The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic department has submitted its recertification report to the NCAA, which since 1993 has required all Division I programs to undergo a thorough self-study once a decade.
The question now for UTC, and any other school that hasn’t completed the laborious process, is whether anything will come of it. An NCAA certification review team was scheduled to visit UTC this fall, but those plans are on hold indefinitely.
NCAA president Mark Emmert has halted all recertifications that are in the works until he can take a hard look at the process. It is labor-intensive and time-consuming for all schools, especially mid-majors such as UTC that have limited resources.
“Appalachian State just finished its recertification, and it may be, for all we know, the last institution to ever finish the recertification process,” UTC athletic director Rick Hart said recently. Based on some conversations he’s had, Hart said, “there’s a sense that the certification process as we know it will not return.”
Hart said the process could definitely be improved.