Future of Division III

[johnnie_esq]

Another interesting note in the NCAA news today:  Presidents Council considers tougher penalties for financial aid violations

The Division III Financial Aid Committee reported on options for moving beyond the educationally oriented penalties that have been imposed for violations discovered during the first three years of the reporting process. The committee suggested a framework for penalties that could trigger a comprehensive compliance assessment of an athletics program following a first violation, followed by a public reprimand after the second violation, followed by a loss of championship access after a third violation

This seems to indicate that the Presidents really want to level the playing field here and are willing to throw the book at some of the alleged "cheaters".  Given that we have yet to compute even the second year's worth of data on this issue, perhaps some of the preliminary data has indicated some of the "usual suspects" have made the list again?

As a side note, in that same article:

In a review of proposed legislation slated for voting January 14 at the NCAA Convention, the Council also agreed to oppose an amendment-to-amendment on Proposal No. 10  to permit third- and fourth-year provisional members to be counted by a league toward the seven-institution requirement for earning automatic qualification to a Division III championship. The Council also opposes the basic proposal, which would permit any provisional member to be counted for automatic qualification.

[Ralph Turner]

Johnnie, thanks for the excerpts.

I read the re-structuring article and came away with the impression that the proponents had multiple doors slammed in their faces, and now they propose (somewhat speciously) that they want additional input.

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.

Dr Curran, the president at University of Dayton, has already imposed success control of the football program at his institution.  What more do he want?

It seems to me that they did not get the support for cutting the season from 17-18 weeks to something closer to 13 weeks.  If we read the blog by Jimmy Bartolotta from MIT, what response do we have from the presidents that would change the college experience for those student-athletes?  Jimmy says the course work at MIT is such that one must choose three of the four "S's": Sleep, Study, Sports, Social.

If the proponents wish to shorten the season, then one can de-emphasize the number of at-large berths that the division awards.

The standard requirement for an AQ is 7 members in the conference.  Good! Win the conference and you can go to the playoffs.  Otherwise, time to go back to the books.

Continue with the Pool B bids for the independents as determined by the access ratio, and we have given a fair access to all schools to compete.

In fact, eliminating the Pool C in basketball would allow another (twenty conferences at 7 members per conference = ) 140 colleges to join the division without denying basic access to the playoffs.  The players on the 20 teams that would have earned Pool C bids can now use that extra week for another activity on the campus.

As for the financial aide question, I wish that your (Johnnie Esq's) "bell shaped" curve graph from about 2 years ago were still on this message board.  I took exactly the opposite interpretation from the financial aid statement.  We have seen no names of the flagrant offenders that have not responded to educational remediation.   What is more, I have not seen any comments by the presidents or by the Student Athlete Advisory Committee about those schools who were found statistically to discriminate against student-athletes by underfunding their aid packages.  Why not give the flagrant, ineducable outliers the "death penalty" or "kick the out"?  If education is not working, then I get the impression that we have too many schools in the division who wish to be here.  Evict those that flaunt the rules!

Thanks for the posts, Johnnie!  +1 

[Ralph Turner]

"Each of the measures, however, contained two flaws. First, they would have resulted in institutions being assigned to one category or another, thus denying the basic concept of self-determination. Second, they would do little to address the basic differences in perspective on the role of athletics in the academy that has provided much of the impetus for these discussions." -- Dr Dan Curran

Let me expand my comments about the "specious" seeking of input.

The "secession" proponents must not have been able to achieve the critical mass of 150 schools necessary to have a successful division because the self-determination showed that too few schools wanted to join.

Restated, the "secession proponents" found too few schools of like mind to join "their division" that reflected a vastly different role of "athletics in the academy".  Therefore, they fell back on the previous manipulations and statistical models performed on the data.

(Errata -- "performed" not "preformed".  That was one that was not caught by Mozilla Firefox.  Drat!  Dyslexic fingers!     )

[Mr. Ypsi]

"Each of the measures, however, contained two flaws. First, they would have resulted in institutions being assigned to one category or another, thus denying the basic concept of self-determination. Second, they would do little to address the basic differences in perspective on the role of athletics in the academy that has provided much of the impetus for these discussions." -- Dr Dan Curran

Let me expand my comments about the "specious" seeking of input.

The "secession" proponents must not have been able to achieve the critical mass of 150 schools necessary to have a successful division because the self-determination showed that too few schools wanted to join.

Restated, the "secession proponents" found too few schools of like mind to join "their division" that reflected a vastly different role of "athletics in the academy".  Therefore, they fell back on the previous manipulations and statistical models preformed on the data.

[/b]

My favorite sweatshirt (I'm wearing it as I type, and always wore it to stat finals): "When all else fails, manipulate the data."  [Some of us, however, see it as a joke, not a prescription for life.]

[Warren Thompson]

Ralph (or anyone):

What on earth is "success control"?

[frank uible]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The most effective and efficient way for a college to deal with another college which behaves in an inappropriate manner is, by unilateral Presidential action, to take the misbehaving college off the first college's schedule. One does not need organizations, conventions, committees, subcommittees, speeches, position papers, other means of arguing with and convincing others, votes, concerted sanctions or other political trappings to do that.

[roocru]

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.

Coaches may not have been driving the bus, but it appears the ones I spoke to had an inside line to those who were.   

[johnnie_esq]

RT, I always enjoy your perspectives, especially on this issue.  I think our discussion on this board may be the most comprehensive on this issue pretty much anywhere on the internet.

But I have to wonder a bit given the tone recently: aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here? 

No schools have yet joined because there is nothing to join.  Sure, there is the movement, but keep in mind the movement is essentially advocating that D-IV be what D-III currently is from a rules-operation standpoint.  In that vein, why join now, when the whole situation is still up in the air?  There is no "critical mass" by definition-- at least, not yet-- so it seems like we're jumping the gun a bit.

Let's keep in mind that some of the D-IV proposals out there were based upon factors such as size of student body or public/private.  This type of distinction would take away one of the initial principles of NCAA classification which allowed for schools to choose what division they wanted to be a part of.  While some of this was eroded with D1-AA and the D3 reform movement (why RIT can't offer scholarships in D1 hockey), D-III alone cannot completely eliminate that principal on its own-- it has to be allowed by the association.

As I said from the beginning, even the movement needs the entire association's support since this is an association problem.  It seems to be becoming conventional wisdom that D3's current membership situation is untenable, and unless the entire association gets on board, D3 is left to deal with it on its own.  Either way, it has to be dealt with.  If D-IV isn't the right way, it will likely come out in the next few days or in the surveys in the next few months.  But let's not let our bias either for or against get ahead of ourselves on the D-IV issue.

As a side note, I think there seems to be a misunderstanding as to the movement's leaders.  I don't see this group-- given their success in the Director's Cup-- as anti-athletics (i.e. Swarthmore), but rather, they don't want athletics to devour the campus.  I used the example of St. John's and Macalester a few pages back, and I again offer that to exemplify the distinction between the movement's supporters and what the movement is concerned about.  And I say this even as an SJU alum-- I respect it and actually appreciate the movement's desires here.   Going to football games at SJU 15 years ago was drastically different than now-- and while SJU may draw more to their games now, it has come at an unfortunate cost.

[johnnie_esq]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The most effective and efficient way for a college to deal with another college which behaves in an inappropriate manner is, by unilateral Presidential action, to take the misbehaving college off the first college's schedule. One does not need organizations, conventions, committees, subcommittees, speeches, position papers, other means of arguing with and convincing others, votes, concerted sanctions or other political trappings to do that.

Frank, while I agree with you, if a fellow conference member is the one who is "misbehaving", it will be difficult to not schedule them.

I found my post on that bell curve.  If you want to refresh your memory, you can find it here.

In doing a bit of looking back to find that bell curve, I ran across an article in the NCAA news from about a year ago that seems to side with your concern.  Division III's legislative concern - Too many rules/ Members complain of 'overregulation'   

This article also ties in to the D-IV debate as it seems to introduce the whole current ordeal:  while all members of the current D-III support the philosophy of D-III, the movement members favor more rules and regulations to enforce the philosophy, while the opposition seems to indicate they prefer more self-policing mechanisms.

[frank uible]

If a conference won't permit one of its member colleges to remove another member college from the schedule, and if the first college has the courage of its convictions, then it can either (a) withdraw from the conference or (b) merely refuse to appear for its athletic contests with the offensive college. In my view a college should not permit a conference to interfere significantly with the conduct of the college's business.

[Ralph Turner]

Johnnie, thank you for the 2 posts.  (You currently have a karma of +555 for 2555 posts!    )

My bad on not being able to find the histogram!  (I must admit that my brain was not recalling the term histogram, easily on demand...80 terabyte brain, 80286 processor.  )

Maybe our dealing with these issues on the message boards is mirroring the thought processes of the college presidents in parallel.

Also, no one has linked us to the debate occurring in other venues, especially D-1.  So, we are still in the same predicament.

While I try to be precise in what I say and write, I also do not tolerate "bureaucratese" when one is trying to hide motives.

We do have one problem in the ASC.  Sul Ross State University is a charter member of the ASC, founded in 1996 and its NAIA antecedent conference, the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, founded in 1976.  They are a state school that is 325 miles west of its nearest opponents, and only has about 1500 students.  Transportation and isolation are a real drawback.  They are not a real problem.  However, UT-Tyler and UT-Dallas, formerly upper level universities that competed minimally in the NAIA, are now expanding their campuses and opening as 4-year institutions.  They have access to the University of Texas monies (beaucoup billions), new facilities, a dirt cheap in-state tuition ($5200 per year at UT-Tyler; $8060 per year at UT-Dallas) and proximity to large population centers that have historically fed ASC member institutions.  The question that will arise is whether they are peer institutions to the small private (faith-based) liberal arts schools that are 12 of the 15 institutions in the ASC.

I think that your comment about the "movement" reflects that inertia is overwhelming in this one.  The simple change to the access ratio and Pool C bids will help in some of the scheduling problems.

However, IMHO, I believe that some of the underlying dynamics to some in the "movement" is an irritating attitude of officiousness.

Thanks to all for the comments on this topic.   

[wilburt]

In my view a college should not permit a conference to interfere significantly with the conduct of the college's business.

I agree with that statement 100%!!!!!!!!

[frank uible]

wilburt: Bring back Neil Craig!

[johnnie_esq]

RT-- I understand that interesting in-conference issue.  We've been dealing with that here in the upper midwest with the MIAC/IIAC/MWC versus the WIAC; specifically, the MWC/WIAC and the MIAC/WIAC.  The MWC has a good number of its schools in Wisconsin competing directly against the lower tuition WIAC for students; the MIAC schools tend to draw a great number of students from Western Wisconsin, and the WIAC schools tend to draw a good number of students from the Twin Cities.  While the MIAC has five members in the Twin Cities (6 with all-girl St. Kate's), the WIAC has three schools within one hour from the Twin Cities (which is approximately the distance of four more MIAC schools from the Twin Cities), and another 2-3 WIAC schools are closer than Moorhead is from the Twin Cities.  So that issue is not lost on me, and fixing it has been difficult.  At least here there is a separate conference, so there are no in-conference problems like the ASC seems to have, but given their proximity, and the relative distance of other D-III institutions, non-conference games tend to require greater traveling than it should be.

As an update at the Convention, the NCAA approved permitting institutions to provide academic or other support services specifically for student-athletes so long as they are comparable to services provided for nonathletes. This separate but equal vote was initially a tie, but was later approved by approximately 50 votes.  I would like to see the voting breakdown to see who was in favor and who was opposed on this issue.

The conference discussion is a good one.  Remember that the original purpose of conferences was for convenience and guarantee of scheduling for its members.  In order to ensure games were on as level a playing field as possible (instead of permitting the local athletic director to hire his own officials, for example), the conferences would take on certain  minimal rules to ensure that the members were all operating under the same circumstances.  The concept of conference champion is an outgrowth of this scheduling arrangement.  But it seems that some are proposing it backwards-- if a school doesn't like what the conference is doing, it should be on the school's initiative to leave the conference and take on all the risks that entails.  Conferences don't take unilateral action-- they are member-run, and the members dictate the rules.

Because the financial aid entails such an enormous amount of data, and is so individually and context dependent, the sample size and administrative costs are likely not justified by a conference to conduct its own financial aid investigation and penalties.  Thus, conferences and members have asked the NCAA to do it for them.

[frank uible]

And also in the process are foolishly asking scores-upon-scores of institutions to reach agreement on an outcome rather than merely 6 or 8 or 10 or 12.