NCAA Division II adds local voice
· Yahoo Sports
UTPB president Sandra Woodley speaks at a press conference Monday, September 15, 2025, at the D. Kirk Edwards Family Human Performance Center. (Michael Bauer|Odessa American)
Visit forestarrow.rest for more information.
With all the changes in college sports nationwide, UTPB President Sandra Woodley says she will be an advocate for students here as Chair of the NCAA Division II Executive Board.
Woodley will also serve as a voting member of the NCAA Board of Governors, the association’s highest governing body.
Woodley added that there are lot of issues to consider from name, image and likeness, to lawsuits.
The Division II Executive Board has 13 voting members including nine presidents and chancellors, two student-athletes and two independent representatives.
The chair of the NCAA Division II Management Council also serves as a nonvoting member of the board.
Woodley can serve up to two terms.
“I’ve been on the D II board for … going on four years now, maybe a little bit longer. I was selected to represent the Lone Star Conference and D II on that D II board,” Woodley said.
She was elected vice chair of the board two years ago and this is her second year in that spot.
“They just elected me to chair, so I’ll start my first term, and I can serve up to two terms as chair, if they so desire,” Woodley said.
The NCAA has a federated structure, where each one of the divisions within the overall guidelines and rules of the NCAA “really make their own rules, to some extent,” Woodley said.
Those rules relate to everything from the transfer portal and eligibility rules to championships, travel partners and schedules.
“Then, of course, there are some overall rules for the NCAA. The chair of the executive board for D II and similarly, for the one in D III, have representation on the overall governance structure, which is called the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors handles overall rules, strategy and legal issues and all of those things related to all of the NCAA,” Woodley said.
“By virtue of my position as the Executive Board Chair, I’ll be the representative for D II on the overall governance structure as well,” she added.
The board looks at policies, procedures and operations.
“They manage the budgets that come through and the allocations that go for championships and for rulemaking bodies for each of the divisions. They look at strategic initiatives, how to move the division board. They will weigh in on and work on any sort of legal issues that they are having right now,” Woodley said.
Overall in the NCAA, there are legal challenges on name, image and likeness, for example.
“There’s some movement to try to make all of the student-athletes employees, for example. Overall strategic directions, working through the legislative process, and then also handling the rule making and oversight of championships and strategic initiatives in all of the operations of the NCAA sports across 500,000 athletes across the country,” Woodley said.
Indianapolis-based NCAA also works on things like student health and safety making rules about how often you can practice, and making sure that trainers, team doctors are monitored and keep up with the latest research on the physical and mental health well-being of student-athletes.
Also making sure all the rules and initiatives in place focus on the overall experience of student-athletes competitively, in their leadership development and their ability to participate in NCAA sports safely.
UTPB President Sandra Woodley gives the Hook ’em Horns sign at Homecoming 2023. (Courtesy Photo)
Being chair of the NCAA Division II Executive Board, she said, will benefit UTPB.
“I do think athletics is an important part of UTPB. It becomes an opportunity for us to recruit and retain students. Our goal here at UTPB is to do whatever we can to make sure the best and the brightest here in the Permian Basin have a place to go to, a university … where they can fulfill all of the things they want out of a university education,” Woodley said.
“For some students, making sure that they can participate in sports is a big thing. We want to make sure that the Division II differentiation in the overall NCAA remains beneficial to our students. There are differences between Division I, particularly those large programs like University of Texas, University of Alabama, that is different from the regional comprehensive Division II athletic program, so I think being on the board allows me to advocate for our own students here in Division II, and to be a part of the overall voice of NCAA athletics to make sure that there is that focus on the student-athlete experience in all of our rules, policies and procedures that we enact through the legislative process at the NCAA. Our students are like many other students in Division II programs, and we want to make sure that the focus is on them,” she added.
The board meets twice a year in person and at the NCAA convention in January.
“Then there are other virtual meetings and committee meetings throughout the year that I’ll be a part of. The Strategic Planning Committee, and the budget committee is one of the responsibilities that we have, looking at how we spend our dollars and how we allocate them, and oversight into the rules and regulations, but also the strategic initiatives that they have,” Woodley said.
She noted that she thinks this enhances the focus on the university.
“Being a part of the NCAA board and having a place of leadership there, I think, really helps our university … making sure that we maintain that focus on a healthy, competitive opportunity for our students so that we can recruit them to the university, have a good experience here, and leave with those skills as they start their first career opportunity in the Basin,” Woodley said.
The post NCAA Division II adds local voice appeared first on Odessa American.