An expert on corporate image told the Division II Management Council October 18 that the division has an opportunity to lead the Association by example as it seeks to establish Division II as an effective NCAA sub-brand.

Jeff Jacobs of the Trilix Group will be leading a research effort over the next 10 months to determine how Division II fans and the public in general regard Division II. Qualitative research will be conducted in November through a series of eight focus groups in Boston, Charlotte, Denver and Indianapolis. Information from those sessions will lead to the development of a quantitative survey, which will be administered in March 2006. Results of both studies should be available in April 2006, with a final "branding plan" provided to the Division II Presidents Council in August 2006.

If the process is done well, Jacobs said that Division II not only can establish a better niche for itself but that it also can complement the overall NCAA brand.

But he said the task will be challenging.

To start the exercise, he asked three questions of the Management Council:

• How can the Division II brand be positioned within the NCAA?

• What are the unique attributes of Division II?

• What audience is Division II seeking to reach?

The questions seem easy enough, but the discussion that followed revealed the challenges involved in branding Division II or, for that matter, any other NCAA level of competition.

Jacobs told the Management Council that Division II must "walk a fine line" with its branding efforts, remembering that the greatest part of any success likely will come from increasing public acceptance of the overall NCAA brand. With that in mind, he said comparisons to the other two divisions must be made with care since inter-divisional bickering undoubtedly would weaken the parent brand.

That led to a discussion about how Division II can distinguish itself from Divisions I and III without appearing to call the philosophies or achievements of the other divisions into question.

Jacobs said the best route will be to portray each division as a choice where institutions, fans and student-athletes can find a proper fit for themselves.

In that regard, the Council discussed how various corporations deal with similar challenges. Beverage companies, for instance, sell regular soft drinks, diet drinks and caffeine-free drinks, but they do not sell the diet drinks by impugning the sugar in the traditional drink. Instead, they market the diet drink as a desirable alternative to an appealing traditional drink. Competition is engaged with other companies, not within the brand.

Likewise, FedEx does not sell FedEx Ground by claiming that traditional FedEx shipping is too expensive. Rather, it sells to the notion of choice -- that ground shipping often is a preferable alternative for customers.

Those models suggest that Division II should not market itself by, for example, comparing its Academic Success Rate with Division I's. Instead, it should turn to more subjective contrasts, such as how smaller colleges are the best choice for many student-athletes or how regionally based Division II institutions offer many student-athletes with the opportunity to compete near home.

In the end, those distinctions point to the unique attributes that Division II possesses.

As for the audience, the Management Council did not identify a consensus target. Some members suggested that the campaign should be aimed at colleges and universities that are considering membership classification. Others said it should be focused on student-athletes who are being recruited. Jacobs said this important question will have to be resolved since any corporate branding initiative begins with an extremely clear understanding about the audience.

Finally, Jacobs challenged the group to elevate what Division II -- and, by extension, the NCAA -- stands for. He said the Association's image should not get mired in the minutiae of membership structure and other regulatory information. The public does not understand such details, nor does it want to, he said. "You have to get rid of the idea that the NCAA is the traffic cop," he said. "You must stand for a higher ideal," he said.

He that the personal development of 360,000 student-athletes each year is a message that works well both for Division II and the Association in general. In a similar vein, the Management Council mentioned sportsmanship as a lofty ideal that is already identified as a Division II priority.

Other business

As for the rest of the meeting, the Management Council's agenda was light on action items but heavy on topics of long-range importance. Two of the most significant items involved a report from the Regionalization Task Force and an update on the development of the NCAA Amateurism Clearinghouse.

The Regionalization Task Force, which has been studying Division II championships regions for almost a year, presented its latest model -- one that would match sports that have similar bracket sizes or sponsorship. Sharon Cessna, NCAA director of championships, noted that such an approach would not cause nearly as much change as previous models since similar-sized sports tend to have regions that resemble one another.

The model would help achieve a number of objectives that were identified at the beginning of the examination. It would help equalize the number of teams in the various regions, it would eliminate the possibility of teams traveling across a state to play an "in-region" game in another state, and it would establish all intrastate games as being in-region.

Even so, some members seemed concerned that the model occasionally could make games against nearby, out-of-state opponents "out of region" while making games several states away "in region."

Proponents of change said that such concerns are unfounded since many institutions would meet their regional requirements simply
by playing their conference schedule. In fact, they noted that a game
against a nearby, qual-
ity, out-of-region opponent could save money on travel, improve the strength-of-schedule criterion and thus enhance the team's chances of being selected to the Division II championship.

Jill Willson, Championships Committee chair and Management Council vice chair, said that the task force remains committed to fully examining its charge. "It's been so long since we started this review that a number of people have forgotten why we undertook this in the first place," she said. "With gas costing $2.50 or $3 a gallon, this study of regionalization is more important than ever."

The membership will have an opportunity to react to task force recommendations during an educational session at the January 2006 Convention.

Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president for membership services, provided an update on the amateurism clearinghouse, which will begin operation in spring 2006.

Lennon told the Council that the clearinghouse will not begin certifying the amateur status of prospective student-athletes until the 2007-08 academic year. Such certification was to begin in 2006-07, but Lennon said the staff was persuaded to delay the effective date because of membership concerns that the original timeline was too ambitious.

Still, the clearinghouse will be ready to evaluate high school juniors as soon as it opens early in 2006. Individual institutions still will continue to be responsible for certifying high school seniors who will matriculate in fall 2006. Questions about such student-athletes should be directed to the national office's agents, gambling and amateurism activities staff.

Other highlights

Division II Management Council
October 17-18 / Indianapolis

• Recommended the sponsorship of legislation for the 2007 Convention that would require student-athletes in all sports to undergo a medical examination that is administered or supervised by a physician before participating in any practice or competition-related activities.

• Heard that the Committee on Women's Athletics may re-engage questions about the practice of using male practice players for women's athletics teams.

• Was advised that the Budget and Finance Committee has prohibited conferences from using conference grant program funds as a direct gift to a charitable organization. The clarification was provided after the committee learned that some institutions donated grant funds to the Division II Make-A-Wish initiative in lieu of having the student-athletes engage in traditional fund-raising.

• Was advised of a new allocation method for conference grant distributions. Distributions for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years will have an $85,000 base, with an additional $12,000 premium for conferences with six members. For each member above six, the conference will receive an additional $4,000. [Thus, a conference with 12 members will receive $121,000 ($85,000 plus $12,000 plus $24,000).]

• Agreed to prohibit the election of any individual representing an institution that is in exploratory membership for another division to a Division II committee.

• Agreed that an institution seeking a 10-semester/15-quarter extension waiver under Proposal No. 2-40 would be required to submit with the waiver request a graduation plan that demonstrates a reasonable likelihood of the student-athlete's graduation within six years of initial collegiate enrollment.

• Recommended that the Presidents Council oppose membership-sponsored Proposal No. 2-7 because it would begin the recruiting process earlier in a prospect's career.

• Recommended that the Presidents Council support membership-sponsored Proposal No. 2-15 since it is consistent with previous deregulation efforts.

• Elected six new Management Council members whose service will begin in January. The elections must be ratified by the Presidents Council at its October 27 meeting.

• Elected a new Management Council chair to replace Paul Engelmann, faculty athletics representative from Central Missouri State University. The new chair must be ratified by the Presidents Council.

• Agreed to recommend no changes to Proposal No. 2-34, which would adjust start dates for soccer and women's volleyball to accommodate the 2006 National Championships Festival. The proposal would move the practice start date for soccer and women's volleyball in 2006 to August 7 and the first date of competition to August 24.