Future of Division III

[PA_wesleyfan]

Seems to me that this board is getting the most attention so


HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all

[old ends]

I have not really gotten into discussion with some of the college people I call on, because there on break and Vacation, but I know that in the past some of the colleges really are starting to down play sports. They want to stress academics and "partner institutions" for futher education.  Some of them felt that the cost of running a large athletic program took away from the academic standards to attract the top students.

Plus with some of schools will not allow a donation to go to a sports program. It is for the College to decide the best use for the funds.

It will be worth watching the up coming meetings and reading what they provide for us to read.

[old ends]

To all a safe and happy New Year.

[Ralph Turner]

Let me use McMurry, my alma mater, as a case study. 

The previous president, Dr Robert Shimp, was a football player at Thiel in the 1960's.  He came to McMurry in the early 1990's and helped lead the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, a NAIA-2 conference founded by Trinity TX, Austin College, Sul Ross State, Tarleton State and McMurry in 1976, to Division III as the 8-team ASC.  (The ASC has grown to a 15-team conference.  Austin College left to the SCAC in 2006.  University of Dallas went independent in 2001.)

Dr Shimp saw the niche of student-athletes who wanted to compete in an organized level of competition in college.  He saw that the NCAA Division III had more to offer than the NAIA, and began a new emphasis on intercollegiate athletics on the campus, under the D-III model.  I think that the school offered 9 sports when he came. (The sports were FB, VB, MBB, WBB, M & W Tennis, and Men's Golf.  Most years the school would field Men's and Women's T&F.  I am not sure when Swimming, Men's and Women's, came online.)  The school now offers 19 sports, 10 men and 9 women, for the student body of 1400, (50/50 gender ratio).

A large number of students come because of athletics, but the key to the success of the school is integrating student-athletes into college.  When the students realize that their talents are not good enough to get the playing time they wish, or they "out-grow" the sport or they discover other interests, the school has found programs that integrate the student-athletes into campus life in other areas.  Many of these students were multi-talented in their high schools, but now are exploring those (non-athletic) interests more completely.  Isn't that what I highlighted as one of the buzz-words in the new D-IV goals?

In the most recent institutional self-study, the current president, Dr John Russell,   populated the Athletics study committee with some of the most respected faculty members.  In the study of athletics programs offered, one key financial finding was that all 19 sports contributed to the financial health of the institution, not the other way around!  That carried great weight with the faculty and allowed a new light to be cast upon the role of the student-athlete and the university.  Athletics was a plus and not a financial drain.  What's more, it was the relationships built on the campus that kept student-athletes in school, when they no longer competed inter-collegiately (retention = continued enrollment = financial well being of the institution).  This is particularly important for a school like McMurry, where we have a student body that represents the demographic breakdown of the state, and have a good number of first-generation college students.

In some ways, McMurry is just like Sewanee, which says that it has 400 student-athletes, one-quarter of the student body.   Student-athletes have decided that they want to participate in inter-collegiate athletics, and Sewanee's student-athletes could have gone anywhere they wanted.  Birmingham-Southern was NAIA in the last decade and went to D-1.  Its current president saw that the D-III model would allow it to use its $120 Million endowment to improve the scholarship offerings of the university to the student body in general, instead of as "athletic scholarships".  He plans to grow the enrollment by 30% using the D-III model and adding sports.

There are two other dynamics that are now present that were not when the current group of senior college administration was in college, pre-Title IX/early 1970's.

--Before Frank Shorter won the 1972 Olympic marathon, almost nobody jogged.  Now, campus activity centers/ workout facilities are a core of the college experience, and expensive workout equipment and facilities are included in Capital Expansions of Campus Facilities.

--If women's athletic programs have the net effect of doubling the number of "athletes" on the campus, then that changes some of the demographical relationships.  Swarthmore worried about "17% athletes" on its campus as having too great of a prevalence.  Ostensibly, their solution was to cut three sports, football, men's wrestling and women's badminton.   A college now has twice the percentage of athletes that it did in 1970, and half of them are women, who had few inter-collegiate options before Title IX.  Those student-athletes view life differently from their mothers.

As colleges try to survive by maintaining enrollment, (as opposed to a Harvard with its $35 billion endowment that could do without any undergrads quite nicely), Division III will continue to attract student-athletes whose life choices (athletics) are valued by the institution.  I think that Division III will do well.  After a decade, I wonder if a D-IV that has de-emphasized athletics (or given a "new emphasis" as some have said) will be fairing as well, or will it have fallen from the current D-III pinnacle.

[ILive4This]

Old ends, any University President will tell you when a donation is made, even to the endowment of his/her institution, rarely is in not tied to something specific, a chair of a department, a building, athletic facility etc. A president/chancellor should never turn down funds that are ear marked for athletics, because that is simply crippling his/her school.

Also as it has been said many times, look at the top athletic schools in division 1 and 3, and for the most part they are top notch academic schools as well.

Div 1 Directors cup Top 5, with (US News Academic rankings)
1. Stanford (4)
2.UCLA (25t)
3. UNC (28)
4. Michigan (25t)
5. USC (27)

Div 3 - Univ = National University List, Lib = Liberal Arts List
1. Williams (1 Lib)
2. Middlebury (5t Lib)
3. SUNY Cortland (70 - masters north list)
4. Amherst (2 Lib)
5. Wash U (12 Univ)

With the exception of one, with great athletics comes great academics, so... there you have it.

[old ends]

I did not say that they turn them down, only they try to encourage them to not go to any one specific fund.

[Titan Q]

While in southern California last week with Illinois Wesleyan, I happened to run into the head basketball coach at Mid-America Nazarene.  I had on IWU gear...he had on his gear...we said hello and started talking hoops.  We had a nice conversation about his team (currently #1 in NAIA II) and then general NCAA Division III and NAIA issues.  I brought up the topic of the Division III membership split issues.

He said that the NAIA and NCAA are "at the table together" on this entire issue and that the objective is to find a solution for "small college" overall.  Just today I heard the same thing from another person with very strong NAIA ties -- that the two parties are working together.  They both seemed to imply that the goal is for everyone to eventually be NCAA, but there are sticking points to work through (scholarships being the biggie).

I can't confirm any of this and certainly don't know any details, but having now heard this from two different people in the last week, I found it interesting and worth throwing out there.

[Knightstalker]

I should be seeing my nephew in a couple of weeks, I will talk to him about it.

[frank uible]

How does DIAA football accomodate athletic scholarship teams and also non-athletic scholarship teams? Perhaps the non-athletic scholarship ones have no overwhelming desire to participate in the playoffs?

[golden_dome]

Mr. Ypsi, thanks for the heads-up on this discussion. I have been perusing the last 10-15 pages and have found it very interesting to say the least. I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea what the NCAA is going to do, nor do I think they are sure either.

I saw it mentioned that Division II was questioned about possibly lowering scholarship totals, but that was met with obstinence. I would imagine a logical alternative could be to create a division that perhaps would offer half the scholarships as DII. That would save interested schools money on scholarships, allow them to function under DII rules concerning issues such as redshirting, and allow them to distinguish themselves as a scholarship school. That division would be a very popular alternative in my opinion to current DIII institutions and some NAIA schools. The only problem is it could potentially destroy Division II so cross that off the list.

I had assumed the NCAA would go ahead with some type of reclassificiation for the DIII schools based on a reasonable criteria, but this supposed dialogue between the NCAA and NAIA doesn't really fit that. Anyone have an idea as to when we might see a conclusion to all of this?

[smedindy]

The D-1AA non-scholarship teams were forced into that classification by the NCAA, otherwise, I'd think Dayton would still be D-3 in football, for example.

Didn't one of the Pioneer League teams go to the playoffs recently?

[frank uible]

About 3 or 4 years ago Colgate, a member of the non-scholarship footbal Patriot League, advanced to the championship game (vs. Delaware) of DIAA football.

[Knightstalker]

Hasn't the Patriot League been giving out limited scholarships for a few years now?  Or is that for Basketball?

[joehakes]

Remember that "the NCAA" is the membership.  Since the creation of a new division is an association wide question, there will be discussion with DI and DII regarding the future of DIII.  However, there has been a lot of work, much of it accessible by links from this board, that has been done to be able to present some options and this work has been done by DIII members. 

There will be several forums for information and discussion at the NCAA Convention which starts a week from today.  In February, surveys will go out to various groups, with DIII Presidents being the main target.   These surveys should present various grouping options as well as some philosophical questions about the goals and objectives of athletics at each institution. 

Technically, it is true that the NCAA "doesn't know where it is going," but that is because the membership has not had a chance to look at the options and gauge the various menus of institutional grouping.

Ralph Turner's post on McMurry's history is indeed a great example of the journey taken by many schools over the past 20-25 years when college athletics has undergone tremendous change.  I have been very surprised at some of the NAIA schools that would prefer to go DIII over DII which was the former destination of choice for ex-NAIAers.

There will be much more information to come in the next couple of weeks.  This is a very interesting discussion with some interesting observations.

[smedindy]

Hasn't the Patriot League been giving out limited scholarships for a few years now?  Or is that for Basketball?

I think that's basketball.