NAIA bans all transgender players
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced a policy Monday that all but bans transgender athletes from competing in women's sports at its 241 mostly small colleges across the country.
The NAIA Council of Presidents approved the policy in a 20-0 vote at its annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The NAIA, which oversees some 83,000 athletes competing in more than 25 sports, is believed to be the first college sports organization to take such a step.
According to the transgender participation policy, which goes into effect in August, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and have not begun hormone therapy will be allowed to participate in women's sports.
A student who has begun hormone therapy may participate in activities such as workouts, practices and team activities, but not in intercollegiate competition.
NAIA programs in competitive cheer and competitive dance are open to all students. The NAIA policy notes every other sport “includes some combination of strength, speed and stamina, providing competitive advantages for male student-athletes.”
NAIA President and CEO Jim Carr said in an interview with The Associated Press he understands the
policy will generate controversy but that it was deemed best for member schools for competitive reasons.
Women's basketball NCAA TITLE GAME MOSTWATCHED IN 5 YEARS >>
South Carolina's victory over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Sunday's women's NCAA championship game had a preliminary audience average of 18.7 million on ABC and ESPN. The only sporting events in the United States to draw a bigger TV audience since 2019 have been football, the World Cup and the Olympics.
The audience numbers are expected to increase when Nielsen releases its final numbers on Tuesday. Nielsen says the audience peaked at 24 million.
It's the most-watched basketball game since 2019, when the men's NCAA title game between Virginia and Texas Tech averaged 19.6
million on CBS.
Monday night's men's final between UConn and Purdue was being shown on TBS and TNT. It's possible that this will be the first year the women's title game has a bigger audience. SOUTH CAROLINA TOPS FINAL AP POLL >> South Carolina can add another first to its perfect season: The national champion Gamecocks finished atop the first Associated Press Top 25 women's basketball poll to be released after the NCAA Tournament.
The Gamecocks, who won their second title in three years Sunday with an 87-75 victory over Iowa, received all 35 first-place votes from a national media panel Monday. South Carolina was No. 1 for every week this season except for the preseason poll, when the team was sixth, and at 38-0 became just the 10th team to finish a season undefeated. It is the first time in the 47-year history of the women's Top 25 that the AP has released its final poll after the NCAA Tournament. Until this year, the final poll had been released after Selection Sunday, on the eve of the tournament.
Iowa was a unanimous choice at No. 2 and the other Final Four participants UConn and N.C. State were third and fourth, respectively. USC was fifth, earning its first ranking in the final poll since 2014 and its highest slot at the end of the season since the Trojans were third in 1986.
LSU, Texas and Oregon State — all reached the Elite Eight — and Stanford and UCLA rounded out the top 10.
Tennis DJOKOVIC BEATS FEDERER'S RECORD >>
Novak Djokovic has surpassed another tennis record once held by Roger Federer, becoming the oldest man to be ranked No. 1 in the ATP Tour's computerized rankings.
Djokovic is 36 — he turns 37 next month — and is now older than Federer was on his last day atop the rankings in June 2018. Monday gives Djokovic 420 total weeks at that spot, extending another mark Federer (who was there for 310 weeks) had at one time before Djokovic broke it.
Djokovic's 24 Grand Slam singles titles also are the most by a man in tennis history and the most by anyone in the Open era, which began in 1968.