Back to Rockford!
August 26, 2025 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
It’s true: USA Ultimate is headed back to Rockford.
The 2026 USAU Division I College Championships will be held in Rockford, Illinois, over Memorial Day weekend, May 22-25, the organization announced today. The tournament will be hosted at the excellent fields at the Mercyhealth Sportscore Two athletic complex, which has played host to Club Nationals, the High School National Invite, and the 2015 and 2018 D-III Championships.
Next year’s Division III College Championships will be held nearby, north of Chicago in Waukegan, on May 16-18. USAU typically holds the two events within driving distance of each other.
This is just the second time that the D-I College Championships have been held in Illinois, though the nearby Milwaukee and Madison have played host four times since 2015.
Rockford has sometimes been plagued by windy conditions for ultimate events, and its relative geographic isolation in Illinois has been criticized, especially by Club Nationals players. The Sportscore Two fields, however, are in excellent condition and the venue has a lot of built-in infrastructure, including a stadium field.
This year’s College Nationals follows a banner year for the event in Burlington, Washington, where many ultimate players, fans, and families came out from nearby hotbeds like Seattle and Vancouver.
