Future of Division III

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

My Westlaw account does-- thru the Westlaw text, and usually trails a day or so.

Wow; good deal.

[Comet 14]

Ralph Turner- I was reading through the posts on this page and came across your post talking about what can D2 do to make themselves more attractive? My son will be a freshman at Elmhurst next year playing football. I personally feel he could have gone D2 and played as a soph or junior, but there are just not enough d2 schools in the midweat to choose from. He didn,t want to go 6 hours from home and there are not enough schools close to Northern Illinois.

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph Turner- I was reading through the posts on this page and came across your post talking about what can D2 do to make themselves more attractive? My son will be a freshman at Elmhurst next year playing football. I personally feel he could have gone D2 and played as a soph or junior, but there are just not enough d2 schools in the midweat to choose from. He didn,t want to go 6 hours from home and there are not enough schools close to Northern Illinois.

Comet, the NCAA only lists 155 schools playing D2 football (compared to nearly 230 in D3).

On the front page of the NCAA News is an announcment to determine, two D2 champions dtermined by the number of football scholarships that they offer.

[tmerton]

I'm sorry - the purpose of D2 is ....?   Is it the ability to give athletic scholarships?  If so, what is the difference between D2 and NAIA?

My own perception of D2 is schools that are below D3 academically - more like JCs that go for four years.

Of course, two years ago I didn't know much about D3 either.

[rockcat]

I'm sorry - the purpose of D2 is ....?   Is it the ability to give athletic scholarships?  If so, what is the difference between D2 and NAIA?

My own perception of D2 is schools that are below D3 academically - more like JCs that go for four years.

Of course, two years ago I didn't know much about D3 either.

In my opinion there are only two reasons athletes go DII.  One is that it often is less expensive, whether because of cheaper tuition, athletic scholarship, etc.  The other is that a lot of 17 and 18 year olds want to brag about getting a football scholarship to (Fill in the blank) State University.  I also think the level of play is relatively close between DII and DIII unless you are talking about the top handful of DII's.

[Ralph Turner]

I'm sorry - the purpose of D2 is ....?   Is it the ability to give athletic scholarships?  If so, what is the difference between D2 and NAIA?

My own perception of D2 is schools that are below D3 academically - more like JCs that go for four years.

Of course, two years ago I didn't know much about D3 either.

The NAIA does not require the school to offer as many sports nor to offer a sport in every season (fall winter spring) as the NCAA. 

[johnnie_esq]

Ralph Turner- I was reading through the posts on this page and came across your post talking about what can D2 do to make themselves more attractive? My son will be a freshman at Elmhurst next year playing football. I personally feel he could have gone D2 and played as a soph or junior, but there are just not enough d2 schools in the midweat to choose from. He didn,t want to go 6 hours from home and there are not enough schools close to Northern Illinois.

Comet, the NCAA only lists 155 schools playing D2 football (compared to nearly 230 in D3).

On the front page of the NCAA News is an announcment to determine, two D2 champions dtermined by the number of football scholarships that they offer.

RT, thanks for bringing this up. 

In my opinion, what a strange move-- allow the NCAA to have approximately two sub-divisions of 75 teams each compete for national titles while Division III requires you to manuever through approximately 200 or more schools.  I have to believe that this move for D-2 cannot make financial sense from a championship revenue standpoint-- but short of restructuring all Divisions, what else can D-2 to stay afloat?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The problem is even worse than that.  For football (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't think its anywhere close to evenly split between the teams offering 50 and the teams offering half.  You would have one good sized group and one smaller, albeit more competitive group.

The better option would be to say that the teams not offering max scholarships move up to the max or move to d3.

[Ralph Turner]

Hoops fan, it appears that there are 282 full plus 8 provisional members in
in D2.

A not-for-profit doesn't always have to make decisions that are favorable to "the bottom line".  This move to having separate playoffs for the different types of schools competing in football in D2 can only be a commitment to saving D2.

I still think that there are 2 most powerful forces pulling at intercollegiate athletics.

The D1 model--Get the finest athlete and play the "arms race" with your "peers" such as the Big Ten, the Big XII, the Pac-10, the SEC, ACC and Big East.  After all, are not the Mid-American Conference, Conference USA, WAC, Big South (in the case of Birmingham Southern et al.) etc. competing against "their peers"?

The D3 model--student-athletes who are paying for the privilege.  Real amateur intercollegiate athletics.

Everything else is in the middle.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Yeah that middle ground has always seemed like a waste to me.  I live near an NAIA school that gives a bunch of scholarships (mostly partial) and not a single one of their teams could ever hope to compete nationally in even d3 and they don't ever generate enough revenue to come close to covering costs.  It just seems silly that they would continue to operate on scholarships, especially when half of their scholarship athletes leave school because of academic issues.

I know not all d2/naia schools operate that way, but do any of them generate enough revenue to make the scholarships worthwhile?

[Ralph Turner]

I came across this news release that reflects the recent events that impacted Birmingham-Southern.  When B-SC was moving out of the NAIA in the late 1990's, Richard Scrushy was a high-flyer in Birmingham.

His generosity to B-SC was manifested in a new baseball stadium and other contributions.  Mr Scrushy sat on the B-SC board as well.

Part of that is still unraveling with B-SC a part of the collateral damage.  Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and Mr. Scrushy have been convicted of bribery.

[johnnie_esq]

Yeah that middle ground has always seemed like a waste to me.  I live near an NAIA school that gives a bunch of scholarships (mostly partial) and not a single one of their teams could ever hope to compete nationally in even d3 and they don't ever generate enough revenue to come close to covering costs.  It just seems silly that they would continue to operate on scholarships, especially when half of their scholarship athletes leave school because of academic issues.

I know not all d2/naia schools operate that way, but do any of them generate enough revenue to make the scholarships worthwhile?

I wouldn't exactly call it a waste, even though I don't care for their game.  There are some great benefits to providing a chance for college for individuals who aren't smart enough to get an academic scholarship or rich enough to pay their own way a la D3.    It allows an institution, often times public, to fulfill its mission of providing education to all classes of society, and getting something out of it.

I think there are D2 schools that are profitable-- there must be-- I think Winona State has done pretty well, and the NCC as a whole has done ok, but that is misleading, because many in the NCC have D-1 hockey programs that "fund" their athletic department (UND, SCSU, UNO, UMD, MSU), and the others are the state flagship institutions (USD). 

But short of offering "big time" activities like the NCC, the model cannot work like the often smaller D3 schools, where football/athletics are often a link for alums to reconnect with their schools, and the general community feel while an undergrad continues on Saturdays in the fall because alums still have connections there.  But when you are at SCSU you are just a number-- you have no real feeling of connection to the school other than the D1 hockey program, so when you graduate, why go back for a football game?

Schools that are the only game in town I think do pretty well at the D2 level financially, but other than that the model must struggle.  Especially when you consider private schools like Augustana (Sioux Falls, SD) and Concordia (St. Paul, MN), whose tuition is $25k or so, whereas at SCSU/UND et al it is closer to $10-15k, so for every one scholarship CSP gives it is, it is two for UND.

[rockcat]

The decision to be DII or NAIA is often based on finances.  This also is why there is a big difference between the best and worst teams at these levels.  Western Oregon is a great example.  They are DII but don't give out the maximum scholarships allowed in DII.  On the other end of the spectrum is NAIA Lewis and Clark State College who just won their 14 baseball national championship since 1984.  Their athletic department is funded better than many others in NAIA.  If you look at NAIA's closely you'll find the majority are unstable financially.

Many DII's and NAIA's are regional public universities or small religious affiliated colleges without much of an endowment.  Tuition dollars are vital for their survival.  Even if their athletic department is "losing" money, having those additional bodies on campus who might otherise go elsewhere ends up nets the institution money.  The disparity then is determined often by what approach the institution takes toward athletics.  Is it viewed as a financial burden or a revenue builder (tuition/room and board, not ticket sales).  Leadership from upper administration and the board of trustees directly influences this direction.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I didn't think about the fact that a school couldn't replace the 98 guys they have on partial scholarships for football with other students.  That makes sense.  It certainly explains why the naia near me throws so much money at the football program.

[Gregory Sager]

I didn't think about the fact that a school couldn't replace the 98 guys they have on partial scholarships for football with other students.  That makes sense.  It certainly explains why the naia near me throws so much money at the football program.

That, and it may be the only model available to them. The NAIA school near you, like so many others among its peers over the past two decades, may have wanted to scrap the NAIA model and go NCAA D3 (especially if it's a small private liberal arts college, like most D3s). The ranks of D3 have become stuffed over the past twenty years with former NAIA schools. The NCAA-legislated tap on the pipeline has slowed that flow to a trickle now, making the chances of such a move much more problematic. Plus, if you're an NAIA school out in the middle of Kansas, it'd be even more difficult to shift over to D3, since you don't have any other D3 schools anywhere close. I don't imagine that Nebraska Wesleyan, and its grandfathered "we go one way in the postseason, and the rest of the GPAC goes another way" model is one that other school presidents and ADs would like to emulate.