Valley Creek Elementary students greet Minnesota State defensive end Max Dahm as the team arrives for a campus visit a few days before the 2019 NCAA Division II National Football Championship. Dahm and his fellow Mavericks spent the morning at Valley Creek reading to students in classrooms and playing flag football with them on the playground. Campus visits from the teams playing in the championship have become a fun tradition that gives MISD students an opportunity to interact with collegiate athletes. The tradition will be put on hold this year as the 2020 championship game has been cancelled due to COVID-19 disruptions to the football season.

McKinney, Texas – On Wednesday, October 14, the NCAA announced that it has extended McKinney ISD Stadium’s run as the host site for the Division II National Football Championship through 2025.

The announcement is in line with the NCAA’s decision last March to keep the championship at MISD Stadium through 2021. Now, the NCAA has chosen the district’s beautiful, 12,000 seat venue to host the Division II title game an additional four years.

McKinney ISD Stadium in 2018

“We are excited to know that the NCAA Division II National Championship will continue to be held here in McKinney at McKinney ISD Stadium,” said Shawn Pratt, MISD Assistant Superintendent of Student Activities, Health and Safety. “This joint project between McKinney ISD and the City of McKinney has had a great economic impact on our community while allowing us to show off our great community to the fans of each school and a national television audience. Many people from both the school district and the city worked very hard to make this championship a great success, and that is evident by the NCAA’s decision to stay here through 2025.”

MISD hosted the championship in 2018 and 2019 and was slated as the site of this year’s Division II National Football Championship until COVID-19 turned the season topsy-turvy, and the NCAA announced that the 2020 game would not be played. The 2021 championship game is currently still scheduled to take place at MISD Stadium.

Ferris State offensive lineman Tyler Allison takes part in a classroom learning game with students from Minshew Elementary. Ferris State players visited the school before competing in the 2018 NCAA Division II National Football Championship at McKinney ISD Stadium. Campus visits from the teams playing in the championship have become a fun tradition that gives MISD students an opportunity to interact with collegiate athletes.

The championship first came to MISD Stadium on short notice in the fall of 2018 when the original host venue was unavailable due to ongoing renovations. The NCAA was so impressed with the job done by the Lone Star Conference, the MISD Athletics Department and the City of McKinney that they brought the game back.

“The Lone Star Conference and the city of McKinney performed in an outstanding fashion in hosting the 2018 championship despite having a short window of time for preparation,” said NCAA Division II Football Committee chair Reid Amos in an NCAA release last year. “Combine that local effort with such an outstanding facility and it was an easy decision for the committee to make regarding future championships.”

The NCAA received more than 3,000 bid submissions from NCAA member schools, conferences, sports commissions and cities vying to host predetermined rounds for 86 of the NCAA’s 90 championships. The sites were selected by the respective NCAA sports committees and approved by the divisional competition oversight and championships committees.

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