The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) 2021 cheer and dance national championships will return to St. Ambrose University, Davenport, in March.

The championship tournaments were recently relocated due to a scheduling conflict with the Eastern Michigan Convocation Center. The championships will move from Ypsilanti, Mich., to Davenport, and will be hosted by St. Ambrose and Visit Quad Cities.

St. Ambrose University hosted the 2019 NAIA national dance and cheer championships.

In a year of shuffling of schedules, the NAIA worked with St. Ambrose swiftly after it was determined that the previously announced host site was unable to accommodate the championships this year as the Eastern Michigan Convocation Center is being converted into a mass Covid vaccination site, the NAIA announced in a release.

“This has been a very difficult year to plan, so we want to thank the Ann Arbor Sports Commission for its efforts to make this happen,” said Mike Higgins, NAIA Director of Championships. “We certainly appreciate all of their hard work, and also greatly appreciate former host St. Ambrose for picking-up the baton. We know they will do an outstanding job!”

SAU hosted the cheer and dance national championships in 2019 and were scheduled to do so in 2020 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The partnership and positive relationship we have with the NAIA and St. Ambrose University is incredibly important to Visit Quad Cities and our regional destination,” said Dave Herrell, President and CEO, Visit Quad Cities.

Dave Herrell is president/CEO of Visit Quad Cities.

“Serving and providing a host community solution for the NAIA Competitive Cheer and Dance Championships was paramount to demonstrating to the NAIA that the Quad-Cities always stands ready to work them. It will be an honor to host some of the country’s top student-athletes in a safe and responsible manner as they compete in the QC for this coveted championship event.”

The NAIA Cheer and Dance National Championships are scheduled for March 12-13, 2021.

St. Ambrose hosted the two-day competition featuring 12 cheer squads from nine states and 12 dance squads from eight states at Lee Lohman Arena in 2019. The field included defending national champions, Missouri Valley in cheer and St. Ambrose in dance — teams which won their first NAIA titles in 2018.

Both championships will be held in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and hosted by both the Ann Arbor Sports Commission and Concordia University (Mich.) in 2022.

The NAIA members provide more than 77,000 student-athletes with opportunities to play college sports, earn $800 million in scholarships and compete in 27 national championships. For more information, visit naia.org.

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Jonathan Turner

Jonathan Turner -- who has called the Quad Cities home since 1995 -- has decades of experience as a professional journalist and pianist. His experience writing for daily newspapers, public radio and local TV encompasses a wide range of subjects, including the arts, politics, education, economic development, historic preservation, business, and tourism.

Jonathan most loves writing about music and the arts (which he now does as a freelancer for the River Cities Reader and Visit Quad Cities). He has a passion for accompanying musicals, singers, choirs and instrumentalists, including playing for QC Music Guild's 2023 productions of RENT and SWEENEY TODD. He is assistant music director and accompanist for the spring 2025 Music Guild show, ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE. He wrote an original musical based on The Book of Job, which premiered at Playcrafters in 2010. Jonathan penned a 175-page history book about downtown Davenport, that was published by The History Press in 2016, and a travel guide about the QC published by Reedy Press in 2022.