Intercollegiate Chess League of America
Biography
The Intercollegiate Chess League of America (ICLA), a student organization, was founded in 1945. It promoted chess at the college level by organizing regional and national chess tournaments and local clubs, publishing newsletters, organizational materials and publicizing college chess courses and scholarships. By the 1970s it began rating players and teams.
The ICLA was a sub-organization of the United States Chess Federation (USCF), founded in 1939. The ICLA held its first Intercollegiate Chess Championship Tournament in 1945, which was a competition between individual players. The 1946 Championship Tournament was a competition between teams from different colleges and the tournament has alternated between individual and team competitions ever since. In 1969 the annual Championship Tournament's name was changed to the North American Championship Tournament and in 1971 to the Pan-American Championship Tournament to reflect greater participation from Canada, the Caribbean and South America.
A separate organization, the Association of College Unions International (ACU-I), held independent national chess tournaments. The ICLA was later absorbed into the USCF, which still offers college club memberships. The Pan-Am Tournament structure has remained unaltered. In 1999, the USCF started the new National College Chess League.