The National Intercollegiate Running Club Association (NIRCA) was founded in the spring of 2006. Prior to its formation, running clubs throughout the country had been competing in local road races, varsity college open invitationals, or did not compete at all. The need for a governing body to bring club cross-country teams together to compete and interact was realized by many. Greg Haapala (Michigan '06) and Tommy Otterbine (Penn State '07) got the ball rolling by contacting various clubs and organizing a national conference to discuss ideas and form what would become NIRCA. On May 12th and 13th 2006, Ohio State University hosted the first ever National Club Cross-Country Conference.

Represented at the conference were Stephanie Kwoon, Dan Luk, and Mike Parry of Ohio State, Jeremy Brown of Ball State, Julia Stulock of Michigan-Dearborn, Otterbine of Penn State, and David Metler, Aaron Metler, Chris Babuska, and Haapala of Michigan. The group set the framework down for NIRCA and developed rules for the organization to follow as well as a constitution and website. The group selected Penn State as the host of the inaugural NIRCA National Championship meet slated for November 4th, 2006.

The national championship meet was modeled from Ball State's MC5 meet which started in 2004 and is the first known all-club cross country invitational.

Stulock is credited with the design of the NIRCA logo while Babuska created the organizations website and Brown wrote the constitution. Aaron Metler and Haapala served as graduate-overseers of the organization while the other founding members made up the first executive board along with Penn State's Steve Ayres as the representative from the school hosting nationals for that year.

NIRCA was founded to first and foremost promote running nation-wide on the collegiate level in a relaxed, fun environment. Championship meets allow our teams to compete on an even level and compete for the right to call themselves national club champions but more importantly, it is the founding members hope that clubs can share ideas by being part of this organization and improve and expand their respective clubs.

-Tommy Otterbine