Since the NCAA Division III Management Council first proposed a resolution to ban Division III schools from offering scholarships to their Division I athletes, RPI and the seven other affected universities have been struggling to defeat it before it reached open floor debate in January. But their efforts were defeated last Thursday when the division’s President’s Council ruled that the proposal would go forward. The eight schools are now scrambling to speak with as many of the 424 schools that will be voting on the issue as possible, and educate them about the impact the resolution would have if passed.
“We have several educational programs ready to roll out,” said Athletic Director Ken Ralph. “We really need to get it into their collective conscience.”
Proposal 2-69, as it is known, would ban scholarships for athletes on RPI’s men’s hockey team. The hockey team competes at the Division I level, unlike the rest of RPI varsity sports. Many around the school feel that this would cripple the program, because athletes who might go to RPI would go to other schools where they would be granted scholarships.
In a statement released by the athletics department, Ralph said, “Over the next several weeks leading up to the January NCAA convention, we fully intend to work vigorously, in conjunction with the other seven affected universities, to tell our story of Rensselaer’s great hockey tradition. We remain committed to offer hockey at the highest level.”
“We are disappointed that members of the Council did not recognize the intent of a 1982 waiver for eight schools that had strong traditions, pride, and competitive rivalries in one or two sports at the Division I level,” said Clarkson President Tony Collins in a statement. The waiver refers to the decision that created the multidivisional status of the eight schools.
The President’s Council of the division, which has the power to withdraw proposals, consists of 15 members. Twelve of the members were present at the meeting, and the decision was made not to remove the issue from debate. It will now continue on to the NCAA convention on January 12 in Nashville, where the athletic directors of all Division III schools will vote on the issue.
The seven other schools and their sports that are being affected by the resolution are: Clarkson (men’s and women’s ice hockey), Colorado College (men’s ice hockey, women’s soccer), Hartwick (men’s soccer, women’s water polo), Johns Hopkins (men’s and women’s lacrosse), Oneonta State (men’s soccer), Rutgers-Newark (men’s volleyball), and St. Lawrence (men’s and women’s ice hockey).
The resolution was proposed in August, and grew out of results from surveys sent last spring to all schools in the division. Although the Management Council felt that this was the best way to deal with the concerns raised, RPI and other schools point to the results of focus groups conducted at the same time.
“When asked specifically about multi-divisional classification,” the athletics department’s FAQ on the resolution reads, “many in the focus groups felt that those institutions with established multi-divisional programs should be left alone, but that new grants of multi-divisional status should not be made.”
The eight schools have consistently said that they support the principles behind the rest of the resolution package, and feel that it addresses many issues that are relevant for the whole division. But they just as consistently say that the resolution is not only unnecessary, but affects only eight schools and is not worth the attention of the whole division.
President Daniel F. Sullivan of St. Lawrence University echoed this sentiment. “I am disappointed that the NCAA Division III Presidents’ Council did not agree to withdraw the proposal,” he said. “We had very much hoped to remove a potentially divisive issue from the agenda of January’s NCAA Convention. That, we believe, would have opened the way for focused discussion on the remainder of the proposed Division III reform package, the principles of which our institutions support.”
