I've enjoyed reading about and following the whole D-III/D-IV debate (particularly this thread) over the past several months. As someone that has followed and covered the many issues surrounding D-II over the years, I decided I would like to register and add my two cents.
Firstly, I don't understand where people come up with the notion that D-II is not viable or shrinking. Similar to what happened in D-III, D-II went through massive growth in the 90's, gaining 88 members (most coming from the NAIA) from 1989 to 1999. Overall membership (active and provisional) stood at 209 in 1989 and peaked at 297 in 1999.
There was a natural retrenchment in the first half of this decade once the membership moratorium was enacted and overall standards as far as sports sponsorship and minimum financial aid commitments were put in place. Not to mention the fact that many prominent D-II schools left the division due to the fact that it had been overrun by schools that were not ready philosophically or financially to compete at this level.
This year D-II membership sits at 298 active and provisional members-- an all-time high. This is due to several factors, but the main reasons are that many of the schools with the immediate desire and wherewithal to move to D-I have already done so and D-II has finally started to do a better job of defining itself over the past the couple of years. Now granted, much of that "defining" is fluff like handing out "I Chose Division II" banners for schools to hang in their gym. But some of the progress made-- like entering into an agreement with CSTV to broadcast football and basketball each week-- is very tangible. D-II will almost certainly reach its stated goal of having ~ 300 active members and 25 conferences by 2011 or so.
The other issue I would like to address is that the football scholarship debate in D-II is over. The original proposal at the 2005 convention was to reduce from 36 to 24 scholarships and that failed by a wider than expected 2-to-1 margin.
From there D-II's Management Council asked the D-II Football Committee to take a look at splitting into two championships, one with 18 and one with 36 scholarships. I wrote a feature article on this subject for the 2006 D-II National Championship game program, so I covered this in great depth leading up to the 2007 convention. The impression I got at the time was that the split would fail, but that the vote might be close enough that it would be looked at again in the future.
Not only did the split fail resoundingly (29 votes for, 117 against), but Division II membership took it a step further by passing another legislative action that requires all future changes in scholarship levels in any sport to have a 2/3 majority. This action basically nuked any future scholarship reduction debate in D-II. I would surmise that it will be, at minimum, 15 years before anyone even brings it up again. In fact, the one conference that has been the impetus behind almost every scholarship reduction proposal in the past (the PSAC) has now lifted its self-imposed conference maximum of 25 scholarships in football and is now allowing it's members to offer 36. I bring all of this up because I firmly believe that a "D-II lite" in football is completely off the table for now.
Anyway, I really feel that the entire D-III debate going on right now will have a very limited impact on the future of D-II. This is simply because of the fact that D-III and D-II have more divergent philosophies than do D-II and D-I. (i.e. some athletic scholarships is more in line with full scholarships than no scholarships). Once a school makes the decision to offer athletic aid, it's much more likely to increase that aid and eventually move to D-I than decrease aid and move to D-III.
Firstly, I don't understand where people come up with the notion that D-II is not viable or shrinking. Similar to what happened in D-III, D-II went through massive growth in the 90's, gaining 88 members (most coming from the NAIA) from 1989 to 1999. Overall membership (active and provisional) stood at 209 in 1989 and peaked at 297 in 1999.
There was a natural retrenchment in the first half of this decade once the membership moratorium was enacted and overall standards as far as sports sponsorship and minimum financial aid commitments were put in place. Not to mention the fact that many prominent D-II schools left the division due to the fact that it had been overrun by schools that were not ready philosophically or financially to compete at this level.
This year D-II membership sits at 298 active and provisional members-- an all-time high. This is due to several factors, but the main reasons are that many of the schools with the immediate desire and wherewithal to move to D-I have already done so and D-II has finally started to do a better job of defining itself over the past the couple of years. Now granted, much of that "defining" is fluff like handing out "I Chose Division II" banners for schools to hang in their gym. But some of the progress made-- like entering into an agreement with CSTV to broadcast football and basketball each week-- is very tangible. D-II will almost certainly reach its stated goal of having ~ 300 active members and 25 conferences by 2011 or so.
The other issue I would like to address is that the football scholarship debate in D-II is over. The original proposal at the 2005 convention was to reduce from 36 to 24 scholarships and that failed by a wider than expected 2-to-1 margin.
From there D-II's Management Council asked the D-II Football Committee to take a look at splitting into two championships, one with 18 and one with 36 scholarships. I wrote a feature article on this subject for the 2006 D-II National Championship game program, so I covered this in great depth leading up to the 2007 convention. The impression I got at the time was that the split would fail, but that the vote might be close enough that it would be looked at again in the future.
Not only did the split fail resoundingly (29 votes for, 117 against), but Division II membership took it a step further by passing another legislative action that requires all future changes in scholarship levels in any sport to have a 2/3 majority. This action basically nuked any future scholarship reduction debate in D-II. I would surmise that it will be, at minimum, 15 years before anyone even brings it up again. In fact, the one conference that has been the impetus behind almost every scholarship reduction proposal in the past (the PSAC) has now lifted its self-imposed conference maximum of 25 scholarships in football and is now allowing it's members to offer 36. I bring all of this up because I firmly believe that a "D-II lite" in football is completely off the table for now.
Anyway, I really feel that the entire D-III debate going on right now will have a very limited impact on the future of D-II. This is simply because of the fact that D-III and D-II have more divergent philosophies than do D-II and D-I. (i.e. some athletic scholarships is more in line with full scholarships than no scholarships). Once a school makes the decision to offer athletic aid, it's much more likely to increase that aid and eventually move to D-I than decrease aid and move to D-III.