In March 2019, the Japan Association for University Athletics and Sport (UNIVAS) was established with the mission to promote sporting activities among Japanese universities.
Through its member universities, the UNIVAS is providing support in various forms to varsity athletes such that they are able to focus on both their athletic and academic endeavors in a safe and secure environment, and use the experience to benefit society once they graduate university and go out into the world. The UNIVAS also conducts activities to raise the public awareness of varsity sports and make their varsity sports experience more popular and exciting, by broadcasting varsity sports competitions over the internet, organizing and hosting varsity sports events, and presenting awards.
As an active UNIVAS member, NSSU provides support in many different ways to its students engaged in sports club and circle activities, while promoting varsity sports in general by attending and assisting UNIVAS-sponsored events.
What specific activities is NSSU involved in?
The three main pillars of our activities are the assurance of student athletes’ academic success, the development of a safe and secure environment conducive to their focused athletic endeavors, and the promotion of varsity sports.
Three pillars of activities
Assurance ofstudent athletes’academic success
- Pre-matriculation e-learning program that the students can use to check their academic levels before entering university as well as to review what they have learned previously at the corresponding level of proficiency
- Matriculation preparation program including the streaming of videos featuring current student athletes explaining what the university life is like to incoming students
- Workshops for training students to become managers and coaches at university sports clubs
- UNIVAS leaders’ camp for newly appointed captains of varsity athletic teams from around Japan
- Dual career program, an online seminar that is designed to help student athletes leverage their experience in sports to thrive in society
Development of a safe and secure environment conducive to studentathletes’focused athletic endeavors
- Formulation of safety and security guidelines that apply universally to all sports and contest types
- Healthcare professional dispatch initiative to send healthcare professionals to athletic competition events
- UNIVAS hotline that is available for consultation on cases involving violence, discrimination, sexual harassment, illegal conduct, etc.
- Research involving analysis and prevention of accidents and injuries in varsity sports based on student athletes’ insurance data
Promotion of varsity sports
- Streaming of videos of 1,143 different athletic competitions online for free, which have amassed over 200,000 views (as of February 29, 2020), to spread the word on varsity sports and how entertaining they are
- Hosting of the UNIVAS CUP
What is the UNIVAS Cup?
It is an athletic award competition among the member universities to determine which institutions can rack up the highest total points in all eligible sports.
Previously in Japanese varsity sports, intercollegiate competitions only occurred by sport, and no all-round sports competition event existed that is akin to the Inter-High-School Championships or the National Sports Festival of Japan. To fill this void,
the UNIVAS CUP was started as an intercollegiate competition event encompassing multiple sports, with the aim of garnering wider audiences’ attention to varsity sports overall by offering opportunities to watch varsity athletes compete in various sports.
For each sport, one competition event is held as an UNIVAS-Cup-qualified event, and the member universities earn UNIVAS points based on their rankings achieved in each such event. After all the 31 UNIVAS-qualified events have been held, the overall rankings
of the member universities are determined based on their tallied points, and top-ranked universities are presented with awards at the end of each annual season. In the inaugural UNIVAS Cup 2019-2020, 141 out of the 222 member universities took part in
the national competitions, vying for the number-one spot in each category.