9 Schools•Division I•Est. 1961
The MIVA began on February 4, 1961, when representatives of eight schools met in Lansing, Michigan and founded the nation's first men's college volleyball league. Jim Coleman of Wittenberg and Don Shondell of Ball State drove the effort, and both are enshrined in the MIVA Hall of Fame. The league later took its present name, the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, and more than 40 schools have competed in it across its history.
The charter still reads well. Member institutions agree to keep men's volleyball inside their educational programs, under the same administrative and academic control as everything else they do, in conformity with the dignity and purpose of higher education.
The footprint runs from Missouri in the west to Ohio in the east and reaches into Kentucky and North Carolina. Every spring the tournament champion earns an automatic bid to the NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship, a stage the league helped define back when the event was a Final Four.
The trophies followed. Ohio State won the national title in 2011, 2016 and 2017. Loyola Chicago won in 2014 and again in 2015, the second of those against fellow member Lewis in an all MIVA final.
Rivalries give the calendar its shape. Ball State and Ohio State have played since the founding meeting, the oldest series in Midwest men's volleyball. Ball State and Purdue Fort Wayne meet across Indiana along Interstate 69. Loyola and Lewis sit 44 miles apart, the Ramblers on the Chicago lakefront and the Flyers in the south suburbs, chasing the same recruits and meeting twice every regular season.
Official Website
The MIVA began on February 4, 1961, when representatives of eight schools met in Lansing, Michigan and founded the nation's first men's college volleyball league. Jim Coleman of Wittenberg and Don Shondell of Ball State drove the effort, and both are enshrined in the MIVA Hall of Fame. The league later took its present name, the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, and more than 40 schools have competed in it across its history.
The charter still reads well. Member institutions agree to keep men's volleyball inside their educational programs, under the same administrative and academic control as everything else they do, in conformity with the dignity and purpose of higher education.
The footprint runs from Missouri in the west to Ohio in the east and reaches into Kentucky and North Carolina. Every spring the tournament champion earns an automatic bid to the NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship, a stage the league helped define back when the event was a Final Four.
The trophies followed. Ohio State won the national title in 2011, 2016 and 2017. Loyola Chicago won in 2014 and again in 2015, the second of those against fellow member Lewis in an all MIVA final.
Rivalries give the calendar its shape. Ball State and Ohio State have played since the founding meeting, the oldest series in Midwest men's volleyball. Ball State and Purdue Fort Wayne meet across Indiana along Interstate 69. Loyola and Lewis sit 44 miles apart, the Ramblers on the Chicago lakefront and the Flyers in the south suburbs, chasing the same recruits and meeting twice every regular season.
Official Website