The Division I Men's Soccer Committee considered site presentations for future Men's College Cups during its annual meeting February 10-13 in Phoenix.

The presentations included three from member institutions -- North Carolina State University (SAS Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina); Ohio State University (Columbus Crew Stadium); and the University of California, Los Angeles (Home Depot Center, home of Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy). The committee forwarded recommendations to the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet.

"We think we are in a situation with great options," said Donna DeMarco, committee chair and associate commissioner of the Big East Conference. "All three sites have state-of-the-art soccer-only facilities."

The 2003 Men's College Cup will be at Columbus Crew Stadium. The 2004 championship was to have been at Southern Methodist University's Gerald J. Ford Stadium, but the school has indicated that the facility's heavy schedule in 2004 will make it difficult to guarantee field conditions suitable for the high-profile Men's College Cup. School officials also indicated the possibility of installing a new artificial in-fill surface at Ford Stadium that would require the inlay of yard lines and logos.

In addition to site-selection duties, the committee also reviewed the championship format and made a minor change to the third round, which traditionally occurs during Thanksgiving weekend. In 2002, teams were allowed to host any time from 1 p.m. Saturday until 1 p.m. Sunday local time. In 2003, any game on Saturday will have to be played at 7 or 7:30 p.m. local time and can be played only if the opponent can travel by ground to the site of the contest. If the opponent has to fly, the game must be played on Sunday afternoon (either noon or 1 p.m.).

"We felt this was necessary, since the second round is played on Wednesday, to give the traveling team a chance to be ready for competition," DeMarco said.

Bracket/format changes

The committee also discussed the changes that the Championships/Competition Cabinet recently approved for the 2003 championship, including the ability to have officials fly to quarterfinal games.

The cabinet approved a series of bracket/format guidelines that allows committees in sports other than men's and women's basketball to seed a maximum of 25 percent of the field, among other guidelines.

This policy gives the men's soccer committee the ability to seed 16 of the 48 teams for the first time with the 2003 championship. The committee has been restricted to seeding only the top eight teams and then pairing the rest of the field geographically. The new policy also will allow the committee to avoid first-round conference match-ups.

"Both of these changes will be extremely helpful in separating teams of not only the same conference but of the same geographic region," DeMarco said.

The committee also revised current regional assignments to move schools to regions that are closer to where the majority of the conference is located. Since the conference portion of the schedule is played at the end of the season, the committee felt that the schools would be better served by a change in region. The changes enabled all regions to have about the same number of schools.

Among the changes are: moving the U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Denver and the University of New Mexico from the Midwest to the Far West; moving the University of Evansville and Western Kentucky University from the Great Lakes to the Midwest; moving Western Michigan University and Northwestern University from the Midwest to the Great Lakes; moving the University of Delaware from the Mid-Atlantic to the South Atlantic; and moving the University of North Carolina, Wilmington; the University of North Carolina, Asheville; Birmingham-Southern College; High Point University; Coastal Carolina University; and Winthrop University from the South to the South Atlantic.

Among other items discussed by the committee included recommending to the Championships/Competition Cabinet that all 23 conferences that sponsor Division I men's soccer receive automatic qualification in 2003. Also, the committee met with representatives from Ohio State, the Columbus Crew and the Columbus Sports Commission to discuss the 2003 Men's College Cup that will be held at Columbus Crew Stadium.

Four members of the committee have terms expiring in September 2003. They are: DeMarco; Larry Gallo, senior associate athletics director at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Mike Corwin, associate athletics director at Oregon State University; and Bill Cords, athletics director at Marquette University (Cords resigned from the committee last November before the championship).