Cheer and Dance Gains GPAC Championship Status

(Sioux City, Iowa) – The Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) is pleased to announce the addition of the league's 20th and 21st Championship Sports. The GPAC Council of Presidents (COP) at their Tuesday, October 11, meeting in Seward, Nebraska, approved the change of GPAC Cheer and Dance to a Championship Sport. For the last three seasons GPAC Cheer and Dance had Invitational status within in the conference.

GPAC Cheer and Dance started in 2014 as an Invitational event. This change moves the sports to Championship status within the conference effective immediately. To obtain Championship status the sports must have all varsity teams and a minimum of six participating institutions. For 2017 the GPAC will have eight (8) varsity dance teams and seven (7) stunt-cheer teams.

Along with Championship status the sport now qualifies for points in the GPAC All-Sports Trophy standings and All-Conference honors. The implementation of those two components will be delayed until 2017-18.

"I want to congratulate our GPAC Cheer and Dance coaches on this announcement," said GPAC Commissioner Corey Westra. "They have worked incredibly hard to make this happen over the last three years and need to commended on how hard they have worked to advance their sports." "This is another great milestone in the rich and proud history of the GPAC!"

Also, the GPAC approved Affiliate Membership in the conference beginning in 2017-18 and announced the University of Jamestown (UJ) as an affiliate member for Cheer and Dance (along with wrestling). UJ will be a full member of the GPAC in 2018-19 as announced on Thursday, October 13, in Jamestown, North Dakota.

The 2017 GPAC Cheer and Dance Championship will be held at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, on Saturday, February 11.

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced in April that Cheer and Dance are the newest Championship events in the association.

About the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC)

The Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) is an affiliated conference of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), consisting of 11 private, faith-based colleges and universities in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. Originally founded in 1969 as the Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (NIAC), the league retains four of the six charter members - Concordia, Doane, Hastings, and Midland.

In 1992, the NIAC added Northwestern and became the Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference. Eight years later, Dakota Wesleyan, Dordt, Mount Marty and Sioux Falls joined the conference which became the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) in 2000-2001.

Briar Cliff entered the league in 2002-2003 and Morningside joined starting with the 2003-2004 school year. Both schools are in Sioux City, Iowa.

In the summer of 2010 Dana College ceased operations (Member from 1969-2010) and in 2011 The University of Sioux Falls discontinued membership in the GPAC (Member from 2000-2011). Nebraska Wesleyan discontinued membership in 2016 (Member from 1969-2016).

In 2015 the GPAC added College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska, as a member.

The University of Jamestown in Jamestown, North Dakota, will join the GPAC in 2018-19 as a new member. Jamestown will be an affiliate member for 2017-18 in select sports.

The GPAC sponsors 21 intercollegiate sports - nine for women, ten for men, and cheer & dance as a co-ed offering - and awards an All-Sports Trophy based on the final league standings and conference meet results at the end of each school year. Competitive Cheer and Dance is the most recently added championship sport in the GPAC (starting with 2016-17 after three years of invitational status).

Through our first 16 years as a conference the GPAC has 23 NAIA team National Champions.

First and foremost, the GPAC remains committed to Academic and Athletic Excellence! Last year 641 student-athletes from the conference earned Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete honors. In addition, 164 teams in the GPAC were honored as NAIA Scholar-teams.

Corey Westra of Sioux City, Iowa, is the GPAC Commissioner and Lucas Mohrman of Columbus, Nebraska, is the GPAC Assistant Commissioner for Sports Information.