One of the joys of the offseason is that there’s time to surf around the Net and find stories I may have missed during the season.

OK, I lied. There’s no time because we’re working on D3hoops.com and another big project this time of year. And there’s no joy in the offseason. It’s too long! However, I really did stumble across a blog entry from a parent of a Loras player who spent 18 hours in a car one weekend to drive from Tennessee to Dubuque for the school’s Homecoming game.

That’s the round trip, though — let’s not get crazy!

I’ve often wondered how many other people are as crazy as we are — and by the ‘we’ I mean those of us at D3football.com who would hop into a car and drive hundreds of miles at the drop of a hat. People like myself, Keith McMillan, Gordon Mann, Ryan Coleman, Pat Cummings, John McGraw. When I read the following, I was hooked:

It’s an estimated 10-to-11-hour sojourn. This is true if a) you average about 60 miles per hour; b) you stop only for gas and snack while you drive; c) you don’t get lost; d) there’s no construction; and e) the traffic cooperates. Those seemed like a lot of factors to have to fall into place, and, even at that, the prospect of 10+ hours in a car, without anyone to share the driving, still seemed pretty daunting. But I’d never seen my son play a college game, and I was determined to make the trek.

It is a great description of some of the great things about Division III football, and it is definitely worth your time to read.

I had the good fortune to be sent to cover the Colts/Ravens game on Saturday, and watching this game gave me a reminder of exactly how long the distance is from Division III to the NFL.

Even the highest level of Division III is still quite distant from the top pro league on the planet. Maybe it’s hard to appreciate the size of a Ray Lewis or an Adalius Thomas on paper. Todd Heap? Yeah, he’s a heap and then some. Speed? This game is played at a frenetic pace.

Those Division III players fortunate enough to have a shot at the big time have to fight all sorts of preconceptions about D-III, that’s true. It’s somewhat unfair. But they also have to conquer their own shortcomings in many cases when it comes to competing on this level. Because it’s not just the next level — it’s two or three levels up.

Good luck to Whitworth’s Michael Allan, the first D-III player to be invited to the NFL’s scouting combine since Ryan Hoag was in 2003. Good luck to former Dubuque receiver Daunta Peterson, who recently signed with the Bills and has been allocated to NFL Europe. Represent us well.

By the way, the Ravens emptied out a luxury suite to accomodate the extra media interest in this game. They didn’t seat anyone in the stands outside (though it was a decent day) or on the roof. Someone in the organization gave up their room to accomodate the media.

If only some D-III schools would do the same.