When Columbia International University was founded in 1923, intercollegiate athletics was not a high priority. After all, the graduating class only had seven students.
But about 100Â years later, a vision for how athletics could become an important part of CIU's mission began to develop.
In 2010, Kim Abbott was hired as CIU's first athletics director, charged with creating intercollegiate athletics from scratch. But Abbott had the right experience. She came to CIU from the University of South Carolina-Beaufort where she also guided that school's entry into intercollegiate athletics and served as AD for five years.
By 2012, CIU played its first men's soccer match, and men and women were running cross country. Today, CIU also offers men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's cross country/ track and field, volleyball, and esports.Â
CIU joined the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) in 2018 but continues to hold its membership with the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA).Â
Since the beginning, the teams have changed, but one thing has stayed the same, and that is using sports as a ministry tool to spread the gospel. Our teams have achieved success and have seen student-athletes named scholar-athletes, all-region, as well as All-American. CIU is excited to continue to develop athletics and build on our university mission of "To know Him and make Him known."Â
