Future of Division III

[David Collinge]

3)  While it is admiitedly a small sample (10-12), every coach I spoke to was not in favor of the D4 model.

I'm not by any means well-connected, but I do pay as close attention as I can to what goes on around me here in NCAC-land, where "D4" fever is perhaps at its highest.  And I have yet to meet a coach who I would describe as being in favor of a "D4" landscape.  In fact, I have heard from reliable sources that some coaches in the NCAC will leave if their schools go "D4." 

I think that's not unexpected.  Coaches are, after all, coaches.  But coaches are not driving this bus.

[johnnie_esq]

I think that's not unexpected.  Coaches are, after all, coaches.  But coaches are not driving this bus.

I was just about to make this point.  It would be tough to find any in the competitively-inclined personnel who inhabit the coaching ranks agreeing to take on a less-competitive assignment by choice.  And that trait is not limited to football and basketball coaches.

I guess I would be shocked if the college presidents agreed to a D-IV already-- that bunch tends to be a conservative lot who would want to gauge campus opinion before committing to such a change.  In theory, however, I can see a lot of college presidents in favor of the idea, but not many willing to sign up quite yet.

So the question I have is: who will be at the convention?  College presidents or their athletic directors?  The latter may be in the same camp as the AFCA members are.

[Ralph Turner]

I think that I read that the attendance at this NCAA Convention is way ahead of previous years.

A question for the readers who know their faculty/coaching makeup of "D-IV" institutions...

How many Golf/Cross Country/ Baseball/Swimming/Tennis coaches are tenured professors of Kinesiology or Chemistry or History at their institutions?

I think that "tenure" trumps most philosophical "coaching" opinions.

[smedindy]

I know at Wabash none of the coaches are 'tenured', though they do have associated faculty ranks.

[Ralph Turner]

D-III Management Council Pre-convention Press Release.

One pertinent piece of legislation would permit Provisional 3rd and 4th year schools to count towards the seven member requirement for the AQ.

This is sponsored by the NEAC and the North Atlantic Conference.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

This is sponsored by the NEAC and the North Atlantic Conference.

Hmm.  I wonder why they came up with this one?

[Mr. Ypsi]

I am at John Wayne Airport waiting for my flight home and thought I would post about what I heard at the AFCA convention about the D3/D4 issue.

1)  The schools wanting D4 want to have more restrictive control over the athletic programs in the areas of  a) less recruiting emphasis, b) smaller and less well paid staffs,  c) resticted playoff opportunities ranging from a smaller playoff for just their members to no playoffs at all, d) greatly resticting the access of coaches to athletes when not in-season, e) playing teams like those that fit the above criteria only and f) a more restrictive environment that de-emphasizes athletics

2)  The D4 prooponents are finding out that they do not have anywhere near the base they thought they would have and are indeed a small minority in the overall current D3 structure.

3)  While it is admiitedly a small sample (10-12), every coach I spoke to was not in favor of the D4 model.

4)  There was not any talk by any of my sources about forcing entire conferences to make decisions but instead it would be a school by school decision.

As stated above this was a small sample but did include several regions of the country.  The overall feeling I got was that there would be no wholesale exodus of teams to the D4 model.

1b and 1d particularly struck home with me.  The d4 model seems to me to be very similar to what I experienced 40 years ago at IWU (though I suspect I was naive in other ways about fball and bball).  Do d4 schools want to go with 'hired guns', but isolate and underpay them?

Don Larsen (fball coach) was my track coach and PE prof.  Dennie Bridges (bball coach) was my tennis coach and PE prof.  IWU at the time was about 2/3 the size of my high school - should I have avoided these guys like the plague during the off-season (whenever that was)? 

Does d4 want to have fball and bball (and all other) coaches be outsiders who have no relationship with students?  I honestly have no clue what they are thinking, or which planet they are from.  To divorce coaches from faculty would seem to be the reality they are fighting, not something they should be advocating.

[Ralph Turner]

I hope that K-Mack will cover some of the material that was discussed in our conversation with K-Mack, McMurry Head Coach Donnie Gray and me on the impact that the coaching staff has on student-athletes making the transition to college and being on their own.

We have plenty of self-starters who play athletics in D-III, but there are a huge number of kids who do not handle the sudden freedom/responsibility as well as their parents would like. 

I read a quote by University of Texas head baseball coach, Augie Garrido, 5-time D-I Champion of the College World Series at Cal State Fullerton and UT.

In professional baseball, the people are used for the betterment of the sport. In college, the game is used for the betterment of the people. -- Augie Garrido.

If this is the core of what we need to protect about our understanding of the role of athletics in D-III, then we should strive as hard as possible to maintain the systems and procedures in place to achieve that goal.

[wilburt]

One pertinent piece of legislation would permit Provisional 3rd and 4th year schools to count towards the seven member requirement for the AQ.

This is sponsored by the NEAC and the North Atlantic Conference.

1.  Would games with provisionals count as in-region games then?

2.  I thought that D3 would remaing the same but that D4 would be the schools that wanted to red-shirt, increase access to athletes during the off-season, more recruiting emphasis (ie fewer restrictions).  Is that model being discussed? 

[Ralph Turner]

Good morning, Wilburt.  My answers are in italics.

One pertinent piece of legislation would permit Provisional 3rd and 4th year schools to count towards the seven member requirement for the AQ.

This is sponsored by the NEAC and the North Atlantic Conference.

1.  Would games with provisionals count as in-region games then? Currently, games versus  3rd and 4th year provisional schools do count for "in-region" sake.  I see a "Yes" as affirming the role of the conference to assimilate new members.  The NEAC and the NAC have served that function more than any other conferences.

2.  I thought that D3 would remaing the same but that D4 would be the schools that wanted to red-shirt, increase access to athletes during the off-season, more recruiting emphasis (ie fewer restrictions).  Is that model being discussed?

I don't think that the nomenclature has been determined.  I have tried to be consistent in calling those seeking a new division from the current D-III as the D-IV's, the minority of schools (maybe up to 150 schools) seceding from the current D-III, and forming something new.

[Pat Coleman]

Games with third- and fourth-year provisionals already count as in-region games. I would be surprised if it extended beyond that because those schools would not have to be in compliance in as many areas in their first and second year.

[wilburt]

Games with third- and fourth-year provisionals already count as in-region games. I would be surprised if it extended beyond that because those schools would not have to be in compliance in as many areas in their first and second year.

I would be surprised as well.  Interesting link to an article from last September's insidehighered.com on recruiting/admissions and how athletic programs merge with academics.  If it has been posted already forgive me in advance.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/07/class

[Ralph Turner]

Games with third- and fourth-year provisionals already count as in-region games. I would be surprised if it extended beyond that because those schools would not have to be in compliance in as many areas in their first and second year.

I would be surprised as well.  Interesting link to an article from last September's insidehighered.com on recruiting/admissions and how athletic programs merge with academics.  If it has been posted already forgive me in advance.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/07/class

Our friend Wilburt contributes an excellent article from Inside Higher Ed about a book by Mitchell L Stevens, a sociologist at NYU.  Other D3's mentioned in the article include Hamilton College and Wesleyan.

...
The subject on which Stevens said he was most surprised was athletics. For all the talk about preferences for minority or legacy applicants, Stevens said that the preference that counted the most was sports ability. There are some anecdotes that will reinforce the stereotypes of many academics about jocks. Some coaches would, with some regularity, push for the admission of athletes who were not top students. Admissions officers in the book are particularly critical of the "helmet sports" — football and hockey.

But Stevens also discusses coaches who consistently would come to the admissions office with lists of desired applicants who were as strong in the library as on the field. There were many coaches he saw who put enough emphasis on recruiting the right kind of mental talent that their lists were people who would have been admitted without extra help.

"I would say one of the largest intellectual surprises of my career was to be able to set aside the notion that sports are a pollutant on the main business of higher education and to see sports as part of the business of higher education," Stevens said. For many academics, "the notion that sports pollutes is deeply ingrained in your identity," but that's not really the case, he said.

While admissions officers nationally complain about fending off coaches, Stevens notes in his book that coaches attract much of the (academic) talent because they are constantly on the road, looking for high schoolers who might fit in well. "Coaches may be the people who bug you, but they are also a really valuable part of the whole recruitment machinery," he said.

Perhaps more important, he added that working in admissions drove home for him as never before that many smart high school students want athletics as part of their college experience. "There are a whole lot of very serious 17 year olds who care about this," he said.
...

Please read the entire article and select from the comments which have been added.  The article is really worthwhile to this discussion.

+1 Wilburt! 

[Ralph Turner]

...

I guess I would be shocked if the college presidents agreed to a D-IV already-- that bunch tends to be a conservative lot who would want to gauge campus opinion before committing to such a change.  In theory, however, I can see a lot of college presidents in favor of the idea, but not many willing to sign up quite yet.

So the question I have is: who will be at the convention?  College presidents or their athletic directors?  The latter may be in the same camp as the AFCA members are.

Over 120 D-III Presidents are registered at the Convention

Headed towards the highest total ever...

[johnnie_esq]

Things are starting to get going at the convention. Forum begins feedback on restructuring discussion

A few selected quotes:

Curran said the Division III working group's model for a new division seeks to open up a new membership option that features "broader institutional sports sponsorship and an educational experience where athletics plays a less dominant role," more opportunity for student-athletes to be involved in campus activities, more accountability for adhering to the division's philosophy, and more presidential oversight of athletics.

He also suggested those types of criteria may be more appropriate for creating a division than others that have been suggested to the working groups.

...

An athletics director, Jim Nelson of Suffolk University, asked whether there is another option for addressing growth-related issues if a new division is proposed but rejected at the 2009 Convention.

Curran responded the membership will have substantial opportunities before then to make its views known, including through a survey that will be conducted later this winter, and pledged the working group would take seriously any alternative approaches suggested through that process before finalizing any proposal.

But he also suggested, based on discussions with Division III presidents earlier during the day of the forum, that support for some kind of restructuring is growing as the reasons for considering it become better understood.

From my perspective, I am a bit more comfortable that this is going in front of the entire NCAA for it to be solved, instead of forcing D3 to deal with what is, at a base level, an entire NCAA problem.  This article also makes it seem that, while D-IV sounds like it is moving ahead, it isn't necessarily on the "fast track" that is going forward by ramming down doors.  While that could be rhetoric, the quotes herein seem to indicate that D-III will be forced to act if the entire association does not.

Last, the apparent speakers here seem to be various D-2 and D-3 schools, which begs the question: were the D-1 schools in attendance for this?