Great Lakes Region

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

As for the rationality and not playing elsewhere in the country... remember one big thing, athletics can be a very powerful recruiting tool to more than just athletes. Seeing a school like Amherst or Chicago or NYU at a school or region far from their base is a helpful way to tell people about your school (one of the reasons the UAA would LOVE to get JHU back into the fold). It is also a great way to engage or re-engage alumni. Don't be surprised with schools of far bigger pockets going and playing more than a couple of games well away from home. It certainly won't be the majority, but enough to make sure you have everyone play by the same rules.

And as for one-size fits all, that is the nature of the beast. It has been true in every sport in every division of the NCAA except for D1 basketball and football. The tournaments are all based on 6.5:1 and how they are selected is not unique to Division III. The only thing different is the regions and that is something they are looking into changing in a major realignment... and as a result, every sport is being considered so there can be some sort of uniformity though there won't be 8 regions in a lot of sports.

[Pat Coleman]

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating here...where is the evidence that once they take the shackles of regionality out of the equation that teams from the northeast or mid-atlantic are going to play all of their non-league games in Texas and California and not at any of the scores of schools that are within easy driving distance?  Where are all of the Division III presidents that are going to spend the dollars to ship their basketball team all over the country for single non-league games?  It just isn't going to happen.  Regional play is going to happen without anybody forcing it to. 

I agree -- I don't think there will be a significant change to the way teams schedule, unless there are those who need to schedule differently to get to 70%, if there is anyone anymore.

[sac]

As for the rationality and not playing elsewhere in the country... remember one big thing, athletics can be a very powerful recruiting tool to more than just athletes. Seeing a school like Amherst or Chicago or NYU at a school or region far from their base is a helpful way to tell people about your school (one of the reasons the UAA would LOVE to get JHU back into the fold). It is also a great way to engage or re-engage alumni. Don't be surprised with schools of far bigger pockets going and playing more than a couple of games well away from home. It certainly won't be the majority, but enough to make sure you have everyone play by the same rules.

And as for one-size fits all, that is the nature of the beast. It has been true in every sport in every division of the NCAA except for D1 basketball and football. The tournaments are all based on 6.5:1 and how they are selected is not unique to Division III. The only thing different is the regions and that is something they are looking into changing in a major realignment... and as a result, every sport is being considered so there can be some sort of uniformity though there won't be 8 regions in a lot of sports.

...and how exactly is this fear of traveling all over the country any different than gathering in Las Vegas or Florida to play tournaments with a heavy focus on getting regional games?

[Pat Coleman]

I think a good part of this is the 99% of colleges' presidents trying to keep the 1%ers from doing this. I'm not sure it would actually happen but I guess we'll find out.

Regionality is a valid part of the D-III philosophy. It's just been used in some interesting ways.

[monsoon]

Regionality is a valid part of the D-III philosophy. It's just been used in some interesting ways.

And defined in interesting ways when Wheaton/Occidental and Hope/Mississippi are "regional", but Calvin/Wheaton is not.   

[Pat Coleman]

As I have said annually for about a decade, every map has borders. Each one-fourth of Division III has to have lines somewhere.

[iwumichigander]

As I have said annually for about a decade, every map has borders. Each one-fourth of Division III has to have lines somewhere.

The difference with the revision next year - Calvin/Wheaton count just not as 'in region'.  I think the revision opens up possibilites, for examples, CCIW/MIAA or CCIW/HCAC

[monsoon]

I don't think any of us here have a problem with the need for borders.  Lack of consistency in the rationale and arguments is where I get frustrated.

Don't travel all over the country.  OK - Calvin and Wheaton or Hope and IWU will play each other.  Oh wait - you need to play more regional games, and those aren't regional.  OK - Hope will play Mississippi and Wheaton could go to California or Oregon.  Oh wait - we weren't supposed to travel across the country.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, agree on MIT and Johns Hopkins, but Caltech can't even compete in the SCIAC!  They would be absolutely routed in every game in the UAA.

Yes, but Chuck, that has absolutely nothing to do with the profile of the schools, which is what this discussion is about. Caltech, like the other schools named, is an elite, mid-sized research university. The fact that it stinks at sports has nothing to do with the school's institutional profile or its resources; it has to do with the fact that the school utilizes a, shall we say, quirky admissions-gatekeeper methodology that strongly militates against the ability of Caltech coaches to get student-athletes admitted. In other words, it's a totally elective variable on Caltech's part and not an inherent athletics weakness, institutionally speaking.

Greg, I'm well aware that conference composition has more facets than just athletic compatibility, but that is the public face (UAA after all stands for University Athletic Association).  Would Caltech student-athletes (a term that can still be used with a straight face in d3) be well-served by moving to a conference where they would be utterly annihilated, rather than nearly always losing, but often competitive?

I hadn't realized that their baseball team just might be even less competitive than their football and basketball teams!  They recently broke a 228-game (d3 record) nonconference losing streak, beating Pacifica in the second game of a doubleheader.  They responded in a properly composed manner, leading their coach (Matthew Mark) to say something that made Sports Illustrated's 'They Said It' (essentially 'quote of the week'): "It was almost as if they had been there before."   (Their last nonconference win had been 10 years ago, when probably all the current players were in Little League.)

Losing is losing, Chuck. The degree may be a little different -- in the UAA the basketball Beavers might lose by an average of 20 every night instead of losing by an average of 15, and the baseball Beavers might lose by an average of 12 runs instead of 7 or 8 -- but it's not as though it would really make any difference. Caltech gets drubbed in the SCIAC as it is. You can't really argue that the quality of a student-athlete's experience would suffer when, if you base the argument upon winning as being the element that enhances said experience, the Beavers aren't currently being well-served, anyway.

Besides, UAA programs use the travel involved as an asset rather than as a liability in terms of recruiting. Sure, there are complications involved in having to spend four weekends in January and February making a long out-of-state trip (three of which involve Friday-to-Sunday trips). But they're also selling points: "Come play for Case Western Reserve, and you'll be playing games in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and St. Louis!" As D-Mac said, UAA schools like the travel because they get to show the flag both to far-flung prospects and to far-flung alumni. But it's an enhancement for the student-athletes as well.

Caltech isn't like its SCIAC brethren; it's a research university rather than a liberal arts college. The whole point of the UAA is to match like-minded institutions, and Caltech is of a kin with those schools. (Besides, if MIT joined as well, the ultimate geek rivalry would finally come to fruition. ) As for the expense of all that travel, Caltech's got an endowment of 1.7 billion dollars. Like the UAA schools, it can afford it.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, I can agree that ultimately "losing is losing", but as a former (youth, not college) coach, there is a HUGE difference between being competitive (which Caltech often is in the SCIAC) but losing, and getting constantly blown out.  In the (blessedly rare) seasons we were constantly blown out, kids simply stopped showing up and played with little energy when they did (and these were teams young enough that we didn't even officially keep score - but they knew the score   Only when coaching 6-year-olds did I get away with "Coach, did we win?" "Did you have fun?" "Yes." "Then we won."  when in fact we lost by 4-5 goals ).

Maybe my argument is irrelevant to college athletes, but I tend to think human nature prevails.

[Gregory Sager]

I just don't think that the difference between losing badly, for the most part, and losing really badly, for the most part, comes even close to canceling out the institutional affinities issue. Caltech's true sister schools are Chicago, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, etc., not Cal Lutheran, Chapman, and Occidental.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I just don't think that the difference between losing badly, for the most part, and losing really badly, for the most part, comes even close to canceling out the institutional affinities issue. Caltech's true sister schools are Chicago, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, etc., not Cal Lutheran, Chapman, and Occidental.

True, but if all your sisters are more than 2,000 miles away, can't you find friends in the neighborhood?!

[Gregory Sager]

I just don't think that the difference between losing badly, for the most part, and losing really badly, for the most part, comes even close to canceling out the institutional affinities issue. Caltech's true sister schools are Chicago, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, etc., not Cal Lutheran, Chapman, and Occidental.

True, but if all your sisters are more than 2,000 miles away, can't you find friends in the neighborhood?!

Sure, you can. And those friends are named Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, Oregon, Stanford, USC, and Washington. But, somehow, I just don't see Caltech being invited to join the Pac-10.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I just don't think that the difference between losing badly, for the most part, and losing really badly, for the most part, comes even close to canceling out the institutional affinities issue. Caltech's true sister schools are Chicago, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, etc., not Cal Lutheran, Chapman, and Occidental.

True, but if all your sisters are more than 2,000 miles away, can't you find friends in the neighborhood?!

Sure, you can. And those friends are named Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, Oregon, Stanford, USC, and Washington. But, somehow, I just don't see Caltech being invited to join the Pac-10.

But if the Mean Girls won't let you in, you gotta do what what you can do!

[wally_wabash]

I think a good part of this is the 99% of colleges' presidents trying to keep the 1%ers from doing this. I'm not sure it would actually happen but I guess we'll find out.

That's too bad if that's what is happening.  Whether the 99% of presidents make it undesireable for teams that can and want to travel or not, those schools are still national brands like Chicago or WashU or Amherst and the 99% are not.  Whether those guys spend to play a tournament in Vegas or SoCal, they're still going to recruit nationally and most of the rest of us smaller, private, lib arts schools aren't.  And that's ok.  We should still want to count all of the results of the games.