According to an NCAA news summary, 25 Division III schools’ financial aid awards were found not acceptable and were forwarded to the NCAA’s enforcement staff. In these schools, the aid to student-athletes exceeded the aid awarded to the general student body by at least 4%, when comparing students with similar need.

The original list of schools out of the norm was 60, about 14% of Division III. Some details of the various levels of review were included in the NCAA’s piece.

That wasn’t the committee dealings the NCAA chose to emphasize, but it was what leaped off the page at me. The other big news is a proposal to put in year-round drug testing in Division III. One of the justifications was that a 2005 NCAA study put Division III drug usage at or above levels of usage in Division I. That may be true. It might also be the case that Division III student-athletes were simply more truthful in filling out the survey, since there are fewer consequences at the non-scholarship level. The testing proposal is for a two-year pilot program.

There was a list of things that the Management Council urged the Presidents Council and Executive Committee Working Group to consider:

·Further limitation on the provisional class size (one or two per year).
Not a problem. Division III is going to be too large to manage at some point.

·Tightening the standards applied to exploratory and provisional members to begin the process in lieu of the lottery system.
What a concept. Almost like I posted last August.

·Long-term divisional structure in the NCAA.
Does this sound like the late ’90s movement to subdivide Division III? Ugh.

·Optimal size of Division III based on resource allocation.
Optimal size of Division III is pretty darn close to where we are now.

·More aggressive screening of active members consistent with the Division III philosophy, membership and legislative requirements.
Sounds like more enforcement.

·Raising membership dues, if necessary, to address additional Division III resources, services and long-term membership options.
Seems reasonable.

·Changing demographics in the United States in relation to higher education.
Anyone working in higher education please chime in on this one.

Division III football dodged a bullet on redshirts this afternoon at the annual NCAA Convention in Indianapolis. A more restrictive redshirt proposal came three votes from passing.

Two years ago, Division III members voted to eliminate the practice of redshirting except for medical reasons. While previously granted redshirts would be honored, no new ones would be awarded. The legislation was part of a package of measures designed to provide more common ground among the 425-plus schools in Division III, some of which came relatively recently from the NAIA and brought with them values that werem’t practiced by the majority of schools.

That 2004 measure passed with more than 60% approval.

Today, however, a proposal was considered that would not honor redshirts granted at other levels of college athletics. Currently, if a student-athlete redshirted outside of Division III and then transferred to a Division III school, he or she would not lose that year of eligibility.

The Presidents Council supported this measure. The membership, thankfully, did not, defeating it 203-199 with four abstentions, according to a source on the convention floor. A swing of three ‘nay’ votes would have carried the proposal and made it effective this August.

In the Presidents Council’s position statement summary, it said, “the student-athlete becomes accountable for the decision to ‘redshirt’ prior to attending a Division III institution.”

That’s all well and good, but shows a distinct lack of knowledge of what athletics at other levels is about. If you’re at a scholarship level and the coach says you’re redshirting, that’s it, end of discussion. Why in the world would we want to punish a kid for seeing the light and coming to Division III, where the student-athlete can be serious about academics and treat sports as something other than a job?

It’s great that Division III is here to rescue kids from the cannon fodder that Division I athletics can be, but instead, this proposal would have pushed kids away from some of the finest institutions in America and towards schools at other levels inside and outside the NCAA.

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference already uses this model and the Midwest Conference sponsored the legislation. If that’s what they want to do, that’s their choice. But don’t punish a teenager for what a D-I coach foists on them. That isn’t right.

Summarizing other news from the votes today, repealing the 2004 redshirt restrictions failed by a vote of 277-128-1. Schools can now play football one day earlier, the Thursday before Labor Day, but cannot add a day or a practice opportunity to their preseason training camp schedule.

A proposal to increase to 14 (based on enrollment) the number of sports a D-III school is required to offer failed 371-37-3. A proposal to increase it to 12 for schools with enrollment of greater than 1,000 passed, 233-170-5, effective Aug. 1, 2010.

The NCAA Tournament size was capped at 32 for football. Conferences that complete a self-study survey can remain eligible for an automatic bid starting Aug. 1, 2008, even if temporarily falling below seven schools sponsoring a sport. A later proposal said that those conferences which fall below four “core” institutions would not remain eligible to retain automatic bids.

Two years ago, a package of reforms was passed in Division III, eliminating redshirting and shortening preseason practice schedules along with other measures. However, this month, some of those proposals are back on the table for reinstatement, and the voting population could be very different.

In 2004, school presidents and chancellors made up more of the voting body than ever before, but this year, it will probably be back to business as usual, with athletic directors making the votes on behalf of their institutions.

John Fry, president of Franklin & Marshall, told Inside Higher Ed, “2004 was a step forward. If we don’t see that same level of presidential involvement, those gains will be lost.”

The online publication looks deep into this topic.