Posted: Sep 01, 2017

ACAA Kicks Off Competition, Website

The American Collegiate Athletic Association kicks off its inaugural season of play today with 21 scheduled contests in men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country and women's volleyball. The ACAA is the newest NCAA Division III conference and has member institutions in New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan and California. Play will continue in the winter season with men's and women's basketball with softball following in the spring.

"Today is really the culmination of about three years worth of work," said Commissioner Kelly J. Higgins. "I can't thank our member athletic directors and presidents enough for their willingness to embrace this vision and going through the long NCAA process of developing the league. It started with the vision of our members, with the assistance of Kurt Patberg of Athletics Staffing & Consulting. Many thanks to Kurt for helping us turn our vision into a great action plan. We look forward to providing many years of championship experiences to student-athletes."

The goal of the league is to provide a cost-effective model to member schools to gain qualification to NCAA Division III Championships. During its inaugural year the league will concentrate on producing quality post-season conference championship experiences. The ACAA plans to roll out a concept that offers the opportunity for head-to-head competition for all members beginning in the 2018-19 academic year.

The league is also proud to debut GoACAA.org website as the primary communication tool of the conference. Designed by PrestoSports of Rockville, Md., the site provides a rich graphic, user-friendly interface that will be regularly updated with scores, standings and statistics from around the league.

"I am really excited about our new website," said Associate Commissioner for Communications Jon J. Martin. "PrestoSports does a great job of designing sports websites and makes it very easy for myself and the league sports information directors to get the news, results and statistics of the league to our stakeholders in a fast, visually-pleasing way."

Charter members of the league are: Alfred State, Finlandia, Mills, Pine Manor, UMaine Presque Isle, SUNY Canton, SUNY Delhi, and Valley Forge. The ACAA currently sponsors competition in men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball and softball.