A post-secondary athletic association built to help the promotion of collegiate wrestling, the NCWA was founded in 1997 as a 501c3 non-profit by the current executive director, Jim Giunta, after resigning as executive director of the Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association (TIWA).
While the NCWA currently has over 100 schools in competition, it has also been home to many programs that transitioned from one association to another or that originated as an NCWA program and later changed associations.