Future of Division III

[Ralph Turner]

We also have a large number of first generation student-athletes and students.  (The men's basketball coach counted 7 of 16 players as being first generation college-students!  That is a tremendous statement affirming our goals as an institution!)  Athletics is the entry point for these student-athletes.

I for one think this is a terrific statistic... thanks for letting us know that Ralph!

This is a whole separate question, one that I find intriguing and hinted at the other day.  One very great value of intercollegiate athletics, to me at least, is that it opens doors to a college education for students that might not get that chance elsewhere.  That's a Cliffs Notes version of the film All the Right Moves, where a gifted student chooses to focus on football as the best means of assuring that he can get a college education, then has a personality conflict with his high school coach, thereby threatening his entire future.  Of course, a lot of that revolves around athletic scholarships, which we don't have in D3.  But the basic point is still valid: is it right that schools openly discriminate in admissions on the basis of academic aptitude? 

Statistics show again and again that a college degree enhances one's earning power many times over; without a degree, in our society, you have 2.9 strikes against you right from the start.  There are schools, like Oberlin or Chicago (to say nothing of Caltech and MIT), where the intellectual ability of the students is absolutely crucial to the academic mission, but there are others (which I shall not attempt to name, for fear that it would be taken as an unintended insult) where the academic mission is more aligned towards teaching, the imparting of knowledge from professor to student, where the active classroom participation of the class is not an essential element.  Why should such schools openly prefer applications with higher GPA and SAT scores (leaving aside the societal issues that these raise), if those students are just going to be expected to sit quietly and take notes?  Why not prefer someone who has shown a willingness to work hard and a strong desire to succeed?  Someone like, say, an athlete?

Lest you think I've strayed too far off topic, maybe this is a potential dividing line between a D3 and a D4.  The D4 could cater to the academic elite to foster a collaborative intellectual experience, while the D3 focuses on providing the best possible education to the widest possible spectrum of students?  Just a thought that is far from fully-formed in my own head.

David has brought us back to the edge of the politically incorrect position that some of the academically more selective schools face.  Finding 150 schools that have a different understanding of the role of athletics on the campus is the challenge for any group of schools currently in D3.

How do you separate yourself and get all of the aspects of what you want?

More opportunities for student-athletes to explore other activities on the campus without the attendant de-emphasis that comes with that choice of time utilization?  MIT basketball student-athlete/blogger Jimmy Bartolotta has already declared any other extra-curricular activity at MIT is impossible with athletics as we know it in D3.

I think that this will be an intensive process.  I think that the surveys that are circulated by Indianapolis will be quite instructive.

[David Collinge]

More opportunities for student-athletes to explore other activities on the campus without the attendant de-emphasis that comes with that choice of time utilization?  MIT basketball student-athlete/blogger Jimmy Bartolotta has already declared any other extra-curricular activity at MIT is impossible with athletics as we know it in D3.

I don't think MIT should be taken as representative of D3.  I would suggest that Jimmy Bartolotta's time management issues are due far more to the exceptionally grueling academic load at MIT than to athletics, and no "reform" of athletics is likely to make much of an impact on his life.

I'd ask what the "politically incorrect" position is that you refer to, but I abhor polarizing language like that and am probably better off not knowing. 

[AF4]

Ralph...with respect

the MIT student athlete is also able to take the time to blog...

uh... i have no doubt that some of these school r real, real tough... but i am unsure if that is always a valid point..... some folks r unable to do anythang  but pass  (me)... some can keep thier hands in a bunch of thangs and flourish...even in elite schools or professinonal schools (my oldest daughter)

MIT is no doubt tough...but...do u believe it is that much harder than Ga Tech (go look up thier admission) they play competitive D-1 and it is an engineering school...ain't any basket weaving or even PE degrees

r these elite schools that kids do not have anymore time to do anythang  but play 1 sport and study any harder than the service academies...and they do a bunch of extracurricular stuff

so... i got to believe that this elite "our kids can't compete in regular d-3 sports, study, and compete on the debate team too cause of lack of time" is bogus

i have enjoyed yall discussion about d3-d4...and am..as usual probably wrong

keep the faith

[Ralph Turner]

Gentlemen, thanks for the responses.

I may have mis-interpreted David's most recent post. 

Let me amplify the problem that the "more academically elite" face.

To get to the core 150 schools that are necessary for the division to function, you need the 12 conferences that the foundation document lists in D4.

D3A core conferences using a "sports sponsorship" methodology (slide 124): Centennial, CCIW, HCAC, IIAC, MIAA, undivided MAC, MWC, NESCAC, NCAC, NWC, OAC, PrAC, SCIAC, UAA, WIAC
(Simplification:  D3A is "many sports," D3 is "fewer sports")
D4 core conferences using a methodology combining "sports sponsorship" and "institutional philosophy" (slides 153ff):  Centennial, CCIW, IIAC, MIAA, MWC, MIAC, NESCAC, NCAC, OAC, SCIAC, WIAC
(Simplification: D4 is "many sports and conservative voting record", while D3 is "fewer sports OR liberal voting record")
-- http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=3880.829  (David Collinge's excellent summary of the Power Point presentation of some of the background documents that circulated last summer.)

Dennis Collins, the Executive Director wants the newer members in D3 out of D3 and into a "haven".

http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=3880.952

We see the scenario of the NESCAC not being able to find 25 "in-division" basketball games among "like-institutions".  No more games against the MASCAC, the GNAC or even the NEWMAC.

If we add the UAA to the conferences in D4, then we have the scenario that Emory doesn't have a peer institution within 500 miles.

Respectfully, the MIT student may have blogged over the Holidays, but he has not blogged since.

I wonder if we will get a report from the convention as to the response from the floor to the presentations arising from the Presidents Council and the Management Council.

[Gregory Sager]

This is a whole separate question, one that I find intriguing and hinted at the other day.  One very great value of intercollegiate athletics, to me at least, is that it opens doors to a college education for students that might not get that chance elsewhere.  That's a Cliffs Notes version of the film All the Right Moves, where a gifted student chooses to focus on football as the best means of assuring that he can get a college education, then has a personality conflict with his high school coach, thereby threatening his entire future.

IIRC, Stefan Djordevic (Tom Cruise) wasn't a gifted student in All the Right Moves. He had a B average, and therefore needed to earn a football scholie because he didn't have the grades to get an academic scholie nor the money to pay his own way through college.

But what I mostly remember about that movie was how smokin' hot Lea Thompson was back in 1983.

[wilburt]

so... i got to believe that this elite "our kids can't compete in regular d-3 sports, study, and compete on the debate team too cause of lack of time" is bogus

Let me just say this.  If a kid wants to go to graduate or professional school or wants to pursue a Fellowship after graduation, then the only way  to participate in any extracurricular activity is outside of your sports season.  Since basketball covers 2 semesters in the academic year, it is virtually impossible for Basketball players to be involved in anything outside of class except basketball.  However for football, baseball and the other single semester sports it is possible for the student athletes to be involved in debate (or whatever) when their sport is out of season. 

If a kid is really serious about post graduation opportunities, then oftentimes they just leave the sports alone to focus on that.   

I have seen it and lived it...

[David Collinge]

This is a whole separate question, one that I find intriguing and hinted at the other day.  One very great value of intercollegiate athletics, to me at least, is that it opens doors to a college education for students that might not get that chance elsewhere.  That's a Cliffs Notes version of the film All the Right Moves, where a gifted student chooses to focus on football as the best means of assuring that he can get a college education, then has a personality conflict with his high school coach, thereby threatening his entire future.

IIRC, Stefan Djordevic (Tom Cruise) wasn't a gifted student in All the Right Moves. He had a B average, and therefore needed to earn a football scholie because he didn't have the grades to get an academic scholie nor the money to pay his own way through college.

My interpretation has always been that Stefan's schoolwork suffered because he chose to concentrate on football.  The subtext of the film is that, for Ampipe students, the only way out is football.  Lisa (Lea Thompson) says as much when she's lamenting her already-decided fate; she wants to go to college to study music, but that's a dream because "nobody in Ampipe gets a music scholarship, just football."  It's clear right from the start that Stefan is only using football as a way to get into the best possible engineering school.  Stef is a goal-oriented kid who spends his spare time dreaming up and drafting inventions; I interpret this as an indication that he could be a straight-A student if he put his focus there.  But he plays in a football program that attracts recruiters like honey attracts flies (IIRC, he has teammates headed to Duke, West Virginia, and two or three other major D1s), and he's figured out that football scholarships are much more readily available to him than academic ones, so he's opted to concentrate on football, to the detriment of his grades (to say nothing of his social life.)

But what I mostly remember about that movie was how smokin' hot Lea Thompson was back in 1983.

Why do you suppose I can discuss this quarter-century-old film (and a Tom Cruise film, to boot ) like it was released yesterday? 

[Ralph Turner]

...

But what I mostly remember about that movie was how smokin' hot Lea Thompson was back in 1983.

Why do you suppose I can discuss this quarter-century-old film (and a Tom Cruise film, to boot ) like it was released yesterday? 

I'm with Gregory on this one.    And throw in Space Camp and Back to the Future, too!   

[smedindy]

In high school, the motivated over-achievers could be in every club, play sports, do drama, etc.

In college, that's just not possible no matter who you are or what you do, if you are at an institution that has a rigorous cirriculum.

[frank uible]

wilburt: Generalizations that hold up categorically are truly hard to find. The admittedly atypical  little DIII college located here has about 40% of its undergraduate student body participate in inter-collegiate athletics. Of those participants I estimate that a slight majority (including a majority of basketball and football players) end up receiving graduate degrees, and most probably a majority of that majority participates in non- athletic extra-curricular college activities of some sort during one or more of their respective athletic seasons.

[johnnie_esq]

New article on NCAA.org about the D-III/D-IV debate.

This seems to indicate there is very much still up in the air about this-- but that they are still on track to have something ready for next year's convention.

For some, the membership's votes earlier in the day to reject -- and then to reconsider and approve -- a proposal to permit similar but separate academic and other support services for student-athletes served notice that the time is near for a decision.

"There are people who are on both sides of that issue -- I recognize that -- but that's precisely the point," said Douglas Bennett, president of Earlham College. "There are at least two very different ways of thinking about these issues that we're trying to contain in Division III.

"Are we ready to be done? No. But we do need to listen to one another, even though that's going to be difficult because we've gotten so large, and because we're angry and anxious. Let's take our time, let's do this survey, let's listen carefully to it, and let's trust our elected leaders."

The Convention discussion, as focused as it was on the working group's recommendation, produced few other alternatives beyond maintaining the status quo, as several delegates suggested the potential impact of restructuring on institutions' ability to recruit students and on current conference affiliations isn't worth the trouble.

[johnnie_esq]

More news from the convention:

Early report from drug testing study. 

In testing last fall involving 437 student-athletes at 22 Division III schools, 7 percent of the student-athletes tested positive for street drugs (primarily marijuana) and 6 percent tested positive for stimulants. Positive rates for other substances were considerably lower, with one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) testing positive for diuretics and two-tenths of 1 percent (0.2 percent) testing positive for anabolic steroids. Student-athletes who fail to report for testing also count as positive tests; 0.7 percent of the student-athletes were recorded as "no shows."

Voting results from the Convention.

[Ralph Turner]

More news from the convention:

Voting results from the Convention.

I am certain that the initial response was not what the "secessionists" wanted.

So, I think that we shall see some additional analyses on the proposals 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 as to how the votes fell and into which "camps" the voting blocs aligned.   

[old ends]

Ralph,found this little tid bit on the Centennial Conference  home page.

http://centennialconference.blogspot.com/2008/01/convention-recap.html

Thought you may enjoy it.

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph,found this little tid bit on the Centennial Conference  home page.

http://centennialconference.blogspot.com/2008/01/convention-recap.html

Thought you may enjoy it.

Thanks for posting that link!  +1 

I read several comments about the November 15th starting date in favor of it.

--It made starting across the NCAA more consistent.

--A benefit was that it would offer another weekend of games in some years which would help to dilute the season over a longer period of time.

--This November 15th date would give more flexibility to scheduling.  Since the practice starting date is October 15th, there was little benefit to a more restrictive starting date.

--In areas of the country where there are a number of NAIA schools, the 15 November date is closer to the NAIA date.  This gives less of an advantage to NAIA schools.

The SAAC proposal about requiring personnel for the defibrillator equipment was felt to be an intrusion on local policy and local building codes.

I thought it interesting that the CC SAAC was not opposed to the use of male practice players.  I am interested in the voting patterns on that one.

The undercurrent of "more permissive" is mentioned, so I think that we will re-visit the D-IV issue.

Thanks again for sharing the link!


Correction, the CC SAAC was in favor of the less restrictive male practice player usage.