NCAA Track & Field Championships

What are the NCAA Track & Field Championships?

The NCAA holds separate indoor and outdoor national championships in track and field. This page covers the Division I Men's and Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championships, held each June, where separate men's and women's team titles and individual event titles are decided.^[1][4] The outdoor championship runs in two stages: an East and a West first round, then the finals.^[4]

The Division I indoor championships are a separate meet held in March; the NCAA lists the 2027 indoor championships for 12–13 March 2027 at the University of Arkansas's Randal Tyson Center in Fayetteville.^[9]

Who organizes the NCAA Track & Field Championships?

The NCAA runs the championship for its Division I member schools and publishes the season's documents: a technical manual, participant manuals for each site, qualifying criteria and the championship records books.^[1] Its technical manual for the 2026 outdoor championships, updated 6 February 2026, names the University of Kentucky in Lexington and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville as the first-round sites and the University of Oregon in Eugene as the finals site.^[4]

The USTFCCCA, the coaches' association, is a separate body; it marked the championship's centenary and describes the 1921 meet as "the first championships for any sport under the sponsorship of the NCAA".^[8]

When and where are they held?

The finals are held once a year in June. The host column of the NCAA's records books names the University of Oregon as host of every championship from 2014 to 2025 except 2019 and 2023, which the University of Texas hosted, and records that "The 2020 championship was not contested due to the COVID-19 pandemic."^[2][3] FloTrack's reports place the 2026 finals at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon, with the men's team title settled on 12 June and the women's on 13 June.^[6][7] The NCAA's official results site dates the meet 10–13 June 2026 in Eugene.^[11] The NCAA lists the 2027 finals for 9–12 June 2027 at Hayward Field, Eugene, after first rounds in Lexington and Fayetteville.^[1]

M: men's team champion · W: women's team champion. 2016–2025 champions and hosts from the NCAA's men's and women's records books, which name the host institution; the 2026 champions are from FloTrack's and the USTFCCCA's reports. No championship was held in 2020.^{[2][3][6][7][12]}

Since when do they exist?

The NCAA's men's records book opens its team history with the 1921 championship in Chicago, won by Illinois under coach Harry Gill.^[2] The USTFCCCA states: "In June 1921, the University of Chicago hosted the first track & field championships in NCAA history."^[8] The women's records book begins its team history in 1982, when UCLA won at the meet hosted by BYU.^[3]

How do athletes qualify?

Entry runs through the first rounds. The NCAA's technical manual for 2026 states: "For each individual event contested at each of the First Round Sites of the Championships, the top forty-eight (48) declared student-athletes, per gender in each individual event will be accepted into the Championships." Relays follow the same rule with "the top twenty-four (24) declared relay teams, per gender in each relay event". From there, "The top twelve (12) competitors in each event contested, per gender at each First Round Site of the Championships will advance to the Final Championships Site." The decathlon and heptathlon skip the first rounds: "The top twenty-four (24) declared student-athletes in each of these two events will be accepted into the Championships for competition at the Final Championships Site."^[4]

The West first-round participant manual puts the cap as a limit: "no more than twelve (12) competitors or twelve (12) relay teams shall advance from a First Round Site of the Championships to the Final Championships Competition site."^[5] Marks count only from meets that satisfy the NCAA's published qualifying criteria; the 2026–27 edition was updated on 1 September 2026.^[10]

Why do they matter?

The measurable record is the NCAA's own: its records books print the champion's and runner-up's team points in a history that begins in 1921 for men and 1982 for women.^[2][3] Recent margins have been narrow. In 2024 Florida's men scored 41 points to Auburn's 40, and in 2025 Texas A&M and USC tied for the men's title on 41 points each, one ahead of Arkansas; Georgia won the 2025 women's title with 73 points to Southern California's 47.^[2][3] The USTFCCCA describes the 1921 meet as the first NCAA championship in any sport.^[8]

Who competes?

The field is made up of student-athletes from Division I member schools, declared into the East or West first round in men's and women's events.^[4] In 2026 Arkansas won the men's team title with 56 points to Georgia's 49, and Georgia won the women's with 50 points to Florida's 43, according to FloTrack and the USTFCCCA.^[6][7][12] Over 2016 to 2025 the records books list men's champions from Florida, Georgia, Texas Tech, LSU, Texas A&M and USC, and women's champions from Arkansas, Oregon, Southern California, Florida, Texas and Georgia.^[2][3]