Future of Division III

[Ralph Turner]

Town Hall Meetings will explore membership issues

The next round of talks begin with regional town hall meetings beginning May 8.

We should see the survey results in early April. (I'm giving them enough time to process the data).

[snail]

Like most things related to NCAA, they have to wake up and smell the coffee. D3 schools do not for the most part have the millions DI schools have. Most D3 schools do not have a 12 million dollar facility or a guy waiting to die or stay alive and donate the $$$$.
So smaller schools ahve to go get local business to help them have anything at all above basics. We had a local business step up big time and renovate where we play basketball. D3 mnd ya....the NCAA wizzards made rthem cover up the scoreboard like that's gonna create some unfair advantage, pull the labels off the water because they(NCAA) must have a contract with some other water company.
With million dollar deals at DUKE and thousands upon thousands watching every game I sort understand their fear of not getting "thier" cut. but to come on down to D3 and prostitute the smaller schools is really sort of pathetic!   

[sac]

Coach K, I don't know about the other State School conferences but the NJAC schools have had a big chunk of the state funding taken away and seem to be losing money from the state every year.  I know at NJCU they hired a VP of fundraising.  I also believe the other NJAC schools have been had to raise funds on their own, this has lead to so re-god-dam-diculous tuition and housing increases.  Private schools seem to do a better job of providing financial aid then the state colleges do.

This is not totally relevant, since all Michigan state universities are either d1 or d2, but state funding has declined so dramatically in recent years that several schools (including U of M) have researched the possibility of going private.  Being a 'state-funded' school has some advantages, but there are also drawbacks.

University of Michigan is #9 on the list of endowments.

You see some Ivies, some UAA's and D-1 privates in the realm of UMichigan's endowment.

There are 4 other state run D-1's in Michigan and if I counted right 7 other state funded D2's.  The University of Michigan and its financial situation is the exception to the norm in this state.

[Hugenerd]

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

I know this was on this board a long time ago, but I just read it so I will respond. 

There is no way to compare a d1 institution to a d3 institution in the sense you are trying to.  The breaks they give athletes in d1, even at institutions like georgia tech, duke, and stanford, is not something done on the d3 level and definitely not done at MIT.  I also looked up GA Tech's roster, and 10 of their 14 players are majoring in management, and only 1 of 14 is majoring in an engineering or technical major.  Stanford has no players on their roster in technical fields.

MIT doesnt even allow coaches to "recruit" (in my definition of the word), meaning they could get the best player in the country to commit, but they would have to be admitted to the university independently to be able to come (playing athletics is not taken into account any more than any other extracurricular activity, meaning you could be the best player in the country and you wouldnt get any more consideration than someone who rode the bench as a high school player in any given sport).  In other words, coaches have no influence over admission and dont get any "picks".  I know that even UAA schools have some influence over admissions for their athletes.  It is amazing to me how little support athletes get at MIT compared to even other d3 institutions.  I played at a UAA school undergrad, and we got all types of free gear, a couple pairs of basketball shoes, and other things you would think would come standard with playing college basketball.  MIT hardly gets any of those things, they have to pay for their own shoes and they have a very small budget for everything else because MIT tries to support 40+ varsity sports with a relatively minute athletic budget.  They dont even have their own, permanent, locker room.  The emphasis is most definitely on academics (as it should be), and you really cant use athletics as an excuse for anything.  In my opinion, it requires one to make many more sacrifices than the average college athlete.  The only institution that is comparable, in my opinion, is Caltech, and we all know how awful they have historically been.

[speedy]

It looks as though the proposal to create a new D4 may be dead for now !! Apparently the survey data did not support the creation of a new D4 as had been proposed by the d3 working group. Here is the beginning part of the story from the NCAA website:

A Division III panel meeting this week in Indianapolis ended its discussion of creating a new NCAA division or subdivision to address the growth of Division III, recommending instead that the Association adopt a more broad-based approach in responding to its continuing growth.

The Division III Working Group on Membership Issues, which last fall suggested creating a new division or subdividing Division III in anticipation of divisional growth to 480 members by 2020, made the decision after reviewing preliminary results from a membership survey that asked for opinions about restructuring, among other questions.

The working group's suggestion was to create a new classification based on higher minimum sports sponsorship and also featuring other membership standards that would have distinguished it from the current Division III.

The survey's results will not publicly be released until April 9, after an Association-wide working group established by the NCAA Executive Committee to study membership issues also has an opportunity to review the findings. But members of the Division III panel characterized the degree of opposition to the restructuring recorded in the survey as consistent with the level of opposition that was expressed during an NCAA Convention discussion of the working group's proposal.

[Ralph Turner]

It looks as though the proposal to create a new D4 may be dead for now !! Apparently the survey data did not support the creation of a new D4 as had been proposed by the d3 working group. Here is the beginning part of the story from the NCAA website:

A Division III panel meeting this week in Indianapolis ended its discussion of creating a new NCAA division or subdivision to address the growth of Division III, recommending instead that the Association adopt a more broad-based approach in responding to its continuing growth.

The Division III Working Group on Membership Issues, which last fall suggested creating a new division or subdividing Division III in anticipation of divisional growth to 480 members by 2020, made the decision after reviewing preliminary results from a membership survey that asked for opinions about restructuring, among other questions.

The working group's suggestion was to create a new classification based on higher minimum sports sponsorship and also featuring other membership standards that would have distinguished it from the current Division III.

The survey's results will not publicly be released until April 9, after an Association-wide working group established by the NCAA Executive Committee to study membership issues also has an opportunity to review the findings.

But members of the Division III panel characterized the degree of opposition to the restructuring recorded in the survey as consistent with the level of opposition that was expressed during an NCAA Convention discussion of the working group's proposal.

Is that a euphemistic characterization of a smack-down? 

Thanks for finding that!  I had just looked last night!    +1!

Link to complete story...

...The working group continues to believe that membership growth will aggravate differences among Division III institutions on such questions of minimum sports sponsorship, "redshirting," appropriate membership standards and competitive restrictions, and also will make it increasingly difficult to maintain current levels of championships access and national office services.

Working group members, anticipating a series of Division III Town Hall meetings scheduled beginning in May, recommended that the membership begin discussing alternatives for addressing growth-related concerns during those sessions.

The working group also listed several topics for further consideration that were subjects of questions in the survey, including financial aid policies, sport-sponsorship levels, playing and practice seasons restrictions, championships access and membership standards...

We have seen these before.  IMHO, the "ideologues" in the Working Group could not find 150 members who would subscribe to a new and common type of division.

I understand the "access to championship" concerns.  We all want more Pool C bids in the various team sports.

I can imagine the strains on the bureaucracy incurred by growth and the amount of the budget allocated to D-III.  Examples of this constraint are not as readily apparent in the discussions, nor is a divisional split guaranteed to provide the answer.

"...financial aid policies, sport-sponsorship levels, playing and practice seasons restrictions, championships access and membership standards..."

This just seems to be "old-fashioned diversity" expressed in the voluntary organization that can resolved with democratic  principles.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Glad to read that story. I had yet to see any reasons I found convincing as to why DIII should be split. Hopefully, the NCAA can spent its time on something more useful now.

[Josh Bowerman]

Good riddance to an ill-founded notion.

I would, however, be in favor of looking at financial aid policies at DIII member institutions.  Me thinks that, plus looking at some way to level out the inheirient tuition advantage the state schools have, seem to be the biggest issues facing DIII from a competition standpoint...

[K-Mack]

Good riddance to an ill-founded notion.

I would, however, be in favor of looking at financial aid policies at DIII member institutions.  Me thinks that, plus looking at some way to level out the inheirient tuition advantage the state schools have, seem to be the biggest issues facing DIII from a competition standpoint...

I second that emo, er, motion.

[old ends]

Well in general,, for now the future looks very good!!!

[wc2viking]

Hooray!  I suppose the NCAA is sorta a democracy.  The amazingly unworkable Division IV proposals are deservedly dead for now.....(but I bet they get dredged up again in a few years by the same snobs who got this whole mess started.)

[wildcat11]

Survey's are out:  NCAA.org

There is much more detail but in a nutshell 82% of the membership support the current structure of DIII.

[Ralph Turner]

Survey's are out:  NCAA.org

There is much more detail but in a nutshell 82% of the membership support the current structure of DIII.

When is the last time that you heard about a bunch of educators agreeing by 82% on anything?   

You cannot even get 82% agreement that there should be a coffee pot in the faculty lounge!

[Ralph Turner]

I found Question #6 and Question #7 instructive.

6.  Division III legislative standards should generally become less permissive.

26.6% agree
68.6% disagree
4.9%   don't know

7.  Division III legislative standards should generally become more permissive.

27.1% agree
68.7% disagree
4.1%   don't know

Don't those percentages of answers suggest a near-perfect Gaussian distribution of the middle-ground!   

[old ends]

I am just glad that, for now, status quo remains. For the majority of DIV III to agree, with the diverse backrounds of all of the schools, is amazing.

You cannot even get 82% agreement that there should be a coffee pot in the faculty lounge!

and nothing more could be added.