ABSTRACT
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is the body which regulates and administers major intercollegiate sport in the United States. It was formed in 1906 after an initiative by President Theodore Roosevelt, stimulated by a spate of injuries and deaths in college football largely arising from the use of the \flying wedge’ formation. Originally the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, it became the NCAA in 1910. Its function of overseeing the organization of leagues and conferences was expanded in 1921 when it began to organize its own championships, which it now does in 22 sports. The number of member organizations expanded steadily in the second half of the twentieth century from approximately 400 in 1950 to just under a thousand in 1999. About a third of a million young people compete annually under NCAA auspices.
