’s been a campus-wide effort from Financial Aid to Admissions to Housing. There’s not a part of the university that has not been involved and affected by the move. And it’s all been for the better. It was a very good transition that was needed. And it has made us not only a better athletic department, but also a better university.”
Davenport said the university has already begun to see changes in the student-athletes recruited and signed.
“Our department-wide GPA has gone up,” Davenport said. “We had only three programs out of 21 this year that did not have a 3.0 or better. The type of student-athlete that we’re recruiting is a step above where we were. And that’s nobody’s fault. But with the name recognition of the NCAA and the ‘blue dot,’ you don’t have to explain who you are and whether or not you offer scholarships.
You don’t know how many times as an NAIA coach that I would be sitting in a recruit’s living room with his parents and somebody would ask the question, ‘Do you guys offer scholarships?’ and ‘What is the NAIA?’ And that’s not a dig at the NAIA, as much as it is recognition of what the NCAA is.
“Many of our coaches have already told me that they can already see a difference that they are able to recruits kids that they weren’t able to recruit before. And we’re beginning to see it in the talent level as well as in the classroom.”
Will Prewitt, commissioner of the Great American Conference, congratulated the university and athletic department on the achievement.
“It’s always a great moment for the conference when you get someone through that provisional process,” Prewitt said. “It’s such a long, hard three years for the school. And I have to give so much credit to Audra Kedy, who is the primary person on my staff that works with the schools on the compliance process, helping them check with them on the compliance process.
“Now they’re the third school that we’ve gotten through the process. Our goal was to have 12 active members and we’ve reached that is six years and we’re so thrilled about that. Especially with an institution that has the great tradition that Oklahoma Baptist does. They’re synonymous with great teams and with winning. And so it’s an exciting day for the Great American Conference and we’re going to be thrilled to have OBU teams competing for GAC championship teams.”
Another part of the transition now to full membership status for OBU in the NCAA is that the Bison are moving on from the NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) where they have held membership for the past two years.
“We took a long hard look at that because we really wanted to maintain our relationship there,” Davenport said. “There are many like schools, maybe not with the size of the athletic program that we have, but mission-wise there are many schools that are like us.
“But the bottom line is that it just came down to dollars. The NCCAA does not pay for championship travel. So we were spending as much if not more for travel in that division as we did in the NAIA. The NAIA does not pay for championship travel, either.
“So as much as we would like to have stayed there and been a part of that, we just felt like that at this time, with budgets the way they are, that it was not a prudent thing to do.”
The Bison begin play in the NCAA with the volleyball season starting on Friday, Sept. 1, in Daytona Beach, Fla.