NWAACC move responsible choice

With so many pros and cons about North Idaho College moving from the Scenic West Athletic Conference to the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges, most of the NIC board of trustees decided the positives outweighed the negatives and the switch was made on March 13.

But was the switch the right decision? Well, that definitely depends on who you ask.

One aspect that everyone probably agreed on was that nobody wanted this to happen.

But NIC seemed to be faced with two options.

The first one was moving all of NIC’s teams, except for wrestling, to the NWAACC in the next two years. The second option was keeping some of NIC’s teams in the SWAC to compete for national titles and cutting the other teams completely. The board of trustees chose the first option.

After all the accomplishments NIC teams have made over the years, cutting teams would be a tough pill to swallow.

Making the move to the NWAACC was probably the most financially responsible thing to do. The move should save about $600,000 in travel and scholarship expenses.

No matter how you look at it, March 13 was a sad day in the history of NIC athletics.

Once all the teams move to the NWAACC, rivalries with the College of Southern Idaho and Salt Lake Community College – just to name a couple schools – will be gone. In fact, the NIC softball team probably made its last visit to the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls on March 7 and 8.

The ability to recruit internationally and compete for national titles will not be there either.

NIC’s new rival will probably be Community Colleges of Spokane, which could make for interesting games in the future.

It’s time to look forward to what soon will be a new era in NIC athletics. Go Cards.