UT Tyler

After a three-year wait, the NCAA made UT Tyler wait an extra 45 minutes to officially become a Division II program.

The NCAA was scheduled to make the official announcement at 12:30 p.m. Friday, so UT Tyler had scheduled to begin their event at 12:35 p.m.

As UT Tyler athletic director Dr. Howard Patterson was addressing the crowd, he got the thumbs up at 1:15 p.m. that the official announcement had been made.

“It’s actually kind of funny,” Patterson said. “We’ve waited this long, why not wait another 45 minutes?”

The wait is officially over.

“This is a great moment in UT Tyler athletics,” UT Tyler president Dr. Kirk A. Calhoun said. “I want to recognize our coaches and our student-athletes for their outstanding performance during this provisional period.”

Now, an athletic program that has had tremendous success at the NCAA Division III level and has already made major strides in Division II during its transitional period will look to have a large presence on the Division II championship landscape moving forward.

“This year has been so successful in my opinion with what our coach and student-athletes have been able to accomplish,” Patterson said. “We blended right in to Division II with every sports except for one, and we’ve got that sport back on track with some great student-athletes coming in.”

UT Tyler will compete in the Lone Star Conference, which it has been able to participate in for the past two years.

“The Lone Star Conference is arguably the premier Division II conference in the country,” Patterson said. “The institutions regularly win national championships, and we plan on being among them. During UT Tyler’s provisional years, we were not eligible to play in the postseason. This was not an easy time for our teams, our student-athletes and our coaches. Our men’s tennis and women’s softball teams won their conference championships this year, and those are the first of many D2 conference championships to come, I assure you.”

UT Tyler won two NAIA national championships in tennis with the second coming in 1994.

In 2001, the university hired Patterson as its first athletic director. The Patriots began adding sports, and in 2007, UT Tyler was granted full NCAA Division III membership.

UT Tyler won its first NCAA national championships in 2013 with men’s golf and Laura Lindsey winning as an individual in women’s golf.

Kevonte Shaw won the NCAA Division III national championship for the 200-meter dash in indoor track and field in 2015. In 2016, Whitney Simmons won the national title for the hammer throw in outdoor track and field, and the UT Tyler softball team also earned a national championship.

Simmons won another national in 2017 in indoor track and field in the weight throw. Baseball added to UT Tyler’s national title total in 2018 before the school was accepted into the NCAA Division II three-year membership process.

Overall, UT Tyler has two NAIA national championships, seven NCAA Division III national championships, 147 All-American, 149 American Southwest Conference championships and 77 NCAA Tournament appearances.

Also, UT Tyler has had 160 Lone Star Conference commissioner’s honor roll recipients and 28 consecutive semesters with a department GPA of 3.0 or higher. UT Tyler also captured both the men’s and women’s Lone Star Conference Academic Excellence Awards presented by Balfour. According to Patterson, it was the first time in the history of the award that an institution won both the men’s and women’s academic award in the same school year.

UT Tyler’s baseball program went 25-15 this past season.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for for three years,” UT Tyler baseball coach Brent Porche said. “It’s been a long three years. Just like Dr. Patterson said, there’s been a lot of work put into this. On our side, the student-athletes who have committed and been a part of the program during this transition period and helped us to continue our success. I am just so thankful for those guys and the work they put in and the belief they had in what we’re trying to do here. And we’re excited to play in the postseason.”

UT Tyler men’s basketball was 12-10 in its second season under head coach Louis Wilson.

“It’s tremendously exciting,” Wilson said. “It will add to recruiting. We didn’t allow it to impede our recruiting to begin with, because it’s a great institution with a lot to offer, but it definitely adds to recruiting to be able to officially be able to compete for national championships. It makes a big difference. It’s a great day for the program.”

The women’s basketball program was 0-14 but will now be under the direction of new head coach Rebecca Alvidrez. The women’s soccer program picked up a 1-0 win over Division I Stephen F. Austin.

The men’s tennis program finished with seven consecutive wins. The women’s tennis program picked up 12 wins.

The track and field programs continued to have success, including Summer Grubbs, who claimed the Lone Star Conference Outstanding Female Track Athlete of the Year Award and the Lone Star Conference Academic Athlete of the Year Award.

“I don’t even have the words,” Grubbs said following the announcement. “It’s been frustrating being under this suppression, but we are finally free to soar. I am ready for the change. Obviously, we’ve made a big impact already, and I can’t wait to see what we do in the future.”

The softball program finished 33-7 and nationally ranked.

“A really big part of our legacy in Division III was built on championships, so now to have this three years of provision behind us and now an opportunity for our student athletes to go compete for championships, we’re really excited,” UT Tyler softball coach Mike Reed said.

The volleyball program went 14-1 with the only loss coming to Angelo State in five sets in the Lone Star Conference championship match.

“It’s so exciting,” UT Tyler volleyball coach Lyndsay Mashe said. “When we first heard it was going to be a three-year process, it seemed so far away, but we got here so quickly, and our teams have done just a phenomenal job of competing already. We’re just so excited to get that opportunity to compete for championships and go on to the NCAA Tournament.”

In the NCAA’s announcement, it said there are now 300 Division II programs set to compete in 2021-22.