NAIA to change Saturday cross country nationals, no action on policy

The cross country national race next year will occur on either Friday before sunset or on Monday, the council ruled, to accommodate the Sabbath hours of Adventist college and university cross country teams belonging to any of 21 conferences operating under the NAIA umbrella.

Currently four Adventist higher education institutions are NAIA members -- La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif.; Pacific Union College in Angwin, Calif.; Walla Walla University in Walla Walla, Wash.; and Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Md. All but Walla Walla include cross country in their varsity sports programs.

“The NAIA has long been an organization focused on inclusion and providing a positive student-athlete experience,” said Rob Cashell, National Administrative Council chair. “The decision to increase flexibility with national championship scheduling thereby allowing our Seventh-day Adventist members to participate supports both these ideals and was widely supported by the NAC.”

Seventh-day Adventists observe Sabbath during the 24-hour period between Friday night sundown and Saturday night sundown. Adventist educational institutions refrain from participation in athletics competitions during this time in keeping with the teachings of the Adventist church. 

La Sierra Athletics Director Javier Krumm and La Sierra University President Randal Wisbey appeared at the April NAIA national convention in San Diego along with athletics directors from the other NAIA Adventist schools in a meeting Krumm requested with association leadership to advocate for Sabbath accommodation. They were accompanied by Don Ott, commissioner of the California Pacific Conference of which La Sierra University and PUC are members. Ott, a former Baptist pastor, has spearheaded the effort over several years for a Sabbath policy for SDA schools along with Krumm and other directors.

“This was a very meaningful and important conversation for Adventist athletics. [The cross country championships resolution] will be seen as a significant decision long into the future,” commented Wisbey. “We represent a system of 25,000 students around North America. Though not all are NAIA schools, this decision sends a clear message that SDA students are welcome to play in NAIA championships.”

“We are excited to share this great news,” added Krumm. “Moving the NAIA cross country nationals from Sabbath to Monday or Friday will not just benefit our current students and institutions, but many others in the future.”

Brittany Brown, athletics director at Pacific Union College said the schools have been working toward such a decision for more than two decades. Upwards of 22 student-athletes in PUC’s cross country program have qualified for national competition since the school entered the NAIA’s California Pacific Conference in 1997, but have been precluded from the national race which has traditionally been held on Saturday. “Under the leadership of our presidents, athletics directors, and the Cal Pac Commissioner Don Ott, our voices were finally heard. This decision is consistent with the association’s values. It voices to our department and schools that our student-athletes and our commitment to the Sabbath has value,” Brown said.

The SDA schools’ cross country coaches were excited by the news and anticipate a positive impact on their ability to recruit runners. La Sierra Cross Country Coach Erin Lowry said the cross country nationals decision allows the team to advertise its participation in the NAIA championships. “Before, the farthest we could go was the conference finals,” she said.

Dan Muhic, PUC’s cross country coach said the change will make it easier to sign up runners, and will also extend the team’s season which currently ends just a few weeks after the start of school with the conference cross country finals in early November. “I was really delighted,” he said. “What was so encouraging was seeing some of the administrators of our league [go] to bat for us.”

Muhic, a former runner with PUC’s cross country team, qualified for nationals as a student and recalled the frustration of the inability to move forward in NAIA competition. He joined in advocating for the championships day change by writing a letter seeking the support this spring of other cross country coaches in the Cal Pac conference. Five responded by affirming their endorsement of the effort, Muhic said.

The NAC voted to approve the motion on June 15 at the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics conference in Orlando, Fla. The NAIA formally announced the decision in a statement to its Adventist member institutions on July 31.

In a related decision, the association’s statement also announced that no action was taken on a Saturday Declaration of Intent sought by its Adventist member schools that would create a policy avoiding Saturday competitions for all NAIA sports, nor did the association grant an official NAIA letter requested by the schools asserting that NAIA games would not be scheduled during Sabbath hours. A Saturday declaration would mirror an existing Sunday Declaration of Intent for schools that do not compete on that day in keeping with religious observances.

The administrative council directed the NAIA Championships Department to “make reasonable accommodation whenever possible” for the Adventist teams’ Sabbath observance, but noted that the council’s directive did not guarantee Sabbath accommodation in all instances toward maintaining event scheduling flexibility. The NAIA’s statement noted that a precedent for such accommodation has been established through championship scheduling.

The NAIA, comprised of more than 250 colleges and universities around the country, is attractive to faith-based schools in part because of its Champions of Character program that emphasizes the teaching of five core values – integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership.

Various sports teams at all four NAIA Adventist schools have advanced to nationals at different times. In addition to the PUC cross country teams, men’s basketball teams at Washington Adventist University and Walla Walla University and La Sierra University’s volleyball team have all qualified to compete nationally.

Patrick Crarey, athletics director at Washington Adventist University and a La Sierra alum, said the cross country nationals decision is particularly meaningful given that Adventist schools are becoming increasingly involved at the championship level. “It’s really going to help change the landscape for us,” he said. NAIA will currently work with SDA schools in game scheduling and is “very flexible, very proactive,” but “now it’s more about getting things on paper,” Crarey said. “I’m looking forward to continuing the relationship with NAIA.”

Krumm says conversations with NAIA leadership will continue concerning the request for a Saturday Declaration of Intent. “Our students and schools need this foundational policy accommodated, not only for our present needs but for those of other individuals with the same beliefs coming into the association in the future,” Krumm said.

Game changer

Cal Pac’s Ott commended the NAIA for its attention to the Sabbath observance issue. “The NAIA is showing its interest, support and concern for SDA institutions by continuing discussions to accommodate all institutions based on their Sabbath observance, whichever day that may be,” he said.

Ott believes the cross country nationals policy change sets the stage for discussion of similar decisions concerning other sports. As commissioner, he oversees the game scheduling duties for 12 schools in 11 different sports, and helps ensure Cal Pac Adventist schools’ scheduling needs are accommodated. This has included advocating for the cross country national championships day change over the past several years.

“One of the things that came to my attention when I became commissioner 10 years ago was that we were having cross country runners from PUC finishing within the top five, which means they qualified to compete for the national championship,” Ott said. “[But] they couldn’t because the race was held on a Saturday. So probably eight years ago we proposed legislation to move the date to a Monday.” However, to keep the traditional championship structure in place, the proposal was voted down during a national convention, he said.

Ott began canvassing members of the administrative council who are conference commissioners and athletic directors toward impressing on them the importance of making the change.

“The biggest thing was that our schools banded together,” Ott said. “The 12 institutions [in Cal Pac] all said, ‘we want to support PUC, and now La Sierra University cross country, with this effort.’” 

The Association of Student Athletes which formed in 2014-15 also proved influential. “Our students from the Cal Pac took that [cross country nationals day change] to the national student athlete group, and not coincidentally, our representative was a female cross country athlete from [University of California] Merced. And this young woman was persuasive at the student athlete level so they started talking about it,” Ott said.

The final influential push, Ott added, came in April when La Sierra’s Krumm and President Wisbey addressed NAIA leadership along with athletics directors from other SDA schools. “And low and behold, the NAC, which had been hesitant for years because it’s hard to make changes when you are a national organization, they put it forward and it changed,” Ott said. “So I’m thrilled that for generations to come I won’t have to look at a kid after handing him his trophy and say, ‘congratulations on running so well, and you can’t go to nationals.’”