Some years ago I started referring to players transferring to Division III as “moving up” to D-III. After all, any first grader can tell you that three is greater than one, but more importantly, people going to Division III are moving up to the highest level of pure amateur athletics in the USA.
In fact, I still curse John Feinstein for his insinuation that Patriot League players are The Last Amateurs. If he’d looked a little more closely, he’d have found that D-III is where those amateurs reside.
So when I read the bio of new North Park coach Scott Pethtel, it struck a chord with me:
Although he coached football at the NCAA Division 1-A level, Scott Pethtel considers taking the reigns (sic) of North Park University’s program to be a step up.
“I think it’s the truest form of amateurism in football,†Pethtel says. “The athletes love the game. They don’t come because of scholarship. I just like that attitude. They still love to play the game and they are as committed as any level of football.â€
Coaching at Division III will allow him to help instill values that he might not have been able to at the larger programs. “The almighty buck was driving Division I football and not the development of character,†Pethtel notes.
Welcome to Division III. Your team last won a CCIW game on Oct. 7, 2000, 40 conference games ago. Good luck!
D-3. Where THEY PAY TO PLAY!!!
I like the way you phrase it, Pat. And I agree with you, for the record. There’s no more pure form of intercollegiate athletics than we have right here in DIII.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit with John Fienstein about his book (and even have a signed copy of it) as a result of my time at Bucknell–who is a Patriot League member institution featured in “The Last Amateurs”. It’s my personal opinion that the title is a reference to the NCAA in its pre-division days, i.e. even back before the days when the first classification was simply “Big” schools and “Little” schools–which, BTW, didn’t preclude many of today’s DIII programs from offering athletic scholarships to student-athletes!
Bucknell and the Patriot League grew out of that tradition to become a group of schools who, when the book was written, were the last of the “original” schools competing for a singular NCAA championship in the modern era without the benefit of athletic merit based grants-in-aid (including the Ivy League schools) to use as recruiting tools.
That may very well be splitting hairs, but that’s what I’ve taken away from my conversations with John.
I found this page on the Brevard College NC web site concerning the analysis of Brevard moving from NAIA to D-2, and adding football. Was it the easy access to D2 in the transition?
My first question is why did they not consider D3? Brevard is only about 90-100 miles from both Maryville TN and Piedmont. They are adding football and would join Maryville, LaGrange and Huntingdon were they to join the GSAC.
http://www.brevard.edu/athletics/football/athletic_committee.asp
Maybe they can pull a reverse Palm Beach Atlantic!
We call that pulling a Green Mountain. 🙂
http://www.d3hoops.com/dailydose/?p=23
It seems to be an easier way into D-III. However, I don’t see anything that proposes that as an option in the Brevard materials. I see they already have enough sports. Shame they aren’t talking about D-III.