University of New Orleans & D3-D1

[Ralph Turner]

NOLA (Times-Picayune) article on UNO's withdrawal.

http://www.nola.com/uno/index.ssf/2010/01/sun_belt_conference_accepts_un.html

[Sun Belt Commissioner Wright] Waters said the conference will stay at 12 teams once UNO leaves and there's no plans to expand or contract. Men's basketball, women's basketball and volleyball will have two six-team divisions: East -- Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Middle Tennessee State, South Alabama, Troy and Western Kentucky; West -- UALR, Arkansas State, Denver, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe and North Texas. UNO currently plays in the West Division.

UNO's departure provides some balance and logical travel partners for this conference that is spread over three time zones.  (There are about 20 daily flights on 4 airlines between DFW and Denver, i.e., North Texas and U Denver.)

Coach Pasternak gave more reserved comments in the article.

It's a move UNO men's basketball coach Joe Pasternack anticipated. And with the Privateers gearing up to face Louisiana-Lafayette on Thursday night at the Cajundome, all Pasternack said he can do is help his team prepare for basketball now and aid in his and his players' futures later.

"We've known and our players have known that this day was coming, so it's not a surprise, " Pasternack said. "The UNO administration feels that the only way to have athletics at UNO is to reclassify to Division III, which is a lot better than eliminating athletics all together. All we can focus on is our basketball team and our next opponent, Louisiana-Lafayette. I think they are the most talented team in our league."

UNO players can transfer without penalty after June 30.

There's a possibility other Sun Belt schools could be interested in recruiting current UNO student-athletes. But NCAA transfer rules are still in effect to an extent and the NCAA has contacted every Sun Belt school, according to the conference's release.

Any UNO student-athlete that transfers to another Sun Belt school before June 30 shall be subject to the intra-conference transfer requirement and must sit out a season. NCAA contact rules also require a school receive permission from the UNO athletic director before contacting a UNO student-athlete.

After June 30, UNO student-athletes will be able to transfer penalty-free and play without having to sit out one season.

The Sun Belt Conference allowed UNO to leave without penalty.

Normally a $500,000 penalty is attached to a school voluntarily leaving the conference. But the Sun Belt unanimously voted to waive the fee.

[Just Bill]

Ralph,

Re: Colorado College men's hockey, because D-II hockey doesn't exist, D-II schools with hockey programs play in D-I and play by D-I rules.  See Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha for examples.

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph,

Re: Colorado College men's hockey, because D-II hockey doesn't exist, D-II schools with hockey programs play in D-I and play by D-I rules.  See Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha for examples.

Yes, but if CC were to re-classify to D-II to join the RMAC, could Colorado College move its women's soccer team to the RMAC?

Would they want to move the soccer team from D-1?  Just thoughts and questions...

Thanks.

[Ralph Turner]

UNO is down to 9 sports currently:  M/W Hoops, M/W Swimming, M/W Tennis, M Golf, Baseball and Volleyball.  That is on men's and two women's sports shy of the D-III minimum for a school that large.

http://www.unoprivateers.com/

In 2008-09, the UNO Privateers averaged 743 fans for 15 men's basketball games including 1300 for NCState and 1085 for Tulane.  The college President has made the right choice.

https://admin.xosn.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=86682&SPID=10255&DB_OEM_ID=16700&ATCLID=1626110

[Ron Boerger]

Ralph,

Re: Colorado College men's hockey, because D-II hockey doesn't exist, D-II schools with hockey programs play in D-I and play by D-I rules.  See Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha for examples.

Yes, but if CC were to re-classify to D-II to join the RMAC, could Colorado College move its women's soccer team to the RMAC?

Would they want to move the soccer team from D-1?  Just thoughts and questions...

Thanks.

Title IX comes into play ... not sure D2 scholarships and D1 scholarships are 'equitable', at the very least they'd have to offer the same number of scholarships to the soccer team as the hockey team ?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Ralph,

Re: Colorado College men's hockey, because D-II hockey doesn't exist, D-II schools with hockey programs play in D-I and play by D-I rules.  See Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha for examples.

Yes, but if CC were to re-classify to D-II to join the RMAC, could Colorado College move its women's soccer team to the RMAC?

Would they want to move the soccer team from D-1?  Just thoughts and questions...

Thanks.

Hockey is king at CC.  They sell 6,000 tickets to every home game (5th highest average in the country).  They rival Air Force football as the biggest sports team in town (a metro area of half a million people).  I don't know what their financial situation is like, but having gone to high school in Colorado Springs, they've always given the impression that they have more money than God.  Students certainly pay a high enough tuition to maintain a generous athletic budget.

I want to say that if they're already paying to fly everywhere it makes more sense to go D1.  CC's enrollment (about 2,000) is a just a little too small to make that work, though.  Denver University is in a similar spot in D1, but they have 5,000 students.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

CC bills themselves as an ivy-esque elite academic school.  They've got a centrally located campus surrounded by hedges and trees so its hard to even see onto the campus from the outside.  I used to go to volleyball games there when I was in high school and the aura of the place is wealth and exclusivity.  They actively thumb their noses at the d2 schools in the area.  I just don't see any way they would ever go d2 in athletics.  It would be like a humiliation.

[smedindy]

I thought it was a foregone conclusion that with Earlham switching to the HCAC that Depauw was going to make the switch to the NCAC.

Nothing is a foregone conclusion at DePauw!

[smedindy]

CC bills themselves as an ivy-esque elite academic school.  They've got a centrally located campus surrounded by hedges and trees so its hard to even see onto the campus from the outside.  I used to go to volleyball games there when I was in high school and the aura of the place is wealth and exclusivity.  They actively thumb their noses at the d2 schools in the area.  I just don't see any way they would ever go d2 in athletics.  It would be like a humiliation.

Agreed. CC 'fits' a lot better in D-3 than D-2. They certainly don't have any peers in Colorado, for the most part.

Though if they did D-1 without football, they certainly wouldn't be the smallest.

[Gray Fox]

How does CC compare to Nebraska Wesleyan?

[Ron Boerger]

How does CC compare to Nebraska Wesleyan?

According to the annual US News rankings, NW is a tier 3 (of 4) Liberal Arts college, while CC is Tier 1 (ranked 24th) in the same category.  CC costs half again as much to attend as does NW. 

66% of CC freshman were in the top 10% of their high school class; NW, 26%.

School sizes are within 10% of each other (just under 2000).   

[Tacttm1]

Let me first thank Ralph and Pat for the wealth of information re: UNO, D3, Conferences, etc.  I have used that info, plus comments from other respected members to help inform my UNO community (to various degrees of success!!) over the past few months.

Here is some updated information for your perusal and comment:

1)  After a search for a new Athletic Director...80 plus candidates, 4 finalists....the AD job has been given to the current Head Women's Basketball Coach Amy Champion.  Though it has been dubbed 'interim', Champion says to expect that to change shortly.

Champion was not a finalist for the position.  Actually, the word is that Tallach from Centenary was offered and turned down the position.

2) Grumblings over a hasty move out of D1 and the Sun Belt came from candidates for the job, continue from knowledgeable sources and financial supporters and have the Chancellor on the hot seat.  Some candidates for the AD position suggested that they would like to re-visit the idea of switching, contrary to the directives given by the Chancellor.

3)  The hot seat for Chancellor Ryan reportedly involves the above mentioned move and also unpleasant comments directed at supporter, lack of leadership and general issues that confront Universities in these tough financial times.

4)  The acceptance of Centenary into the ASC further complicates matters as to where UNO would be accepted in D3, especially in light of travel, enrollment size, sports, etc.

5)  Budget cuts and fiscal issue within Louisiana have many programs, fundings and plans on hold at all schools (even LSU...they are holding off on finishing the band building, or some such!!   This makes bringing in a qualified AD difficult.  Imagine making a decision to relocate your family when you don't even know what will happen at your University from fiscal quarter to quarter.  Also, some candidates for the AD position suggested that they would like to re-visit the idea of switching, contrary to the directives given by the Chancellor.

6) Scuttlebutt involves changes of heart in the Division switch, split off conferences, etc.


Feedback or thoughts?  Information or suggestions?

[Gregory Sager]

2) Grumblings over a hasty move out of D1 and the Sun Belt came from candidates for the job, continue from knowledgeable sources and financial supporters and have the Chancellor on the hot seat.  Some candidates for the AD position suggested that they would like to re-visit the idea of switching, contrary to the directives given by the Chancellor.

I find this a fascinating detail. Perhaps I'm simply naive, but as somebody who has been through a number of job interviews in his life and who is familiar with the process, I find it very hard to understand how a candidate for a position could assert in an interview that the firm that's interviewing him has made a major mistake in mission and policy in his prospective department, and that he would like the firm to completely reverse the decision! It's tantamount to saying, "I sure would like to come work for you, but you've completely screwed up your business ... and if you hire me I want you to go back to your old way of doing things."

I understand that candor can have its place in the job-interview process, but not only do the statements and attitudes of these AD candidates completely lack the sort of politesse necessary to make a good impression and secure the job, it just seems totally counterintuitive in terms of procedure. Why would you apply for the AD job at a school already well in transition from D1 to D3 if your intention is to be the AD of a D1 school? Who applies for a job that he neither wants nor likes? As I said, maybe I'm naive, but I just don't get it.

6) Scuttlebutt involves changes of heart in the Division switch, split off conferences, etc.

It makes sense that resistance would continue to be high; the D3 brand is all but unknown in that part of the country, the association of D1 with institutional prestige and media interest is universal throughout American sports, and there are certainly obstacles of distance and conference affiliation involved with the switch to D3 (not that there weren't for UNO in D1 as well). But it seems to me that the basic situation hasn't changed for UNO. If anything, the state budgetary crunch would make it even more imperative for a public university with a commuter student base and a long-standing niche on D1's bottom rung to scale back its athletic budget and move to D3.

Given the unemployment crisis in America, I find it difficult to believe that there aren't qualified AD candidates out there willing to take on the UNO job, even as the school is midstream in a difficult transition process. Even if there aren't any such candidates out there, it's perfectly possible that Amy Champion or someone like her could develop into a fine AD. After all, everybody has to start somewhere; experienced ADs don't just appear out of thin air, right?

No doubt this transition to D3 is fraught with difficulties for UNO, many of which we've discussed at length here. But it doesn't seem to me, from my distant remove from the situation, that anything has changed regarding the untenability of UNO remaining in D1. If anything, the drying up of funds from the state of Louisiana would seem to make D1 status even more untenable for UNO.

[Tacttm1]

Your points are well taken. I agree that for candidates to even hint at disagreementwith the bosses direction usually doesn't bode well for getting the job.  On the otherhand, sometimes it is better to call a pig 'maybe a swine' rather than place yourself into a life position that is composed of wrong decisions.  (did that make sense??)  I think that the level of expertise coming from 3 of the 4 finalists made avoiding the obvious quite difficult.

Part of the situation is that the timelines and tactics for moving to D3 were not thought out, so many suppostions wer used to make decisions.

As for any change in the fiscal climate, yes, funds are drying up, but the Chancellor has stated that he would keep the student athletic assessment the same.  This, he said, would allow UNO to run a better funded D3 program rather than a lower level funded D1 program.

[Ralph Turner]

What would help UNO most is a D-III travel partner in south Louisiana for the prospective D-III conferences in the South.  This is not rocket science, but Centenary has been on the ASC radar since the conference's move to D-III in 1996.  As I wrote elsewhere, UT-Tyler on the West and Centenary on the east give four D-III schools on the I-20 corridor 100 miles apart!  They are virtually falling over themselves down here.  Eight is a nice number, but 10 schools on the East might help with the splitting of the ASC into two conferences.

Having 2 schools on the Gulf would also help the GSAC, if the GSAC doesn't pick up some Atlanta schools in the mean time.

The budget contingency in the state of Louisiana makes D-III the only practical option.  Does UNO see its peers for mission and vision as NAIA schools in the city?  That is my first question.

Disclaimer -- I have no insde knowledge of any activity inside the ASC or the UNO situation.