Before she became the first woman to serve as commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and the first Black woman to hold such a title in all three NCAA divisions, Jacqie McWilliams was a Bear.

McWilliams, 52, was hired by former Morgan State athletic director David Thomas in 2001 as an internal operations director responsible for facility management, strength and conditioning, and compliance and governance. She worked with the Bears until January 2003, when she left for the NCAA to eventually become director of the Division I women’s basketball tournament from 2006 to 2009 and the Division I men’s basketball tournament from 2007 to 2012.

“Last year, I remember I had a break and we were headed somewhere, and I wanted to go to [Morgan State’s] campus, and I did,” she said. “I got out of the car and walked around because I had such great memories of working at Morgan State. I really loved working there. And if I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to go to the NCAA, who knows how long I would have stayed there?”

On Sept. 4, McWilliams celebrated her 10th year leading the CIAA. The Baltimore Sun talked with McWilliams about her tenure, conference expansion and the CIAA Tournament’s second run in Baltimore.

Is there a responsibility as the first woman to serve as commissioner of the CIAA and the first Black woman to hold such a title in the NCAA?

When I was the only one representing all three divisions, in my first couple years, it felt pretty heavy. It felt like, if I didn’t do a great job or if I didn’t do the things to meet an expectation in the right way, I could mess it up for other women of color. And there was the impostor syndrome. Did I really deserve it? Am I really ready to be the commissioner?

I think over time, I’ve grown into the opportunity so that I deserved to be here, that I worked hard to be here, and that I have a responsibility to make sure that I’m not the last and that I bring other people along. So I recognize that I’m in a position of power and influence to really make a difference in the industry.

How would you assess your tenure?

We have done so much work. I could probably write a book on where we started and where we are now.

It’s incredible that as I’ve gotten to my 10th year, I was hired Sept. 4, 2012, and I’ve marked all the things that I did when I first arrived that day, and within the first three to five years, most of them were completing our strategic goals. We’re in our second plan since I’ve been here, and we have completed 99% of all the goals we have tried to meet — whether that was bringing in new members, making sure that the branding is visible, making sure that we had television rights, making sure that our sponsors grow and that our student-athletes have jobs and internships.

So we’ve done a lot of good work, and this tournament in partnering with Baltimore has really met the bar of what I had planned to see.

How will the addition of Bluefield State this summer as the 13th member school alter the 12-team brackets on the men’s and women’s sides?

Before we added Claflin University [in 2018], we had the same challenge because Chowan University was in our conference. In their last year, we had 13 schools, and we ended up having a play-in on that Monday. It’s likely we’ll do the same again, and we’ll end up having a game on Monday evening, maybe two games on Monday evening, and then play Tuesday through Saturday.

Is there consideration for inviting another institution to even the membership?

I think there’s always consideration. As we look at growth for the CIAA, what I’ve learned from my board is, it took a while for Bluefield to get in. We invited them some years ago, and they went through some changes with their own president and leadership. But I think our board is very strategic and thoughtful about new members and what they bring to the table because when you come to the CIAA, you get a lot in return, a lot more than what other divisions and conferences do.

I help raise all of our money. With our media rights market, that’s not like Division I where the distribution comes from the NCAA in terms of your media rights. I have to negotiate our own media rights. In Division II, we do get money from them, but it’s not the same. So they’re very strategic about bringing somebody in and what they will benefit from it and what value they will add to the conference.

Looking at Bluefield, we felt it was a good fit. Bluefield had been in the CIAA back in the 1950s. They’re a land grant institution and an HBCU. So it’s really them coming back home. They have some people within their institution that know about being a part of this conference.

Is this year’s tournament meeting your expectations so far?

It’s been excellent. [Visit Baltimore CEO and president] Al [Hutchinson] and I talk every day to make sure that everything’s OK and that there are no fires. We’re surrounded by team members at home and in Baltimore, and things are going well.

We had a lot of learning last year. We were trying to do so much. It’s not like we were doing things separately and competing against what Baltimore wanted to do and what the CIAA wanted to do. We learned from that. We were burning ourselves out, and our collaboration and our marketing and our media efforts have been very strategic about what Visit Baltimore is doing and what the CIAA is doing and who it impacts and how we promote that collectively. We have a really balanced schedule that makes sense.