Farewell, Wayne Burrow

A short story in the NCAA News today says that Wayne Burrow is leaving the national office’s championships group effective at the end of the week. A source tells D3football.com that he is leaving the NCAA entirely.

Wayne Burrow accepts a token of appreciation from Carey Harveycutter and the City of Salem at his final Stagg Bowl luncheon.
Photo by Ryan Coleman, D3sports.com
Wayne Burrow accepts a token of appreciation from Carey Harveycutter and the City of Salem at his final Stagg Bowl luncheon.

It is not like me to wax poetic about the NCAA liaisons. They hold the purse strings of the NCAA and have to enforce the budget rules that the Division III member schools and conferences have put in place. But I’m going to wax about Wayne.

While Wayne certainly did many, many things with the NCAA in his long career there, his lasting impact upon Division III football fans is the attention he paid to the sport and the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. While the NCAA is certainly a target of wrath from misunderstanding fans, Wayne’s work elevated the level of Division III football’s championship game and worked with the City of Salem for more than a decade to make this a centerpiece event for not just Division III football, but Division III athletics in general.

As the article notes, he has worked as the liaison for D-I baseball, D-III football and D-I swimming and diving. He also had been the championships manager for D-II baseball, D-II women’s basketball, men’s and women’s fencing, men’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse, D-III women’s soccer, D-II swimming and diving, women’s water polo and D-I wrestling.

To me, it was clear that Wayne brought a lot of the Omaha mentality from his time as the Division I baseball championships liaison into his work with Salem. From all I’ve heard, every time the Stagg Bowl is able to be played at a time other than 11 a.m. ET, it’s been because Wayne used his influence behind the scenes to nudge the game into the later time slot. If Wayne weren’t committed to the Stagg Bowl in Salem, Va., it may not have stayed beyond the first couple of contracts, but instead, the long-term relationship has helped the city gradually improve the stadium and the events surrounding the Stagg Bowl to what we see today: better lights, field turf, video replay board, new locker rooms, the whole nine yards.

Wayne’s last year as the football liaison was 2007 and we do have high hopes for Shonna Brown, as there are certainly many places where she can have an impact herself on the Stagg Bowl.

But Wayne is missed by Division III football already. And we wish him well in his next endeavor.

Life after Arena football

The cancellation of the 2009 Arena Football League season can’t be a good sign for Division III football players looking to go pro in something other than something other than sports. After losing NFL Europe (or NFL Europa, if you prefer the latest name the NFL gave it), chances to participate in a high level are getting more constricted.

Those aren’t the only pro leagues, of course. AF2 and a host of other indoor leagues are still planning to play. And there’s one new opportunity: The United National Gridiron League.

The league holds its inaugural draft on Jan. 8. Players hoping to be considered should act quickly. Go to http://network.ungleague.com to arrive at the UNGL Player Network. After signing up, log in using your email and password, click Edit Profile and fill out all fields and upload a highlight video (or embed if you have one on YouTube or elsewhere).

The UNGL will not look at players without a profile and video, or so we’ve been told. And we were also told to expect about 20 percent of the league to be made up of former Division III players.

There are eight planned franchises, primarily in the Southeast but at least one also in a Division III hotspot.

Who knows if this league will survive, but with so few opportunities available, hopefully this league will pan out for Division III players.

For those of you who just finished your senior year this season, keep in touch! We hope to hear from you in the future.

Stagg Bowl XXXVI archive

Last year we broke this file up into four pieces, but only the first piece made it into the RSS feed and was downloaded in iTunes. So this is a big file, but it’s all here.

We pick up this broadcast archive from the final minutes before kickoff and cut off right before the postgame news conferences. We’ll post those separately.

Pat Coleman, Keith McMillan and Frank Rossi on the call. Gordon Mann anchors our halftime and postgame coverage.