The Success and Reach of NIRSA’s Championship Series

The 2024 US Open attracted more than one million fans, a first for the three-week Grand Slam tournament held at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y. Among the spectators who contributed to the record-setting attendance was Pam Watts, NIRSA’s executive director. She was a guest of the United States Tennis Association, which not only organizes the event but also is a partner for the NIRSA Tennis Championship Series. 

That fact alone illustrates the broad reach of the NIRSA Championship Series, which each year gives college recreational sports participants in basketball, flag football, soccer and tennis an opportunity to compete, coordinate and officiate with their peers from other schools at the regional and national level on campuses around the country. 

Consider these numbers from the 2023-24 NIRSA Championship Series season:

Soccer National Tournament (Round Rock, Texas)
• 96 teams
• 85 National Intercollegiate Soccer Official Association referees
• 46 NIRSA staff volunteers
• 8 regional tournaments 

Basketball National Tournament (Madison, Wis.)
• 60 teams
• 65 student officials
• 51 staff volunteers
• 8 regional tournaments 

Flag Football National Tournament (Stillwater, Okla.)
• 38 teams
• 37 student officials
• 49 staff volunteers
• 6 regional tournaments 

Tennis National Tournament (Rome, Ga.)
• 64 teams
• 12 staff volunteers

Achieving that level of participation requires serious commitment not only from competitors, but also from other students and campus recreation professionals who volunteer their time and talent to ensure each tournament offers a positive experience for all involved. 

“For professionals, it’s very similar to going to a conference, but in a different format,” says Paden Alie, assistant director of sports programs at Purdue University. Alie was a NIRSA Championship Series official and now volunteers on officials committees for flag football and basketball tournaments. “We’re watching flag football for three days instead of sitting in a classroom for three days, but we still learn how to be better professionals, how to better serve students.” 

Keys to involvement 

Jasmine Holmes began volunteering for the NIRSA Championship Series at a 2018 regional soccer tournament. As a field marshal representing Cornell University, she helped check in teams and handled administrative issues. After that, Holmes became a field marshal for other Championship Series tournaments and eventually took on leadership and operations roles involving game officials and social media. 

Holmes is now the associate director of campus recreation at Syracuse University, where she hopes to foster greater involvement in the Championship Series. The university’s first student official in years was recently involved in a tournament, and a campus recreation coordinator now serves as a committee chair. 

“A lot of this involves finding people who are self-starters and sharing ideas with them,” Holmes says. “Ask them, ‘Where would you like to be, and how do you think you can get there?’ Then share some ways you’ve been able to find success within the Championship Series and lead by example. At Syracuse, students already are motivated. We just have to find ways to channel that motivation and direct them.” 

That organic approach to generating enthusiasm for the Championship Series might ultimately lead to campuses becoming host sites for regional and national tournaments. 

“We’re always looking for host sites at every level,” Holmes says. “We’d like to allow people to experience different areas of the nation, to travel to places they might not otherwise visit. It’s also an opportunity for universities to highlight their campuses and local communities.” 

Purdue hosted a 2024 regional basketball tournament for 20 teams in late February, using six of the 10 basketball courts at the France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center. Alie and his team were responsible for (among other things) reserving space, housing volunteers, providing athletic trainers and securing major sponsorships. 

“Being able to put on a really good tournament goes a long way toward building and maintaining our reputation as a strong NIRSA school,” Alie says. “We have a decent reputation as a school that generates good officials, but we also want to be known as a school that hosts great tournaments for participants and volunteers.”

Campuses interested in hosting regional or national Championship Series events should be willing to place the student experience at the forefront of all planning efforts, according to Holmes, as well as develop multiple contingency plans for everything from security to weather. 

“The Championship Series also is very focused on making sure our tournament sites are inclusive,” she says. “How can we partner with the town, the city, the university to make sure that all identities are welcome, that we’re not excluding people? That’s one of the important things in terms of what could go wrong, so just make sure there’s a space where everybody who wants to participate can show up as themselves.” 

Hosting — or even volunteering at — a Championship Series event takes a lot of work, but it’s worth the effort, according to Alie and Holmes. 

“People like having fun,” Alie says. “They like seeing the friends they’ve met through this community and reconnecting with them. But, more tangibly, this helps all of us be better at our jobs on our campuses. When I go to the national flag football tournament, I’m able to bring back teaching points that I haven’t really thought of in the past for flag football officials. It helps me be a better evaluator of officials.”

“I like to think I’m very intentional, and I definitely thought that getting involved in this would play into the success that I would have within the industry,” Holmes adds. “Recognizing that the people I surround myself with have found ways to utilize their experiences within the Championship Series to attain elevated leadership roles, or make transitions within their campus, was definitely a motivating factor for staying involved. I never thought this was going to be a one-off opportunity.”