It’s not easy to get into the NCAA or Division III. Compliance with Division III regulations is important. And with more than a dozen schools in the four-year provisional process, it seems inevitable that some might struggle.

The biggest sticking point usually is the number of sports a school offers. Division III regulations require a school to offer at least five sports in each gender, and every gender must have one sport offered in each season (fall, winter, spring). That’s where the following schools tripped up:

Maine-Presque Isle
Minnesota-Morris
Mitchell
Penn State-Berks/Lehigh Valley
Presentation

Morris is a bit of a surprise — in fact, on my recent visits to UMAC campuses, some asked me why it takes so long for a school that is already an NCAA member to move from Division II to Division III. Now it’s going to take them even longer.

Presentation, for example, appears not to have fielded an expected women’s golf or soccer team. Morris lists a women’s golf team but no 2004-05 results, while the men’s golf team similarly was silent. And I worry about some schools in the next incoming class.

The biggest losers in this? The UMAC, for sure. That’s two of their schools that will take an extra year to become eligible, setting back the conference’s timeline to get an automatic bid.

But the second-biggest loser has to be the NCAA. The random lottery to determine what order in which to allow schools in has not worked. The chair of the Division III membership committee, NYU athletic director Christopher Bledsoe, said in 2003: “We chose a lottery to select from eligible institutions because it was clear that there were more institutions interested in joining than could be accommodated at one time. This method provided for a fair way of determining which institutions were slotted in each class.”

A fair way? Hmm, perhaps, but not an efficient way. The first class featured Palm Beach Atlantic, which bailed on the Division III entry process so early they didn’t even bother to finish paperwork and were knocked back to the beginning of the process in D-II. Two others from that initial class were held back a year in this announcement. Meanwhile, Northwestern (Minn.) is clearly prepared to enter, as is St. Vincent, and they’re making them wait?

The powers that be have already realized their mistake and are considering letting a school that shows it is ready to skip a year of the four-year provisional process. But providing a more subjective entry process would have been better from the start.