JERSEY CITY, N.J. (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | Ira Thor, the Assistant Director of Athletics for Strategic Communications and Marketing, is serving a four-year term on the NCAA Division III Baseball National Committee. Originally appointed in Summer, 2019, Thor's appointment is historic for both the sports information profession and the NJCU campus.
 
A national committee is the sport committee with direct oversight responsibilities for the championship and all aspects leading up to the tournament. Thor is one of eight members of the national committee and will chair the Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Committee (RAC). In that role, he is charged with overseeing the group which will produce data-driven regional rankings throughout April and May each season, which will aid the national committee in determining the schools that will qualify for the national championship tournament, including the regionals, super regionals and the Division III championship. His term runs through 2023 and he is eligible for reappointment. 
 
Thor becomes only the second current staff member at NJCU ever to serve on a sport national committee and the first since Frank Parisi, the NJCU's associate head women's bowling coach, served as chair of the women's bowling national committee in 2010. Thor and Parisi teamed up to host that year's NCAA championship in North Brunswick, N.J. — the only national championship ever hosted by NJCU. Parisi served a four-year term on the bowling committee from 2006-10.
 
Additionally, Thor becomes only the second NJCU administrator and full-time staff member to ever sit on a national committee, and the first since former athletic director and two-time Hall of Fame inductee Lawrence R. Schiner, for whom the NJCU athletics Hall of Fame is named, served on the Division III men's basketball committee for six years from 1991-97.
 
Thor continues to make history in the sports information and athletic communications profession, both on the conference and national level.
 
Thor is the first SID in the nation ever appointed to the Division III Baseball Committee and joins Sam Atkinson of Gallaudet as one of only two active SIDs ever named to the national committee in one of the three 'major' men's sports—baseball, basketball and football. Atkinson completed a four-year term on the Division III Men's Basketball Committee this year, including the final two years as the national chair.
 
In 2018, Thor became the first SID in the history of the New Jersey Athletic Conference appointed to a RAC and one of the first two ever appointed to a women's volleyball RAC in Division III history.
 
Prior to serving on a RAC and the national committee, Thor gained experience as an NCAA Regional Site Representative and has been the color analyst on NCAA.com for the Division III men's and women's soccer national semifinals and finals since 2016. He previously was a play-by-play announcer for the Division III Baseball New York Regional. Administratively, he has contributed to seven NCAA bowling national collegiate championships, and has experience in multiple other NCAA championships at the Division I and Division III levels, over the course of 20 years at the university.
 
Despite the 2020 spring championships canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 NCAA Division III baseball championship is slated for June, 2021 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
 
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