Are the Purple Powers bad for D3?

[Gregory Sager]

I don't care whether the residents of Curdistan (thanks, Greg - great term!) have changed to FISH.  I proudly grew up as a FIB and have now been a troll to Yoopers for over 4 decades!

At least "troll" is clever (the residents of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, aka "the mitten", live south of the Mackinac Bridge; in other words, they're "under the bridge"). FIB and FISH are lukewarm-IQ pejoratives, at best.

I am willing to listen to an argument that UWW has an unfair advantage due to its enrollment, but Mt. Union has a relatively small student body by DIII standards. Remember, however, that without UWW we would have had an undisputed Mt. Union dynasty these past 15 years.

"Enrollment"? Sigh. Why do people even bring this up? The size of the undergraduate population at any given school is completely irrelevant to D3 football discussions. Nobody recruits their football team from among the present student body. D3 coaches selectively recruit specific high-school football players to come to their schools and play football for them. In other words, "enrollment" doesn't have squat-all to do with anything. You can, and frequently do, see games on this level in which a school of 10,000 takes the field with a football team of 100 recruited football players against a school of 2,000 with a football team of 150 recruited football players.

Please, let's not use the word "enrollment" again in any discussion involving D3 football, D3 men's basketball, D3 baseball ... any sport whose athletes are all selectively recruited.

[dahlby]

Gregory, would it not be true that the larger the enrollment, the more funding that would occur for an athletic department, as some funding comes from student fees? And the more funding that is available would affect an athletic department budget that would impact several budget line items?

I do agree that most teams are set from recruiting and not from an existing student body.

Just wondering.

May all have a healthy, prosperous and winning New Year!!!

[wabash4ever]

AO, You raise some interesting questions about the implications of Title IX, to which I know the answer, so here you go:

1. Title IX only applies to athletic programs at educational institutions, so the law does not apply to any professional sports leagues.  The NBA owns, funds and operates the WNBA as a for-profit venture, though it has yet to turn a profit.  Some of the NBA's stated reasons for operating the WNBA are based on gender-equality, but the NBA is a collection of private companies and can do with their money what they want, including losing a small percentage of it on the WNBA.  That should not obscure the fact, however, that Title IX in no way applies to the NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL because they are not educational institutions.

2. As for schools like Wabash, and other single-sex colleges and universities, they not only discriminate against the opposite sex (be it men or women) on an athletic level, they discriminate by not even letting the other sex attend the institution.  I believe this particular "discrimination," is a good thing because it allows for the existence of a select few single-sex colleges and universities as a limited but viable option in current American culture.  The reason, however, that institutions like Wabash can discriminate in both admissions AND athletic policies is because they do not take any  money whatsoever from state or federal governments, including state or federally subsidized student loans.  All money for the school's operations, including student aid, must come from private sources. State schools are obviously subject to Title IX as written. Additionally, since private schools like Duke, USC, Northwestern, etc., allow their students to accept state and federal financial aid, they are subject to Title IX. 

I hope this helps clarify your questions.

[Gregory Sager]

Gregory, would it not be true that the larger the enrollment, the more funding that would occur for an athletic department, as some funding comes from student fees? And the more funding that is available would affect an athletic department budget that would impact several budget line items?

Not necessarily. Student fees may be one source of athletic department revenue, if the school's financial structure is set up that way, but the athletic department is typically funded from the school budget as a whole. And budgets can, and do, vary widely from school to school, for reasons that frequently have nothing to do with the size of the student population. Some smaller D3 liberal-arts schools have endowments so large that they can put together budgets that dwarf those of D3's large state schools. In fact, endowment size has a lot more to do with this discussion in terms of resources than does student body size. Even in that case, some schools with large endowments choose to put a relatively small amount of money into athletics every year, while schools with small endowments sometimes put a lot of money into athletics every year, because their student bodies have such a high percentage of student-athletes in them. It really varies from school to school, and has to do with the school's stated mission, administrative policies and/or preferences, etc.

[r-squared]

Folks I don't really give a rip what the metrics are for measuring the growth or lack thereof of DIII football, but rather than just gnashing your teeth, let's look and see what has happened to the sport over the last seven year and perhaps compare to other growth over earlier periods. I pushed out give or six possible metrics -- I'll leave the specifics to someone who is a stats freak to figure out the specifics.

But really it does not seem that this has been bad for DIII football. At least to me it seems that there is growth in the number of teams in the DIII pool.

If everyone has their nickers in wad over the fact that UWW and MU have done all of the winning over the last seven years, then that is another topic. Do either UWW or MU have an advantage that other schools do not have?

I will say that the DIII is central US/east coast dominated (by that I mean that is where the majority of schyools are located) and therefore those teams do seem to get more of a benefit of doubt than the rest of the pool;

Two cases this past season were Linfield going all the way to Wesley and Wesley going to MU. If you reverse the home field advantage you might have seen different results in each of those games.

[Ralph Turner]

Folks I don't really give a rip what the metrics are for measuring the growth or lack thereof of DIII football, but rather than just gnashing your teeth, let's look and see what has happened to the sport over the last seven year and perhaps compare to other growth over earlier periods. I pushed out give or six possible metrics -- I'll leave the specifics to someone who is a stats freak to figure out the specifics.

But really it does not seem that this has been bad for DIII football. At least to me it seems that there is growth in the number of teams in the DIII pool.

If everyone has their nickers in wad over the fact that UWW and MU have done all of the winning over the last seven years, then that is another topic. Do either UWW or MU have an advantage that other schools do not have?

I will say that the DIII is central US/east coast dominated (by that I mean that is where the majority of schyools are located) and therefore those teams do seem to get more of a benefit of doubt than the rest of the pool;

Two cases this past season were Linfield going all the way to Wesley and Wesley going to MU. If you reverse the home field advantage you might have seen different results in each of those games.

I agree. Travel beyond the usual 3-4 hr bus trip is a tremendous factor.  Most teams in D-III never travel farther than in their entire season.

[Gray Fox]

I agree. Travel beyond the usual 3-4 hr bus trip is a tremendous factor.  Most teams in D-III never travel farther than in their entire season.

I overheard a visiting playoff coach in California say most of his kids had never even been out of their state.

[frank uible]

Not infrequently smaller is better.

[smedindy]

If enrollment was a factor then schools like CCNY, Brooklyn and Hunter would be athletics powerhouses.

[D O.C.]

A rapier amidst a deck of cutlasses, Frank?

[kestrel]

I believe UWW's AD Paul Plinske is on record as saying, "We want to provide our football players, student body, and fans with a Division I experience."  And, with that statement we know that the old DIII justification for football as an educational experience that promotes the values of fair competition and good sportsmanship are no longer of primary importance at UWW.  Winning is the name of their game, and to maintain a winning edge money becomes the difference-maker, money that builds and maintains state-of-the-art weight rooms, locker rooms, FieldTurf, Jumbotrons, and stadia.   At UWO, for example, every sport had its budget cut while football received a slight increase in these tough budgetary times.  Is Oshkosh's goal a better educational experience for their players?  Or, a more competitive team for their students, fans, and alumni to rally around? I believe the two goals are mutually exclusive.  Does anyone doubt that there is an almost perfect correlation between a team's rank in conference and its rank in terms of financial and physical resources?  Perhaps the idea of a Division IV should start to become more than just talk.   

[smedindy]

Many D-3 schools have invested in weight rooms and locker rooms, and improved their physical stadium plant. The main reason is to attract male students - who if not football players will want to support the team - and for the weight rooms and locker rooms to enhance wellness on campus by providing an excellent place for workout.

These aren't trends at just the football powers.

[DanPadavona]

I guess what it comes down to for me is that I watch sports for the drama of not knowing what is going to happen next. If I was a Yankees fan (and boy that is a big IF), and NYY started spending $500 million per year on player contracts and had the AL and NL all-stars making up their roster, it would probably interest me for a year or two and then become dreadfully boring.

The only drama of the D3 championship is whether UWW or MUC will win it. That doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of drama on a lower level for other teams. Clearly there is. If there wasn't, I wouldn't be battling with 10,000+ fans to get a ticket to Cortaca every season.

But the playoffs are devoid of drama for me. The season ends the second week in November. I don't think it is healthy for interest in the D3 Playoffs, but I don't know that there is anything inherently unfair about it. It is what it is. They are just much better than the field and I don't see a real threat to either of them.

[Jonny Utah]

AO, You raise some interesting questions about the implications of Title IX, to which I know the answer, so here you go:

1. Title IX only applies to athletic programs at educational institutions, so the law does not apply to any professional sports leagues.  The NBA owns, funds and operates the WNBA as a for-profit venture, though it has yet to turn a profit.  Some of the NBA's stated reasons for operating the WNBA are based on gender-equality, but the NBA is a collection of private companies and can do with their money what they want, including losing a small percentage of it on the WNBA.  That should not obscure the fact, however, that Title IX in no way applies to the NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL because they are not educational institutions.

2. As for schools like Wabash, and other single-sex colleges and universities, they not only discriminate against the opposite sex (be it men or women) on an athletic level, they discriminate by not even letting the other sex attend the institution.  I believe this particular "discrimination," is a good thing because it allows for the existence of a select few single-sex colleges and universities as a limited but viable option in current American culture.  The reason, however, that institutions like Wabash can discriminate in both admissions AND athletic policies is because they do not take any  money whatsoever from state or federal governments, including state or federally subsidized student loans.  All money for the school's operations, including student aid, must come from private sources. State schools are obviously subject to Title IX as written. Additionally, since private schools like Duke, USC, Northwestern, etc., allow their students to accept state and federal financial aid, they are subject to Title IX. 

I hope this helps clarify your questions.

Wellesley college accepts Federal and state grants, I was wondering how they do it or what the difference is between the two schools

[smedindy]

Wabash accepts Pell Grants.