DePauw’s move a good thing for NCAC

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The North Coast Athletic Conference just got better.

Officials announced today that DePauw football will be joining the NCAC beginning in 2012, while all other sports will enter the conference a year earlier, in the 2011-12 school year.

The move for DPU, a Phi Beta Kappa institution like the rest of the NCAC, ends a more than decade-long question mark that many people had. Since the late ‘90s, DePauw has been a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, playing teams from as far away as Alabama to Colorado and several places in-between. It’s no wonder that DePauw’s president, Brian Casey, cited “fewer strains on both schedules and budgets,” in today’s news release as part of the reason for the move.

Now, DePauw brings its solid academic and athletic reputation (evidenced by its five-straight SCAC President’s Trophy wins) to a conference that, by all observations, fits snuggly with the school’s philosophy.

Of prime note is that the move will reunite DPU with its more than century-long rival, Wabash, in conference play. Separated by only 30 miles, it makes sense for these institutions to be conference siblings.

The schools play annually on the last weekend of the regular season for the Monon Bell – a game that resonates intensity even without conference title hopes on the line. To emphasize the scale of the rivalry, only the slimmest of margins separate the overall series. WC’s win in 2009 gave it a one-win lead, 54-53-9.

But that’s not all. A few years back, the rivalry was also the only non-Division I matchup in the nation to be considered in an ESPN “greatest football rivalries” poll. And in each of the past three seasons, the Monon Bell game has played a critical role in determining either postseason entry or seeding for at least one of the two schools.

Think about the stakes if a conference title possibility is added to the mix.

I can envision it, because I’ve seen it before. I was a Wabash student during some of those final years that DePauw and Wabash shared a conference. Though it’s been well documented that the emotions at the Bell game, especially from the stands, showed excess in the late ‘90s, lessons have been learned from those mistakes. They won’t be made again.

The change is of course good well beyond the DePauw-Wabash gridiron rivalry. All sports between the schools will carry more weight. But, perhaps most of all in the big picture, the conference, top to bottom, will be better and more competitive. All NCAC teams will benefit from DePauw. Teams in all sports will be pushed harder and the national exposure will be greater.

Because of that, the NCAC’s student-athletes are the biggest beneficiaries. And DePauw made its change with courtesy – choosing to honor its already-planned schedules.

I did understand the reasons DePauw parted ways with any Great Lakes-area conferences back in 1998. Many people weren’t happy about it – including me to some extent – but I respected it. However, there can be no more complaints or finger-pointing. After Earlham’s departure to the HCAC, this is a good decision by DePauw and a good choice by the NCAC front office.

I hope that the new Tigers call the NCAC home for a long time to come.

Just a bit of a move

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We have some big things going on in the D3sports.com network this offseason, and every once in a while we’re going to have to lay some groundwork to make it happen. One of those is moving this Daily Dose blog from the D3football.com domain over to D3blogs.com, where we already run the D3hoops and D3soccer Daily Dose.

I’m hopeful that you won’t notice any drawbacks. Thanks for your patience if you do. Some background things will still need to be tweaked here and there before you get full functionality. And then at some point we will change the look of all of our blogs. And other things.

D-III unveils identity statement

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Boiling down Division III into a few bullet points isn’t easy, and it hasn’t gotten easier as the division has grown. But Division III has been attempting to define itself in a way that can be easily communicated to those on the outside. After a Division II identity statement process ended up with the fairly meaningless “I chose Division II” mantra and D-II wrapped itself in a lot of the things Division III holds dear, it became important to take control of the message.

To us here at D3sports.com, Division III is the highest form of purely amateur athletics in the U.S. It’s where students — note, not “student-athletes” — play for love of the game. Division III competitors get no special treatment, no scholarships, no special privileges, no separate dining halls, no dorms to themselves. They don’t get preferred treatment from their professors; in fact, it’s far more likely they get treated more harshly from teachers who believe they don’t belong in the school.

But distilling that opinion, plus the opinions of hundreds of other Division III true believers, down into a form that can be easily shared and understood, isn’t easy. Here’s how Division III is positioning itself:

“Follow your passions and discover your potential.

“The college experience is a time of learning and growth — a chance to follow passions and develop potential. For student-athletes in Division III, all of this happens most importantly in the classroom and through earning an academic degree. The Division III experience provides for passionate participation in a competitive athletic environment, where student-athletes push themselves to excellence and build upon their academic success with new challenges and life skills. And student-athletes are encouraged to pursue the full spectrum of opportunities available during their time in college. In this way, Division III provides an integrated environment for student-athletes to take responsibility for their own paths, follow their passions and find their potential through a comprehensive learning experience.”

What’s your take?

For more, here’s the NCAA News article on the unveiling.