Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association

The Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) is a college athletic conference whose member schools compete in men's volleyball. Its member institutions are located in the Northeast United States.

Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association
EIVA
Established	1977
Members	8 (9 in 2021)
Sports fielded	Volleyball men's: 1 women's: 0
Region	Northeast
Former names	Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball League (ECVL)
Commissioner	Russ Yurk
Website	www.eivavolleyball.com/%20eivavolleyball.com

The EIVA Tournament champion receives one of five automatic bids to the NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship. The other four automatic bids go to the two other traditional major volleyball conferences, the MIVA (Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) and the MPSF (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation); the Big West Conference, which in the 2017–18 school year became the first Division I all-sports conference ever to sponsor men's volleyball; and Conference Carolinas, a Division II conference that was the first all-sports conference in either Division I or II to sponsor men's volleyball. Before the 2014 tournament, the EIVA, MIVA, and MPSF received three of the four bids to the NCAA tournament, with the remaining entry being an at-large bid that was chosen from one of the three leagues by a committee of coaches from these leagues. The tournament expanded to six teams in 2014 when Conference Carolinas was given its automatic bid, and seven in 2018 with the addition of the Big West champion. The current lineup consists of the five conference champions and two at-large entries.

Penn State has won every conference championship for the past 18 years, with the exception of 1998 when Princeton captured the title, 2016 when George Mason won the title and 2018 when Harvard emerged on top. The Nittany Lions are the only conference team to win the NCAA national championships, having captured the title in 1994 and 2008.

As of the 2020 season (2019–20 school year), the EIVA consists of eight schools: the University of Charleston (in West Virginia; not to be confused with the College of Charleston in South Carolina), George Mason University, Harvard University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU), Princeton University, Sacred Heart University, and Saint Francis University (in Pennsylvania; not to be confused with future EIVA member St. Francis College in Brooklyn, which like the Pennsylvania school is an all-sports member of the Northeast Conference). The top four teams compete for the EIVA championship. The winner represents the conference in the NCAA Div. I/II national championships.

Previously, from 2005-2006 to 2010-2011, the conference was divided into two divisions. The higher division was named the Tait Division and the lower division was named the Hay Division. The conference used a system of promotion and relegation whereby the last place team from the Tait Division went to the Hay for the following season and the highest ranked Hay Division team moved to the Tait. Prior to that, there was a second lower division (equal to Hay) named the Sweeney Division, but this was eliminated for the 2006 season. The two lower divisions were merged into one division at that time.

On April 28, 2012, Uvaldo Acosta (George Mason), Tom Hay (Springfield College), Ivan Marquez (Concordia [NY]), Bill Odeneal (SUNY New Paltz), Bob Sweeney (East Stroudsburg), and Tom Tait (Penn State) were inducted into the EIVA's inaugural Hall of Fame class during the 2012 EIVA Championship match at Penn State.[1]