Taekwondo has enjoyed great international success and appeal, culminating in its acceptance as an Olympic Sport. In the United States, Taekwondo as become increasingly popular but is still not a collegiate sport recognized by the NCAA. There are normally a laundry list of reason the NCAA can use to dismiss different “sports”, but that is not the case here. So lets look at some of the decision points, at least as I see them.
1. Rules: Olympic style Taekwondo, has an established set of fair rules to control and standardize the sport. The electronic system of scoring with multiple judges via triggers and a computer is very reliable and accurate. Also, with a standardization of weight classes and scoring procedures, it is very easy to have individual as well as team results. The scoring is much more accurate and unbiased than other similar sports such as wrestling, which is a NCAA sport.
2.No existing structure or Organization: Collegiate Taekwondo has been professionally executed by the INCTL, Ivy Northeast Collegiate Taekwondo League(now the Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference). There are over 20 colleges that compete, with a tournament series in place, scoring methods, weight classes, and rank requirments.
3: Qualified Officials. Officials in leagues like the INCTL already have to under go nationally controlled testing approved by the World Taekwondo Federation and the United States Taekwondo Union. No one can officiate a match with their own college competing. The weakest part of the argument is that there is not one “officiating crew” for a tournament. The black belts competing tend to be certified and asked to help out.
So… What do you think? I would like some feedback on this one. I really think we could do a lot for martial arts and Taekwondo by getting TKD recognized as a collegiate sports. The only reason I jump on the Taekwondo band wagon is that it is the most unified and regulated martial art for quality scoring and fighting that are sport like. I’ll talk more about that later… Thanks.
2 Comments Received
January 17th, 2009 @2:33 am
You bring up a good point. I would love to see Taekwondo achieve NCAA status someday. Right now, we only have one national collegiate competition which is run by the NCTA. It’s such a long-shot though especially since Taekwondo isn’t as big as those “American” sports that are part of NCAA.
How would you begin to make this sport NCAA?
January 17th, 2009 @9:43 am
Collegiate TKD took a hit a few years back with the corruption scandal in the USTU, so that doesn’t help, or support the NCTA nationals much.
I think the way to start is to find any current league like the Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference, bring them together in some form of meeting or conference and have them all ratify one like set of rules, and possible a “playoff” system of some sort for the top two or three schools they have. Think of it as a championship tournament to tie them together. Also agree on one referree certification program, and a board to coordinate them as much as each league would by into. If nothing else a board to oversee the unified tournament.
Once you have that level of cooperation, you would have a stable league the NCAA could just recognize and you would be in business.
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