National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2000
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Division III Governance
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The NCAA News
"Our members definitely wanted one-school, one-vote. It's unruly at times, but there's nothing more interesting and exciting than the NCAA Convention with everybody having the chance to speak their mind."
Dennis M. Collins, executive director North Coast Athletic Conference
"Before and during restructuring, I think there was a real fear among athletics administrators that presidents would try to take control and run the division without a deep understanding of what they were meddling in. During my tenure on the Management Council, I was pleased that presidents assumed a very high-level and broad-based policy-making role. There was a positive relationship and good interaction between the Management Council and the Presidents Council."
Richard A. Rasmussen, executive secretary
University Athletic Association
"The discussions we used to have with other divisions at the Convention -- both formally and informally -- benefited all divisions on issues that pertained to all of intercollegiate athletics. Now that doesn't happen anymore, and that's a loss. Now, a fair amount of that (interaction) is relegated to the NACDA convention, and not everybody goes to that."
John H. Harvey, athletics director
Carnegie Mellon University
"It's been more difficult to keep the presidents engaged. Presidents were very involved in restructuring, but I think since that point there may be a sense that maybe it's not that important to be engaged in NCAA matters. I think it's been difficult to get them to the Convention, and it's been difficult to get them engaged in Association business. Perhaps now there's a sense that the matters are not so crucial."
James R. Appleton, president
University of Redlands
"I've never seen a group of presidents more engaged than (those who currently serve on the Division III Initiatives Task Force). The presidents' involvement on the task force is not typical of the kind of involvement we had seen in the old structure."
John S. Biddiscombe, athletics director
Wesleyan University (Connecticut)
"The biggest advantage of restructuring has been allowing each division to individually make decisions based on divisional philosophy. In the past, certain pieces of legislation had to be negotiated because of differences in philosophy and the need for a common vote. The trade-off has been that we've lost some of the collegiality of interacting with our colleagues in the other divisions."
Judith M. Sweet, faculty member
University of California, San Diego
"I don't think we've accomplished the goal of getting presidents involved. There's great involvement on the part of those active in the structure, but there's also poor attendance (on the part of Division III presidents) at the NCAA Convention. I think we still don't have the strong presidential involvement and leadership that we need to operate in the way the new structure had contemplated."
Stanley P. Caine, president
Adrian College