For the first time, the Division III Men's and Women's Soccer Championships will be held at a combined site in 2004. The Division III Men's and Women's Soccer Committees made the recommendation at their February 9-12 meetings in Indianapolis, and the measure was approved by the Division III Championships Committee shortly thereafter.

The 2004 men's and women's championships will be held at Macpherson Stadium at Bryan Park in Greensboro, North Carolina. Greensboro College will serve as the host institution. The semifinal games will be Friday, November 26, and the finals will be November 27.

Not only is it the first time the championships will be held at the same site, but it is the first time the women's championship will be at a predetermined site. The Division III Championships Committee had asked both soccer committees to consider the idea of a predetermined site.

"We believe Greensboro will provide an outstanding experience for our student-athletes, which is the most important thing," said Michael C. Mooney, chair of the men's soccer committee and head soccer coach at State University College at Geneseo.

Kim Strable, Greensboro College athletics director, said the selection was as much about the hospitality of Greensboro and soccer's strong reputation within the community as it was about the strength of the facility. "Our proposal was viewed as a superior destination for showcasing the very best of NCAA Division III soccer," he said.

The soccer-specific Macpherson Stadium at Bryan Park has been home for the Carolina Dynamo of the United Soccer Leagues (USL) for the past two seasons. The stadium offers permanent covered seating on its south side for 1,600 spectators, and 400 of those are molded plastic box seats. The soccer complex also includes surrounding fields that will be used for practice the day before the championships. As part of the bid, event organizers will add additional bleachers to the field's north side, as well as other amenities.

The men's and women's soccer committees determined game times as: women's semifinals on Friday at 11 and 1:30; men's semifinals on Friday at 5 and 7:30; women's final on Saturday at 1; men's final on Saturday at 5.

In addition to site selection, the men's and women's committees considered a Championships Committee request to propose formats for the upcoming bracket expansion in 2005. Given current sports-sponsorship ratios, the men's bracket would provide for a 56-team field and the women's bracket would provide for a 59-team field. The committees will recommend that the first round would be Wednesday, followed by a Saturday second round, Friday/Saturday or Saturday/ Sunday sectionals, then a Friday/Saturday finals. The format is the same that will be used for the 2004 championships.

The committees also established a subcommittee to review realignment issues, including the possibility of creating common regions for men and women. Currently, the men have eight regions and the women have seven.

In addition, the groups established the timetable for bids to host the 2005, 2006 and 2007 championships. Bids will go out in March with a July 1 submission deadline. The committees will make recommendations before the Championships Committee's summer meeting, and the hosts will be announced then so that they may attend the 2004 championship in order to see how it is administered.

Other committee actions

In addition to conducting a joint meeting to finalize the Greensboro announcement, the men's and women's soccer committees held separate sessions during the week.

Among actions the women's committee took was to recommend that games times for the sectionals be 11 and 1:30 or 5 and 7:30 local time. The committee also determined that the higher-seeded team would be allowed to choose its preferred semifinal game time. That choice previously has been made by the designated home team.

The women's committee also named Sue Viscomi, associate athletics director and senior woman administrator at Hamilton College, as chair.

In men's committee actions, the group reviewed selection criteria. The committee, recognizing that the Division III Championships Committee will not change selection criteria before the 2005 season, will recommend that an opponents' opponents winning percentage component be added to the strength-of-schedule index. The group also discussed but did not take action on the concept of adding some type of conference-rating index to the criteria. Also being considered is a season-ending performance component (performance in the last 25 percent of games) to the secondary criteria of the selection criteria.

The men's committee also agreed that the region in which the predetermined championship final is conducted would be responsible for providing one game official.