D3 means zero discrimination without professonalization

[PaulNewman]

"Wheaton and North Park don't compete on the stage. But they do compete (very fiercely) on the soccer pitch. Nor, as far as I know, are college actors prohibited from participating in professional stage productions the way that college athletes are prohibited from being paid to play sports. Your analogy doesn't work."

Exactly.  The analogy doesn't work for you guys or me.  That's the point.  Just like a student who is already a student who decides while already there to give kicking field goals a go versus being recruited basically only to kick field goals.

[mailsy]

Whew! 

[paclassic89]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jose-cresto/profil/spieler/406947

A 23 year old Brazilian freshman who had played in the Italian 4th division

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/joachim-hoff/profil/spieler/471704

20 year old Norwegian freshman who had played in Norway's 3rd division

I'm sure there are more.  I just can't be bothered to look others up.  Also, 30 freshman and a roster size of 50+ is absolutely insane. There are just so many anomalies regarding the recruiting practices of this school that don't pass the smell test.  I'm sure everything is done within the ncaa d3 regulations but they're really treading a fine line regarding amateur status in my opinion.

You'd have to be deluded to think that this roster was the result of a natural d3 soccer recruiting process and not some concerted effort by the coaching staff to get these players.  And they still lost to Messiah

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I'm not going to wade into this argument, but I thought I'd mention a D3 case in another sport that may have some related circumstances (not so much for the seemingly random international player since it's not surprising the school would have a connection to Israel, but for an older player who played pro), Bar Alluf for Yeshiva basketball last season. http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/03/yeshiva-alluf-not-suited-up

Other than being held out of the tournament game when the situation was brought up as a precaution, I don't know if anything further happened.

[Gotberg]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jose-cresto/profil/spieler/406947

A 23 year old Brazilian freshman who had played in the Italian 4th division

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/joachim-hoff/profil/spieler/471704

20 year old Norwegian freshman who had played in Norway's 3rd division

I'm sure there are more.  I just can't be bothered to look others up.  Also, 30 freshman and a roster size of 50+ is absolutely insane. There are just so many anomalies regarding the recruiting practices of this school that don't pass the smell test.  I'm sure everything is done within the ncaa d3 regulations but they're really treading a fine line regarding amateur status in my opinion.

You'd have to be deluded to think that this roster was the result of a natural d3 soccer recruiting process and not some concerted effort by the coaching staff to get these players.  And they still lost to Messiah

Serie D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serie_D

Norway's 3rd division (4th level):  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3._divisjon

Scandinavia's soccer system is run through the division system.  I think most top level D3 teams would draw from similar levels in the US if such a system existed.

[Falconer]

For D1 BYU and D3 Southern Virginia, a pertinent dimension would be men who go on Mormon missions before playing collegiate sports. I don't know the numbers for this, but there must be many such students at those schools (or any other Mormon institutions). Of course, I assume that factor would also be reflected in the general student body, not just among athletes. It's apparently created a tougher recruiting situation in recent years, though not (from what I gather) one involving any age limits:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865572257/Mission-age-NCAA-rule-changes-close-BYUs-wiggle-room.html

[Pat Coleman]

I'm sure there are more.  I just can't be bothered to look others up.

[Ejay]

I'm not going to wade into this argument, but I thought I'd mention a D3 case in another sport that may have some related circumstances (not so much for the seemingly random international player since it's not surprising the school would have a connection to Israel, but for an older player who played pro), Bar Alluf for Yeshiva basketball last season. http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/03/yeshiva-alluf-not-suited-up

Other than being held out of the tournament game when the situation was brought up as a precaution, I don't know if anything further happened.

According to one of the articles on this story... "the Maccabees opted to play it safe and hold out Alluf, who had allegedly played in a pro league in Israel before arriving at Yeshiva. That wouldn't necessarily make him ineligible, though."

Can someone (Sager?) explain the rules as they relate to playing in pro leagues prior to college? Sounds like there is some leeway so I'm curious to know what it is.  Thanks!

[Flying Weasel]

I thought there was a distinction between playing for a professional team (without getting paid) and being paid to play for a professional team.

[Gregory Sager]

The reference to a "pool of recruits" and "jucos" was pulled directly from the CCIW thread and in the same basic discussion or just before all this started, somewhere in the page 64-66 range.  That thread gave direct birth to this thread.  Sorry I haven't mastered the multiple quotes within a post function.

We're down to picking nits here, which I take as a good sign. But you're wrong about this one. This current thread began when I posted my NPU @ IIT analysis eight days ago, which mentioned Deni Cresto on the CCIW board for the first time. Gotberg responded with a comment about Cresto and linked to the YouTube recruitment video that caused EB2319 to react and which thus brought about this entire contretemps. My postgame analysis and Gotberg's posting of the Cresto video were on page 68. In other words, this discussion started last week. The discussion of reserve matches and juco opponents is all the way back on page 65, and it took place the first week in August (long ago enough so that I couldn't recollect it at all at first). It was a completely different thread with no crossover.

As for the quote function, I'm certainly not telling you how to post. I'm just saying that it makes this sort of thing, in which someone has to do detective work and go digging back through past pages, a lot easier for everybody to follow.

You can keep saying we disagree about NCAA D3 policy.  We don't, or rather we disagree to what extent it is a laudable, intentional thing or whether schools do what they can within the rules. 

Fine. I'm happy with your wording. I think that it's a matter of semantics, but whatever.

Let's change the focus.  In my view one can argue about the degree to which NESCAC (and similar) schools aggressively recruit, use "tips," etc.  Allowed, yes, but in the best tradition of the spirit?  Not so sure.

I don't know enough about the NESCAC's specific recruiting practices to comment on that.

My point is in the title of thread....agreeing with zero discrimination but wondering where the line is in terms of some bleeding into professionalization.

Re: "professionalization":



Nobody in this thread, as far as I can tell, is talking about players getting paid to play soccer prior to, or during, their collegiate careers. I don't think it's helpful to use a word that means pay-to-play in a discussion that has nothing to do with that topic.*

The truth is that I don't care that much.  I got caught up much more in how I experience you coming across, and I assume to some significant extent the same is true for you and my style/persistence.

Agreed. But I thought that it was important for you to understand why I got hot under the collar.

(*Or at least they weren't until today. Now, as I read the thread for the first time today, i see that that's changed.)

[Gregory Sager]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jose-cresto/profil/spieler/406947

A 23 year old Brazilian freshman who had played in the Italian 4th division

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/joachim-hoff/profil/spieler/471704

20 year old Norwegian freshman who had played in Norway's 3rd division

I'm sure there are more.  I just can't be bothered to look others up.

I'll second Pat's comment:

Also, 30 freshman and a roster size of 50+ is absolutely insane.

Gee, and here I was under the impression that there was no such thing as a roster limit in D3 men's soccer.

The topic of the size of North Park's roster has already been dealt with. And I've already pointed out that the NPU coaching staff considers such a large roster to be unwieldly and difficult to manage.

There are just so many anomalies regarding the recruiting practices of this school that don't pass the smell test.

Gotta love this. Some guy makes pronouncements on his "smell test", but he "can't be bothered" to provide any evidence other than two links to players who played on amateur levels in overseas leagues. I'm tempted to throw in a few more eyeroll emojis.

I'm sure everything is done within the ncaa d3 regulations but they're really treading a fine line regarding amateur status in my opinion.

How clever. You want to cast aspersions upon North Park's soccer program, but you can't prove that it's breaking any rules. So you post a couple of specious links to soccer leagues in foreign countries, and fulminate about "smell tests" and "anomalies" and the ethics of NPU recruiting without putting yourself on the line by actually leveling a hard accusation of cheating. Let's see evidence -- real evidence -- that North Park is breaking the rules. Otherwise, you're treading dangerously close to violating this site's Terms of Service.

You'd have to be deluded to think that this roster was the result of a natural d3 soccer recruiting process and not some concerted effort by the coaching staff to get these players.  And they still lost to Messiah

For crying out loud, read the whole thread, willya? Get acquainted with a topic before you spout off about it. North Park has recruited Scandinavian players for many, many years. It is part of a "natural D3 soccer recruiting process." Your comment really makes no sense, because any recruiting process is an attempt by a coaching staff to "get those players," whatever "those" means in the context of a particular school.

Bottom line is that plenty of D3 soccer programs recruit international players. This is not some anomaly. It's a commonplace. Just within the CCIW, aside from North Park, there are:

* three Dutch players, two Ecuadorian players, a Norwegian player, and a Moroccan player at Augustana;
* a Spanish player, a Peruvian player, and a French player at Carroll;
* a Rwandan player, a Zimbabwean player, a Venezuelan player, and a Colombian player at Millikin; and
*  two Norwegian players, a Swedish player, an Argentinian player, an Australian player, and a Japanese player at North Central.

The only difference between North Park and its four CCIW rivals is one of numbers, not of kind.

I'm not going to wade into this argument, but I thought I'd mention a D3 case in another sport that may have some related circumstances (not so much for the seemingly random international player since it's not surprising the school would have a connection to Israel, but for an older player who played pro), Bar Alluf for Yeshiva basketball last season. http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/03/yeshiva-alluf-not-suited-up

Other than being held out of the tournament game when the situation was brought up as a precaution, I don't know if anything further happened.

According to one of the articles on this story... "the Maccabees opted to play it safe and hold out Alluf, who had allegedly played in a pro league in Israel before arriving at Yeshiva. That wouldn't necessarily make him ineligible, though."

Can someone (Sager?) explain the rules as they relate to playing in pro leagues prior to college? Sounds like there is some leeway so I'm curious to know what it is.  Thanks!

I'm not certain exactly what the rule is with regard to amateurs playing in professional leagues, although my partly-informed understanding in this instance matches what Flying Weasel said (and as the Alluf case seems to imply), which is that it's permissible for an amateur to play in a professional league as long as he isn't paid.

But that's not the case here. As Gotberg's post pointed out, Cresto and Hoff played at amateur levels within the tier system of Italian and Norwegian soccer, respectively.

[PaulNewman]

Greg, I was so looking forward to your concession on the "pool of recruits."  I should have known I would be denied.

Our little back and forth has been costly as I keep racking up negative karma even when I'm not still posting.  To quote our incredible joke of a President....what gutless cowards.  I respect that you at least respond and respond genuinely, albeit (in my opinion) parsing to your advantage and with some arrogance (and I say arrogance while admitting I can't claim I'm not). 

Anyway, I'm going to say I was still at least half-right.  I see that post was in August, but it WAS in the same thread and just a page or two before the latest discussion (and not irrelevant to that discussion insofar as references to "pools" for recruiting).  It wasn't in a baseball thread as I believe you threw out there.

I of course understand why you might defensive about NPU, but the word "professionalization" is not out of place, and I'm not referring to the subsequent allegations.  There is a whole literature about the "professionalization" of YOUTH SPORTS. I would assume you might conceded that a reasonable discussion can be had about the professionalization of major D1 sports, aside from any claims about whether major D1 athletes get "paid" or not. 

I'm open to a different word if you can suggest one, but for the sake of raising something I'd love to hear your take on, I wonder how you might rate D3 programs in terms of "professionalization."  Maybe different words would be investment in the program, commitment to winning, etc.  But on a scale where do various schools land.  I had this thought watching the film about Bader Ginsburg and features on the current Supr Court nominee where all nine fall from left to right.  If the scale is least competitive or least "professional" vesus more and most, where do college soccer programs fall?  I've been curious why certain programs haven't fared better, like Colby and Bates and especially Trinity and Conn Coll in the NESCAC.  Colby and Bates are certainly very competitive with admissions but historically they've been easier to get than Williams and Amherst which for years had the strongest programs.  Maybe the biggest variable is coaching....and I can think of coaches who obviously have been key to turning programs around or taking them up a notch.   



Almost everybody here has an agenda, or put more charitably, a rooting interest.  This may surprise some, but I find some of the Messiah posters the most fair, as they are like UK bball fans who appreciate good soccer when they see it.  But there are agendas still.  D3soccerwatcher is now not so subtlety pumping Hope just as he did the exact same thing with either Grove City or Geneva a year or two ago. 

I saw NPU live at Kenyon a few years ago when NPU lost a game that could have gone either way to Thomas More.  A really enjoyable game to watch.  NPU seemed more talented but Thomas More wanted it more, fueled by a great and gutsy D3 player, Austin Juniet.  I recall thinking that NPU had a few players who looked like grown men (one a barrel-chested fellow), and I can tell you that even though I noticed that I did not for one second have any thoughts about unfairness.  If NPU had won, I would have thought they won a game that could have gone either way with two teams who played a very good, very competitive NCAA D3 soccer game.  I was actually surprised NPU didn't make the tournament for a couple of years thereafter.  And I was happy for NPU's run last year, except for my own homerish hope that Kenyon should have gotten to NPU in the draw and would have had a fair chance, and then against Chicago where I personally thought Chicago had the better squad.

[paclassic89]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ASerie_D

Serie C teams are allowed to pay salaries to players such as every company does with its employees. Serie D (and lower division) teams are not allowed to do that, since they're all amateur clubs, and instead pay so-called "refunds of expenses" to their players. This is the Italian meaning of professionism in football. In practice, Serie D teams are used to pay very high refunds of expenses for its players, often a few lower than Serie C salaries, that's why it's often referred to as "semi-professionism". --Angelo 18:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Ah, that makes sense, I suppose. So the "amateurs" in Serie D get paid nearly as much as the "professionals" in Serie C, then? john k 22:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
It depends of the team. If a team wanna win the Serie D, probably it would pay nearly Serie C salaries. --Angelo 00:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps all this should be explicitly discussed in the article. (And it seems like "semiprofessional" would be a more or less accurate shorthand to describe the setup, even if it's officially an amateur competition. john k 17:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Sheesh - I step away for a little bit (because, I'm busy) and ...

Couple of notes:

- If people are frustrated with international recruiting in soccer and how it might balance out with the student body, don't wade into ice hockey or some other sports.
- I love celebrating students of older age who are playing in Division III. It is so difficult especially since so many of them have to work at the same time due to most likely having families or other priorities. Sadly, this entire thread makes me shake my head because ... this isn't celebrating anything.
- Too many people think coaches go out and look for these older players. Coaches aren't looking for them. They either are told about them or the individual inquires themselves. In all my years of talking to coaches about recruiting, not once have I heard one say they are looking for older players. They usually just fall into their laps when looking elsewhere.
- Players playing overseas "professionally" is an example of the word "professionally" being misused. There are a lot of leagues that don't pay a penny as a salary. They may may expenses and such, but that is allowed by the NCAA.
- Sadly, I spent FAR too much time dealing and working the Yeshiva case last March - time I should have been spending on the others in the NCAA tournament. I can try and explain more, but my head hurt so much in March that mentioning the Yeshiva case just pisses me off (my opinion, stated publicly, is it feels like a sour grapes case of people who didn't like Yeshiva's success and instead of handling it professionally and inquiring, instead decided to do it in a sketchy way using others to do their dirty work ... I do need to check on the latest in the case, but I believe they did ask the NCAA for help confirming things.)

The spirit of DIII is to allow almost anyone who wants to play ... to play. I got a chance to play after taking a gap year, before a gap year was a thing to do, and travel. There are a number of older student-athletes in DIII just as there are a number of students who have returned to college and are on campus and involved in some way. There are only a very few older student-athletes who stand out ... and people say things like it doesn't pass the "smell test" and there should be rules about this. Not once in my lengthy coverage of Division III (as a whole, not just basketball) has an older student-athlete been the sole reason a team or program has been successful or even won any kind of trophy.

I have no idea where people think professionalism comes from in DIII. The idea of this and older student-athletes feels like a case of, as Sager has said, making a mountain out of a molehill. There are plenty of examples in DIII where coaches and programs have gone awry and punishments handed out, but professionalism and older students is not a case I can remember seeing. Yes, improper benefits have been dealt with, but not payments. And as I said above, just because someone plays in a "professional" league does not mean it is a pro league like we are used to (i.e. NBA, GNBA, NFL, minor league baseball, etc.). Things in Europe and overseas are very different and a town putting together a team to represent them and paying expenses is considered "professional." The NCAA and Division III have very specific rules about it. It is worth reading, but read very carefully as it can be hard to fully understand.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, I was so looking forward to your concession on the "pool of recruits."  I should have known I would be denied.

Our little back and forth has been costly as I keep racking up negative karma even when I'm not still posting.

I haven't been smiting you. I don't smite, as a personal rule.

To quote our incredible joke of a President....what gutless cowards.  I respect that you at least respond and respond genuinely, albeit (in my opinion) parsing to your advantage and with some arrogance (and I say arrogance while admitting I can't claim I'm not). 

Anyway, I'm going to say I was still at least half-right.  I see that post was in August, but it WAS in the same thread and just a page or two before the latest discussion (and not irrelevant to that discussion insofar as references to "pools" for recruiting).  It wasn't in a baseball thread as I believe you threw out there.

We have a difference of terminology here. You're using "thread" as a synonym for "board" or "room". By "thread" I mean a specific ongoing conversation. The conversation on the CCIW board in which I mentioned reserves playing against jucos ended in August. The conversation that you've carried over from the CCIW board to this newly-minted board had nothing to do with that; as I said, it arose out of my summary of NPU's match against IIT two weekends ago and a subsequent post by Gotberg that linked to a Deni Cresto recruitment video on YouTube.

I of course understand why you might defensive about NPU, but the word "professionalization" is not out of place, and I'm not referring to the subsequent allegations.  There is a whole literature about the "professionalization" of YOUTH SPORTS. I would assume you might conceded that a reasonable discussion can be had about the professionalization of major D1 sports, aside from any claims about whether major D1 athletes get "paid" or not. 

I disagree completely. The word "professional" means getting paid for playing. That's all that it means, and to use it with a different connotation will nevertheless imply something that isn't there. It's a dangerous term to use in any discussion of amateur sports (e.g., D3 men's soccer) for that very reason -- it's too easy to interpret it as having to do with pay-for-play, because that's what "professional" means.

I'm open to a different word if you can suggest one, but for the sake of raising something I'd love to hear your take on, I wonder how you might rate D3 programs in terms of "professionalization."  Maybe different words would be investment in the program, commitment to winning, etc.  But on a scale where do various schools land.  I had this thought watching the film about Bader Ginsburg and features on the current Supr Court nominee where all nine fall from left to right.  If the scale is least competitive or least "professional" vesus more and most, where do college soccer programs fall?  I've been curious why certain programs haven't fared better, like Colby and Bates and especially Trinity and Conn Coll in the NESCAC.  Colby and Bates are certainly very competitive with admissions but historically they've been easier to get than Williams and Amherst which for years had the strongest programs.  Maybe the biggest variable is coaching....and I can think of coaches who obviously have been key to turning programs around or taking them up a notch.

Sorry, but I won't take part in that discussion, because I simply don't know enough about those schools in terms of how hard they're trying to win at men's soccer -- the internal emphasis within the administration and athletic department that they place upon having a nationally-successful men's soccer program, the resources invested in getting their program to that point and keeping it there (including coaching salaries and perqs), their admissions policies, their recruitment policies and emphases, etc. I've excoriated more than one person in this thread for talking about things that he didn't know anything about, so I'd be a pretty big hypocrite if I turned right around and spouted off in ignorance about a Williams or a Bates, wouldn't I? As I've said before, I really know next to nothing about NESCAC men's soccer. It's not on my radar in terms of things in which I'm seeking to become an expert.

Almost everybody here has an agenda, or put more charitably, a rooting interest.  This may surprise some, but I find some of the Messiah posters the most fair, as they are like UK bball fans who appreciate good soccer when they see it.  But there are agendas still.  D3soccerwatcher is now not so subtlety pumping Hope just as he did the exact same thing with either Grove City or Geneva a year or two ago. 

I saw NPU live at Kenyon a few years ago when NPU lost a game that could have gone either way to Thomas More.  A really enjoyable game to watch.  NPU seemed more talented but Thomas More wanted it more, fueled by a great and gutsy D3 player, Austin Juniet.  I recall thinking that NPU had a few players who looked like grown men (one a barrel-chested fellow), and I can tell you that even though I noticed that I did not for one second have any thoughts about unfairness.  If NPU had won, I would have thought they won a game that could have gone either way with two teams who played a very good, very competitive NCAA D3 soccer game.  I was actually surprised NPU didn't make the tournament for a couple of years thereafter.  And I was happy for NPU's run last year, except for my own homerish hope that Kenyon should have gotten to NPU in the draw and would have had a fair chance, and then against Chicago where I personally thought Chicago had the better squad.

After NPU lost to Thomas More in double OT in the 2014 playoffs, the program graduated a couple of great players who weren't adequately replaced, and that '15 team suffered some big injuries as well. But the chemistry wasn't good that year, either; North Park was really off its game all season long. The '16 team was better (although the overall record didn't show it), but they didn't get the job done against the playoff sides that they faced (Chicago, Benedictine, Carthage, and UWW, although the Vikes did beat Dubuque), and they took some inexplicable losses as well (Case Western, which finished under .500; Elmhurst, which barely finished above .500; and Wheaton, which finished right at .500, in the CCIW tourney after having beaten the Wheaties in the regular season).