Future of Division III

[Ralph Turner]

Wow!  I just read the last page of posts and realized how much I enjoy the intellectual stimulation that my friends and fellow posters have generated.

This is what makes D-III so much fun!

Great posts, all of you!  And +1 ! 

[johnnie_esq]

Honestly, this is going to be petty and selfish, but I wish d3 would do away with football or at least split out the football.  That seems to be where all the trouble is.

I come from a school without football and a region of the country where it's just not important, so I know I don't have the total grasp of how great football is for schools, but isn't this where all the problems arise?

Football is where the disparity appears more and more egregiously than any other sport.  I love the d3 basketball landscape.  I love the small schools that will never have a chance at national prominence and the big schools that battle it out every year.  There is much the same feel in a variety of sports.

I agree that a tiny school should not have to get spanked 88-0 on the football field by a giant school with a huge athletic budget.  This is the best argument I've heard.  All those elite schools that are calling for a split are just masking their desire to win championship more easily behind a rhetoric of academics.  It's not right.

I say just split the division up for football, maybe even throw the "more competitive" schools into D-1AAA.  I like my d3 just where it is.  But of course, I'm just being petty and selfish.

I think you're on to something there, hoopsfan.  On any given night, school A's five cagers can take on the school B five and beat them.  While talent no doubt makes a huge difference, even the smallest schools with the smallest athletic budgets can field a good hoops team (though depth and funding help, no question about that, there is always room for the underdog).  The sheer size and budgets required for football make it a completely different animal, and while over the course of the regular season, rivalries, depth and resources make upsets possible, it is rare that a underfunded and undermanned team could survive making more than one upset in the football playoffs.  But throughout the history of the NCAA, football has almost always driven the show-- through its formation, through its expansion and divisioning, and even with the BCS in mind.  Ironic, no question, since the NCAA itself makes very little money from football. 

Football is the problem in D-2, also; it costs more than the other sports, and D2 schools are looking to exposure and revenues from the D-1 basketball tournament to solve it.  See UND, USD, NDSU and SDSU for examples of this.  But I think there is no D1-AAA football (D1-AA schools without football); and D1-AA is the Championship Subdivision of D1 football.  But I think your inclination is correct- the NCAA needs to overhaul football from the top down.  Foes of the BCS would likely agree with me on that point.

But just in case, has Pat reserved d4football.com and d4hoops.com?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'm not sure if the new "championship format" did away with it, but there was recently D-1AAA football for D1 schools that don't give scholarships for football.  It was said here that Georgetown, for example, competes in D1AAA football.  Again, I'm not sure if they got lumped into the D1AA championship now, but it does (or did recently) exist.

[Pat Coleman]

But just in case, has Pat reserved d4football.com and d4hoops.com?

Yes, we own the those domains and d4baseball.com. D4sports.com seems to be locked up. We had to wait a long time to get D3sports.com itself.

There is no I-AAA football. There are I-AA teams that do not offer scholarships but there is not subdivision for those schools.

[Ralph Turner]

Johnnie, since McMurry has not been a football powerhouse since the 1950's, I have a different take on D3 football.

I think that D3football is about competition and that is why we are seeing schools add it.

The economics bring in so many male students, and the pressure to win the national championship at these schools is not an albatross that MUC or SJU players might have to bear.

The D3 emphasis on winning the conference championship is sufficient.  The players get the "playoff treatment".  Even tho' 50% lose the first weekend, that is a big deal!  They will remember that memorable season for the rest of their lives.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There is no I-AAA football. There are I-AA teams that do not offer scholarships but there is not subdivision for those schools.

I stand corrected.  Where were you when we were discussing this last fall?   Oh right, probably running the site or working your full time job.  Such a cop out.

[Pat Coleman]

Yeah, bummer.

[Ralph Turner]

I must say that the culture of Division III has changed since I was student in the 1980s.  Back then D3 athletics were considered more of a co-curricular activity at most D3 schools, now that has changed since the influx of a number of NAIA schools.  It (D3 athletics) has become more of an enrollment driver than ever before.  If many of these D3 schools had to shut down their athletic department many of them would literally have to close down due to low enrollments.   So what is one to do?

I also agree that the split is inevitable...

Wilburt, I have a different interpretation of the culture on most D3 campuses.  You were someone who identified yourself as a student-athlete.  Consider how many of the Title IX women who competed when you were in college were real athletes and not just girls who enjoyed playing games.

How about this Aldine Nimitz (Houston TX) HS junior who has given her verbal commitment to Baylor!

High School Girl Dunking

I suggest that Title IX has doubled the number of "athletes" by personality type who are now college-aged students (athletes).  Might this change in the number of college students (or percentage of the student body) who see themselves as competent athletes have been an unforeseen change in the make up of the college campus and college environment?  What hath Title IX wrought?

I even suggest that the Swarthmore discontinuation of football was because there was too high of a percentage of "athletes" versus "geeky poets" in the student body.  They could not discontinue any of the programs on the campus that decreased the number of "athletes" who happened to be 46XX, but could have a more strategic impact on the percentage and number of "athletes" by discontinuing football, arguably the most "athletic" (read that aggressive/goon/non-geeky) of the athletes.

All D3 has done is to identify and offer an educational experience for whom the student-athlete identity is most important, and something more organized than intra-murals!

...and more prestigious than the NAIA!

[johnnie_esq]

Johnnie, since McMurry has not been a football powerhouse since the 1950's, I have a different take on D3 football.

I think that D3football is about competition and that is why we are seeing schools add it.

The economics bring in so many male students, and the pressure to win the national championship at these schools is not an albatross that MUC or SJU players might have to bear.

The D3 emphasis on winning the conference championship is sufficient.  The players get the "playoff treatment".  Even tho' 50% lose the first weekend, that is a big deal!  They will remember that memorable season for the rest of their lives.

I can certainly see your perspective, RT.  With SJU's MIAC success, I can see the conference championship motivation and that being sufficient to provide the "experience" to which we both allude. 

But I would posit that the "experience" requires a certain degree of plausibility of achieving that goal (read: conference parity), and in the West, you are seeing less and less balance in football conference champions.  For example, since 1998,

MIAC: 3 different conference champions, with SJU having 7 titles in that span and Bethel having 3;
IIAC: 3 different conference champions, with Central having 6 titles in that span, and Wartburg with 4;
NWC: 4 different conference champions, but Linfield taking 5 out of 6 in that span.
MWC: 5 different conference champions, but St. Norbert having 7 including 6 of the last 8. 
The WIAC has had 7 different champions, but even then UW-LaCrosse has won 4 titles and Whitewater 3 in that span. 
The SCIAC has had 3 different conference champions in that span, but since 1999 it has been either Oxy or Redlands winning the conference. 

So it has become far more have-have not out here, with the usual suspects generally reloading while the middlers continue to try to knock off the champs.  To be sure, this is likely a cyclical trend to some degree.  However, the schools that have been successful over the past 10 years in football show no signs of letting up.  The resources these front-runners continue to devote toward football means there is a strong uphill battle for the middlers, and the way to move uphill is to devote more resources toward athletics.  But that is contradictory to the traditional D3 philosophy of the STUDENT-athlete.  Hence the whole reform movement, and the movement toward policies on athletics.

So I agree with you in that the NCAA could make the conference championship the bigger deal, but I just don't see that occurring, through experience (as above) and with schools flying all over the country for cross-regional games because they cannot get regional ones.  So the point is furthered by the separatists-- even in a great season for their squad and they could get to the second place in the conference, they are at a disadvantage for a Pool C birth because they didn't fly to play the preeminent team in the XXX region, and someone in the XIAC did.  So the incentive is to spend more money on athletics to get over that hump.  And many schools aren't willing to do that and question whether D3 schools should be doing that.  And so we're back to the beginning again.

[Ralph Turner]

Johnnie, let me take your example of the dominance of a few teams in the MIAC and look at it from the President's or AD's perspective.

There were 4 of the MIAC 11 in the Director's Cup Top 100.

Gusites, Johnnies, Tommies and Olies... are in the Top 100 of the more than 420 schools in D3.

Bethel, Carleton, C-M, Augsburg and Macalester (174th)  finished in the top half of D3. (9 of 12!)  You have strengths all across the MIAC.   I see this as a "half-full" situation!

D3 is working for the MIAC!  I am inclined to say that the strong competition in the MIAC is making everyone work harder!  That is the plus.  The creative destruction (to quote a term by Schumpeter) is making the MIAC earn its excellence every year and keep from getting stale!

[Ralph Turner]

I have been reviewing the background document* from the working group.

The most interesting thing that I have read is on page 150 of 185, in which the document uses the word "conservative" with these conferences:  Centennial, NCAC and NESCAC.   

*Please click on Supplement B.

[joehakes]

Ralph,

I was going to admire your tenacity in reading a 185 page document, but there are a lot of picures.   

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph,

I was going to admire your tenacity in reading a 185 page document, but there are a lot of pictures.   

Yes, and those pictures convey some assumptions that I had never heard.  Maybe those are academic projections and not based on previous communication between those institutions and Indianapolis.

Namely, on page 182:

That virtually the entire Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference would move to D-III.

That Huston-Tillotson College, the HBCU in Austin, would move to D-III.

That 2 NAIA school in MIAA-land are looking at D-III.  (But, do they qualify for D-IV?)

That 2 more schools in greater St Louis are looking.



Section G begins on page 128.

I can read this section and see how the "old guard" makes the case for "why did we let them into the neighborhood?"

Page 132 gives the legislative "orthodoxy" as to what makes a good  "Division IV" member.  There are 14 "yes' votes that the document uses to establish this.  Also, there are the 4 "no" votes that are mentioned: spring football, using a safety "spotter" in gymnastics (who just might coincidentally be the coach), reinstating redshirting, and vote to permit the 8 schools playing D1 in other sports, Colorado College Ice Hockey, JHU lacrosse, etc. to continue "grandfathered" aid.  The perfect score is "18".

The first level of inclusion into the new Division IV would start 20 sponsored sports and an "orthodoxy score" of 14. (This is the 75th %ile in current D3 in these two criteria.  The document calls it conservative selection criteria.  Fifty-four schools, 12.9%, meet these criteria. )

The next level of inclusion into the new Division IV would start at 16 sponsored sports and an "orthodoxy score" of 10.  (This is the 50th %ile in D3 in these two criteria.  One hundred sixty-one, 38.5%, meet these criteria.)

On page 141, the document tells us that 267 (61.5%) of the schools do not meet [both of (my interpretation)] the moderate criteria for inclusion in Division IV. 

On page 144, we see that Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, and Wrestling get ripped apart in the split, as do women's golf, field hockey and women's rowing. 
(Do those finals just meet in the same venue to save administrative overhead?)

On page 150, the document makes the case for the CCIW, the Centennial, the NCAC (sic) and the NESCAC joining the IIAC, SCIAC, and the WIAC (page 153), allowing for some minor exceptions by member institutions in the deviation from the criteria (number of sponsored sports) in the NCAC and (voting deviation) in the OAC (page 154).

On page 155, we have the next round of invitees to the new Division IV.  These conferences had 2/3's of their members meet the moderate criteria.  Adding the MIAA, the MIAC and the Midwest would give the new D-IV eleven core conferences.

Page 156 and 157 show the maps of the new D-IV.

On page 158, the document focuses on the 9 conferences that have unanimously voted opposite the four homogeneously "conservative" conferences (CCIW, Centennial, NCAC, and NESCAC).

These 9 are the AMCC, ASC, Atlantic Women's, Great South (which is officially a women's conference), Lake Michigan, NJAC, NAC, NEAC and USA South.  (Please realize that this now has become a "voting" issue and not sports sponsorship issue, because McMurry sponsors enough sports to meet the moderate critieria.)  (page 158.)

Seven more conferences were one school away from perfect alignment for the newly defined Division III. (I assume that these are alignments are "pre-Landmark Conference shuffle".)   These are the Capital AC, Empire 8, Independents, Little East, Northern Athletic (sic), Skyline, SLIAC. (page 159)

Nine additional conferences fall into the "two-thirds of the members" category.  CUNYAC, CCC, Great Northeast, Heartland, MASCAC, NEWMAC, ODAC, Penn AC, SUNYAC. (page 160)

This gives 25 conferences to constitute the new D-III.

Look who is split down the middle (page 168.)

Liberty League
Middle Atlantic (No distinction between Freedom and Commonwealth is made.)
Northwest Athletic (sic)
President's Athletic (sic)
Southern Collegiate
UAA

That is some of the document.  As most posters have said, it looks like a done deal.

We have "secession" to form D-IV.  As proposed in Supplement #11, the vote for "secession" from the "federation" will occur at the January 2009 convention.

[David Collinge]

Thanks, Ralph, and +1.  This is fascinating stuff.  I'm going through the document now.  Lest anyone suspect that there is less than "conservative" unity in the NCAC, the only reason the conference is not in "perfect alignment" with the Centennial, CCIW, and NESCAC is that Wabash College only sponsors (what appears to be) 10 sports, below the "conservative" threshold of 20 sports and the "moderate" level of 16.  This is, of course, because Wabash is a single-gender institution.  Of course, I can't vouch for the voting records of the schools; the document does point out that no conference has a perfect "conservative" score (i.e., every member school with 20 or more sports and a "conservative" vote on at least 14 of the 18 propositions.)  But the language of the document does suggest that Wabash's sports sponsorship is the only bar to the NCAC's perfect adherence to the "moderate" criteria.

I'd like to have been in the room when the presentation reached slide 124, which postulates a new "DIIIA" comprised of 15 conferences including both the NESCAC et alia and the WIAC. 

[johnnie_esq]

Great summary, RT-- thanks for taking the time to do that.  I skimmed the entire document, but you have a pretty good description there.

On my first glance, it *feels* like the Great Lakes states schools plus a few others are splitting from the rest of the division.  You have the West region, essentially, plus the OAC and the NESCAC and a few others looking to get out. 

Also, given that these schools have won the past 14 Stagg Bowls, plus we all know about Trinity's run, implies to me that football has a definite influence on this split.

It is pretty astounding that they would go into such detail regarding the split by including who would go where.  But as far as a done deal, remember that there is one thing missing from all of this: $$$.  Since D3 and D4 require "assistance" from the D1 men's basketball tournament revenues, so split will occur until they can have the funds to do it.  And do we really think D1 schools would gladly fork over a few more million to support their D3/D4 siblings?  I strongly doubt it.

I really don't like the labeling of "conservative" and "moderate" and giving a fluff "score".  Just call them what they are-- schools that tend to favor more restrictions versus schools that tend not to.