NCAA Ponders Div IV

[TexasTerror]

NCAA is always pondering something. Interesting read on a Div IV, a "subdivision" of Div III. Who are all these schools wanting to be Div IIIs? NAIA institutions? That's what I'm having a hard time figuring out. Div III is not that big down here in Texas and Louisiana...

NCAA considers a Division IV to relieve growth
Another possible solution is to create a subdivision to Division III; proposals won't come to a vote until 2008.

By Lucas Sullivan
Staff Writer

The NCAA is considering creating a Division IV to deal with its growing membership problems.

NCAA Division III Vice President Dan Dutcher said the NCAA will consider models for Division IV or a subdivision to Division III — much like Division I-AA or I-AAA.

The move comes after the North Coast Athletic Conference, which includes Wittenberg University, sponsored legislation that would cap Division III membership in an effort to crimp its expansion. The NCAA has put a one-year moratorium on new membership.

Many consider Division III the lowest in the NCAA pecking order, but it has the largest membership at 419 schools.

"If we were ever going to create any kind of change in our division structure, whether that be a subdivision or creation of a new division, how do you define it? Who is eligible for it? And especially, how do you pay for it?" Dutcher said Friday.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/sports/content/sports/daily/0627ncaadivisioniv.html

[colgate13]

I think you're also seeing some two-year colleges become four year colleges and want D III membership. SUNY Morrisville (http://www.morrisville.edu/) (or, excuse me, Morrisville State College) is a perfect example. They've gone from a pretty successfull juco to a four year, changed the name and move to D III (http://www.morrisville.edu/Athletics/NCAA.aspx) this fall.

They've actually got themselves a really nice hockey program and aren't too shabby in wrestling and football. I can see the old school D III programs out there like Williams/Amherst/Tufts/etc. not necessarily liking the fact that all these jucos and former NAIA schools are making their division more unwieldy.

My question is, how do you divide it up? I can see some sort of academic division of schools, with one of the divisions having tougher eligibility requirements. :twocents:

[Pard4Life]

At least Rothkopf is gone by the time they made this proposal... we'd be talking about Lafayette football in Division IV... yikes.. :mad:

But different academic-caliber divisions is interesting... isn't that discriminatory though? Or is just a larger parody of a league set-up?

[walliver]

I don't think dividing D-III by academic standards would ever work. What fan would stand up and proudly state, "We're the D-III-Dumb A$$ division Champions!"?

Since the scholarship limit is already set at 0, you couldn't limit scholarships.

You could always try to do it the high school way and divide teams exclusively by enrollment, but that would probably increase travel costs.

[colgate13]

While there are some truly large D III's like the Wisconsin state schools, most of D III is full of 'small schools'. I could see a problem where if you divide by enrollment you could have some thin margins that see some schools teeter between divisions based on good and bad enrollment years.

Without scholarships you have to find some other way to split it up. To me the logical way to keep the schools that are more 'like each other' together would be through academic minimums; in simplistic terms, that means the NESCACs and wannabes of the world play each other, and the Rowans and Montclair States of the world play each other.

[dbackjon]

My thoughts exactly -- how do you divided non-scholarship schools, when the entire NCAA Divisional Structure is based on scholarship levels?

Maybe by number of sports offered?