KCAC is on its way up, but climb to national respect is steep

The basketball in the glass case at Stewart Field House looks its age, but means as much today as it did the day it was used by the Southwestern College men’s basketball team to beat San Diego State in the 1939 NAIA national championship game.

That’s because it still represents the only national team title won by any KCAC school in its 88-year history.

It’s a drought that the conference, on almost every level, has gone through great lengths to try and bring to an end over the last decade – the results of which are very tangible and could, soon enough, produce that elusive national title.

The turning point is easy to point to — the institution of the league’s Sports Regulation Initiative before the 2010-2011 school year that brought the KCAC in line with the rest of the NAIA as far as scheduling and offseason preparation.

“That modification opened the door for us,” KCAC commissioner Scott Crawford said. “There are other things, too, though. The continuity of coaching staffs is a big part of it. That we’re more visible online as a conference helps with recruiting.

“As the result of all of that, we have a little better of a student-athlete.”

Having the same leader in place throughout – Crawford has been there for nine years – has also been key.

“(Crawford) has done more than anyone to push this conference forward,” said Tabor president Jules Glanzer, the chair of the KCAC’s presidents committee. “To have him in place for as long as we have, and to have him pulling all the right levers to make this work has been the difference. He’s been fabulous for us.

“For a long time, the KCAC’s main interest was parity and how we did amongst ourselves, but about seven years ago the presidents got together and decided that we wanted to have more of a presence in the postseason. The thinking was that if there was something out there to pursue, to make our league and our schools more appealing, we should go after it.”

Since the SRI went into effect, four of the KCAC’s 10 Kansas schools have posted the best national team finishes in school history and the league has produced two NAIA national players of the year — Friends’ Joe Mitchell in 2014 (Division II men’s basketball) and Tabor’s Manny DeLeon in 2016 (baseball).

Since 2013, the KCAC has put four baseball teams in the NAIA World Series – Tabor twice and Sterling twice – after going the World Series’ first 56 years without sending a single team.

The league has also added two quality schools – expanding beyond Kansas borders for the first time to add Oklahoma Wesleyan and York (Neb).

Oklahoma Wesleyan won the NAIA Division II men’s basketball championship in 2009 while in the MCAC.

York, which becomes a full-time member this fall, just posted its best national finish in school history when men’s basketball made the NAIA Division II quarterfinals in March.

Adding York also brings the KCAC’s full-time members to 12, so the league adds six automatic NAIA postseason bids – men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball and baseball.

“The growth of the conference to 12, and with the quality of the two schools makes the conference more competitive day-in and day-out,” Crawford said. “We feel like we’ve done all the right things … what we always heard was ‘Play better, be better,’ and we went out and did that.”

The only sport where the KCAC seems to be at an almost impossible disadvantage is the most visible one: football.

The KCAC’s best finish in football remains Bethany’s 1979 team, which made it to the Division II national semifinals while the NAIA was still split into two divisions. The NAIA went back to one football division in 1997 and no KCAC team has advanced past the quarterfinals, although Tabor has reached the quarterfinals twice since the SRI went into place.

The reason for the KCAC’s disadvantage isn’t hard to discern — the dearth of roster holes to fill for the eight junior-college teams in the Jayhawk Conference. The 63-player Jayhawk rosters have 43 spots alotted to in-state players — a whopping 344 football players from Kansas alone.

In the last decade, only one school with junior-college football in its state — Grand View (Iowa) in 2013 — has won a national championship, and it’s only been done three times in the last 20 years.

“I think women’s basketball is knocking on the door right now and could potentially be that breakthrough sport,” Crawford said. “Or look at cross country, where we just had a national runner-up at Saint Mary this season. Everybody wants football, but that’s complicated.

“We’ve made humongous strides in football in the last few years with our series of games against the Heart of America and the Great Plains Athletic Conference … we’re going out and looking for higher quality opponents. But if you’re asking if football will be the breakthrough sport, I’d have to say I don’t think so, but you never know.”

And will the KCAC’s mission only be complete once a team wins a national title?

“If that could happen, that would be amazing,” Glanzer said. “We feel like we have put ourselves in a position where we can consistently compete on the national level, so would it be really nice if a team did break through and win one? Yes it would.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2016 at 1:50 PM with the headline "KCAC is on its way up, but climb to national respect is steep."