U Sports

U Sports (stylized as U SPORTS) is the national sport governing body for universities in Canada, comprising the majority of degree-granting universities in the country and four regional conferences: Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ), Canada West (CW), and Atlantic University Sport (AUS). The equivalent body for organized sports at colleges in Canada is the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). Some institutions are members of both bodies for different sports.

The original Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAU) was founded in 1906 and existed until 1955, composed only of universities from Ontario and Quebec. The semi-national organization, CIAU Central, provided common rules and regulations.

A growth spurt between 1944–55 saw the CIAU Central grow into a large group of nineteen (19) member universities each of which had diverse enrollment, philosophy, and practices both academically and athletically. The result saw the collapse of CIAU Central as there was no forum to evaluate or research policy in order to adjudicate conflicts within the organization

At the same time women's programs were expanding and required organization. In 1923, the Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Union (WIAU) was founded to provide athletic competition for female students in Ontario and the Ontario-Quebec Women's Intercollegiate Athletics (O-QWICA) coordinated programs for female students in Ontario and Quebec.

With the collapse of the CIAU Central in the mid-1950s, calls for a new, national governing body for university sport accelerated. Once the Royal Military College of Canada became a degree granting institution, Major W. J. (Danny) McLeod, athletic director at the RMC directed the establishment of the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAU) in 1961.

With financial assistance from the federal government, universities committed themselves to excellence in their sports programs, increased their schedules, and assigned coaches to year round programs to assist the federal government in identifying talent, national training centers, provision of facilities, sport research, and testing, all with an eye on developing international competitors.

Major McLeod ran the CIAU from his office at RMC as the first CIAU Secretary-Treasurer. In the 1960s the CIAU functioned as a voluntary, autonomous, educational sport organization which represented by the various universities from coast to coast.

From 1965 to 1967, former McMaster University athletic director Ivor Wynne was the CIAU president. In 1966, he chaired a committee studying whether to allow athletic scholarships in the CIAU, for discussion at the 1967 general meeting. The CIAU decided that scholarships should not be given out solely based on athletic merits, upholding that scholarships were based on academic merits. The CIAU also felt that students who accepted National Collegiate Athletic Association scholarships in the United States, would not have qualified for academic standards at Canadian universities. In 1968, Wynne helped propose a Prairie Bowl in Western Canada as part of a national playdown for the CIAU College Bowl.