Are the Purple Powers bad for D3?

[emma17]

DOC- I'm not really sure what to make of the list of championships you posted. If your point is that the WIAC wins more than its fair share, I think we would need to see a list of every DIII sport w a national championship in order to compare.

In addition, the list does show a couple schools are obviously strong in track and field. Is that because the WIAC gives them some sort of advantage or is it a testament to a coach and program that would succeed the same way in any conference?

[smedindy]

Should we do the championship exercise for the NESCAC and the UAA? What's the point? The NCAC has won two championships this year and no doubt will probably win at least one of the swimming titles? Should we bust that league up?

[D O.C.]

DOC- I'm not really sure what to make of the list of championships you posted.

PC will tell you I don't either.    What the list does NOT tell us is how many times a WIAC team got to the finals and LOST. 

[badgerwarhawk]

Surprised none of the WIAC folks have noted that the entire system is D-III because of state law. It would take an act of the legislature to change that.

Very interesting...I didn't know that.

That's news to me too. 

[Pat Coleman]

Surprising -- believe I learned that on the WIAC board once upon a time. Point being, someone has to fund those scholarships and that money has to come from the state, unless a school can raise a self-sustaining fund of a couple million dollars annually.

[AO]

AO -

Who will pay for that? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?

It won't be the Walker regime for sure!

Is there an owl in here?   

Remember, I would like to live in a world without title IX.  Where if UW-Whitewater wanted to play a division 1 schedule in football only and give full rides to 60 football players and no one else, it could do so.   Even if home attendance doesn't increase much, you could pay for the scholarships by playing at a bcs school where guarantees of a million are not uncommon.

Title IX is necessary and vital. My daughters deserve athletics just as much as I did and there will be some chuckleheads who would deny them that right because their views are stuck way in the past.

Again, people need to keep the entire athletics program in mind. Those D-1 BCS guarantee games are horrid for the sport itself. It does help the coffers but at what cost?

Would your daughter would quit the team if not given a scholarship?  As we in D3 know, universities find value in supporting sports that draw tuition-paying students even though they don't generate much tv or ticket revenue.   Women's sports don't need football money to survive.  They survive based upon the interest of the women playing them.

[D O.C.]

They survive based on Title IX.

[AO]

They survive based on Title IX.

How do the aau girls teams, club teams, every other girls team not applicable to title IX survive?

[emma17]

DOC- I'm not really sure what to make of the list of championships you posted.

PC will tell you I don't either.    What the list does NOT tell us is how many times a WIAC team got to the finals and LOST.

You seem reasonable enough to me.   But come come on now, you shouldn't make your case by telling half a story. If your point is the WIAC wins/competes in too many championships, you should give u s information on all D3 championships.

[Knightstalker]

DOC- I'm not really sure what to make of the list of championships you posted.

PC will tell you I don't either.    What the list does NOT tell us is how many times a WIAC team got to the finals and LOST.

You seem reasonable enough to me.   But come come on now, you shouldn't make your case by telling half a story. If your point is the WIAC wins/competes in too many championships, you should give u s information on all D3 championships.

I forget if it was just for football and basketball or all of D-3 but someone did a breakdown several years ago and the percentage of championships won by the state colleges and universities and championships won by the private institutions was fairly close to the percentages of each type of institution in D-3.  Holy run-on sentence Batman.

[smedindy]

It is blatantly unfair and unjust not to offer women's scholarships if they offer men's scholarships. I have concerns about football creating some inequities in Title IX, but it is downright criminal to say 'sorry' to women athletes if their male counterparts get scholarships. Or worse, saying 'sorry' to women's athletics, period. And that's exactly why Title IX was created, because sexists deemed women's sports unworthy. You can't expect women's athletics to compete on a playing field with programs that have 80-100 years of track record when many high schools didn't offer women's athletics at all until Title IX. My sister never got the same chance as her daughter did.

There were no such things (or barely such things) as AAU, club sports, etc. for the vast majority of women.

And that's all I am saying about this because it's detracting from the main concern of the question of the board. There is no conceivable way you can remove the Purples' football program from D-3 without damaging their conferences, their athletics department and the D-3 ethos.

[jknezek]

They survive based on Title IX.

How do the aau girls teams, club teams, every other girls team not applicable to title IX survive?

This seems like the wrong thread for this. However, while Title IX has been a disaster, especially at the D1 level, for many fringe men's sports (and not so fringe like wrestling), something like it was absolutely necessary. I don't approve of how Title IX was implemented or later interpreted, but for institutions accepting federal money, the pre-Title IX spending on women's sports and opportunities for female athletes was completely unacceptable.

As for how aau and club teams thrive, they are funded at a large cost to the parents. Just like they are usually funded on the boys sides except for at the very top levels, where I have my suspicions about the financing not being anywhere near wholesome...

[smedindy]

It was a disaster for short-sighted, short-logic and meek, fraidy-cat athletics directors and not with Title IX itself.

[jknezek]

And that's all I am saying about this because it's detracting from the main concern of the question of the board. There is no conceivable way you can remove the Purples' football program from D-3 without damaging their conferences, their athletics department and the D-3 ethos.

I never thought that was the main concern of the question on the board? I thought it was if they are bad for D3. Oh well...

[smedindy]

That means it's bad for D-3. D-3 isn't just football, it's all wrapped up together in the conferences and their entire programs. I think I've stated that as a theme in most of my posts - maybe too many of them.