635...NCAA Accepts First Canadian School

Ah, another sign of the impending doom and end of Canadian culture and blah blah blah.

Or, perhaps, they just wanted to save money on travel.

Either way, Sports Illustrated reports that Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver has been admitted on probation to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division II. This is not the big time, populated by schools such as Notre Dame, Washington, Syracuse but it is the NC2A.

Here is what SI had to say:

A new option emerged on July 10, when the NCAA’s Division II admitted its first non-U.S. school, Simon Fraser in Burnaby, B.C., for a transitional period with the ability to become a full member in 2012-13. Division II made the decision to geographically balance its membership, particularly in the West generally and in the Northwest for football. For now, neither Division I nor Division III is considering opening its membership internationally, and with only a handful of Canadian schools considering Division II, the concept of a North American Collegiate Athletic Association is far-fetched.

But, but and but. The process that made this happen was the attempt by the University of British Columbia to join the NCAA a few years ago. UBC wants in the NCAA Division I to play in the Pacific Athletic Conference, the PAC 10, against schools such as Stanford, Washington, UCLA and USC. Their reasoning is two fold. First off, it is much cheaper to go from Van to Seattle, Palo Alto, LA than from Van to Saskatoon, Brandon and Thunder Bay. Secondly, if one buys into the fact that one of the prime reasons for big time athletics is to raise the profile of the school, playing against Stanford, Washington et. al. on TV has exponentially more value than playing Brandon in a half empty gym that may or may not even make the student paper.

This is not the end of university sports in Canada per se but it could be the end of the CIS, Canadian Interscholastic Sports and, frankly, that is a good thing.

It is fashionable to hate on the United States for sure but the fact of the matter is the CIS has nothing approaching Title IX, which is a gender equity law passed in 1972 and is why women's sports have exploded in the last three decades nor does the CIS publish graduation rates. The NCAA has both.

WFDS