National Collegiate Wrestling Association

North American college sports organization

The National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) is a nonprofit association of 162 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organize the wrestling programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. It is led by founder and executive director Jim Giunta headquartered in Dallas, Texas and built to help the promotion of collegiate wrestling. Many teams were formerly NCAA programs displaced by Title IX legislation and/or are preparing to join the NCAA, NAIA, or NJCAA. Teams in transition to a higher division not eligible for the NCAA postseason also compete in the NCWA. Notable wrestling programs to have started or competed in the NCWA and are now in other associations include: Bellarmine, California Baptist, Lindenwood St. Charles, McKendree, Notre Dame College, Queens, and Southern Illinois Edwardsville.

A post secondary athletic association built to help the promotion of collegiate wrestling, the NCWA was founded in 1997 as a 501c3 non profit by the current executive director, Jim Giunta, after resigning as executive director of the Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association (TIWA). At its founding the association had 13 member teams, but today the NCWA is composed of over 150 wrestling teams and clubs from across the United States and Canada. Many of these programs were formerly NCAA scholarship programs which were affected by Title IX legislation, which has resulted in many colleges being forced to give up their wrestling programs in the name of gender equality. The variety of institutions competing in the NCWA is wide and unrestricted as junior colleges, trade schools and post secondary prep institutions compete in the same national championship as four year colleges and universities.

While the NCWA currently has over 100 schools in competition, a few programs have distinguished themselves as top tier programs.

While the NCWA currently has over 100 schools in competition, it has also been home to many programs that transitioned from one association to another or that originated as an NCWA program and later changed associations.

The NCWA is divided into eight regional conferences and four divisions. Men's Division I programs are athletic department funded or have met the NCWA's D I criteria. Many of the Division I programs also offer athletic scholarships. Men's Division II teams are broken into categories; Emerging Programs, that are developing into Division I teams, and Clubs that operate on campuses where there are established NCAA/NCAA/NJCAA Teams; few Division II schools are of the latter circumstance. Schools whose wrestling teams are competing in the NCWA during their school's transitional period are placed into Division I. Women's programs are any collegiate/post secondary scholastic programs who also compete in the collegiate folkstyle ruleset. GoGreco programs have most of the same set up as the men's and women's divisions with the exception that it is under a Greco Roman ruleset. In August 2010, the current two division system was passed at that year's Vision Forum and implemented for the 2011 National Championships.

NCWA Gear is the official apparel of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association. Based out of Orlando, Florida, the business sells sublimated athletic apparel designed for wrestling and mixed martial arts practice and competition for both men and women of all ages. NCWA Gear also offers full customization on its products. In 2015, USA Wrestling named NCWA Gear's Florida National Team Uniforms for Fargo as the "Best Uniform Package." Mixed martial artists Josh "The Goods" Woods and Daniel "The Animal" Martinez both wore NCWA Gear while fighting.