The Division III Management Council is recommending defeat of a 2007 Convention proposal that would place a cap on the division’s size, saying that a pair of proposals sponsored by the Division III Presidents Council — combined with a continuing moratorium on accepting new members — also effectively would halt membership growth for at least the near future.

Council members, meeting October 16-17 in Indianapolis, recommended that the Presidents Council formally oppose the North Coast Athletic Conference-sponsored membership-cap proposal at the January Convention. The Presidents Council will consider the recommendation during its October 26 meeting in Indianapolis.

The NCAC asked Management Council members to support its proposed cap along with the Presidents Council’s proposals, saying that the combined approach would curb growth of the division while ensuring that institutions will be better equipped in the future to fulfill membership responsibilities. The conference’s proposal would cap membership at 459 schools.

The Presidents Council’s proposals would further limit to four the number of institutions that can seek membership annually and would also require full compliance with all of the division’s regulations during the first year of provisional or reclassifying membership.

The presidents also propose requiring current members to more actively demonstrate their commitment to Division III, through actions ranging from annual audits of compliance with sports-sponsorship requirements to requiring annual attendance by institutional personnel at the Convention and periodic attendance at regional rules seminars. Failure to meet such requirements ultimately could result in the loss of membership benefits.

The NCAC’s representative to the Council told the group that a cap is needed along with the proposals because any further growth will harm Division III’s ability to provide services to its members, including championships, and further hamper the division’s ability to maintain a common philosophy.

However, Council members decided that a moratorium is a more flexible means of halting growth in the near future, because it can be extended — or removed — as needed. Under the existing moratorium, adopted by the Presidents Council in October 2005, the division includes 440 active, provisional and reclassifying members, as well as 10 institutions currently exploring membership.

They also agreed that the Presidents Council’s proposals — along with possible actions by an NCAA Executive Committee working group exploring Association-wide solutions for membership growth and inter-division migration issues — could combine to halt growth in the long term.

The Presidents Council has expressed interest in extending the moratorium through the conclusion of the working group’s efforts.

While Management Council members agreed that the Presidents Council proposals and the moratorium effectively address membership growth, they also noted that Association-wide solutions are needed. They acknowledged Division II’s concerns that adoption of a hard cap potentially would have long-term implications for the entire Association, and also acknowledged that the NCAA’s membership divisions will need to cooperate to find solutions that help one division without hurting another.

The Executive Committee’s working group, a seven-member presidential panel that will meet October 25 in Indianapolis, currently is exploring several solutions — including the possible creation of a fourth membership division, which might prove attractive to schools that seek Association membership in the future and possibly also to some current Division III members.

The working group cannot propose any legislative solutions in time for the 2007 Convention, because the deadline to submit proposals has passed. However, Division III is planning a discussion of that group’s work — including any legislative concepts or other options that may be suggested by the group between now and January — during the annual issues forum at the Convention in Orlando, Florida.

Redshirting and seasons of participation

In other actions involving membership-sponsored legislative proposals for the Convention, the Management Council recommended opposition to a proposal that would count a student-athlete’s redshirt year in another division as a year of participation if that student-athlete transfers to a Division III institution. A similar conference-sponsored proposal was supported last year by the Presidents Council but was narrowly defeated by the membership.

The Management Council is basing its opposition to the proposal — sponsored by the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference — on concerns listed by the Division III Interpretations and Legislation Committee. The committee believes adoption of the proposal would not constitute fair notice to student-athletes that redshirting in another division or association will cost them a season of participation in Division III.

The committee also expressed concerns about the difficulty of determining under Division III’s "season of participation" standard whether a student-athlete used a redshirt year before transferring. That standard permits a student-athlete to participate in practice in a sport until the student-athlete’s first opportunity for competition each year.

However, the Management Council urged the Presidents Council to support another proposal dealing with the participation standard.

The proposal — sponsored by the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Great Northeast Athletic Conference and Northwest Conference — would permit student-athletes to practice during a sport’s nontraditional season without losing a season of participation, regardless of whether the nontraditional season is in the fall or the spring.

The Division III Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement and the Interpretations and Legislation Committee both advised the Management Council that the proposal would reduce current differences between how the standard is applied to spring sports — in which student-athletes generally can practice through much of the preceding fall nontraditional season without losing a season of participation — and fall sports, in which the opportunity to participate in subsequent spring nontraditional-season practices without losing a season ends with the first competition in the fall.

In August, the Presidents Council rejected a recommendation from the Management Council to join the conferences as a co-sponsor of the proposal, but the presidents did not formally take a position on the issue.

Convention agenda

The Management Council recommended positions to the Presidents Council on a total of four membership-sponsored positions, and all of those recommendations will be considered during the presidents’ October 26 meeting.

In addition to recommending positions on the membership cap and on proposals addressing redshirting and seasons of participation, Management Council members urged support of a proposal that would give Division III members flexibility to replace one of the two basketball practice scrimmages currently exempted from maximum contest limits with one exhibition contest against a Division I or Division II opponent.

The proposal is sponsored by the Ohio Athletic Conference, North Coast Athletic Conference and University Athletic Association.

Division III Convention delegates are slated to consider 14 proposals at the Orlando Convention, including 10 sponsored by the Presidents Council.

Among other measures, the Presidents Council is sponsoring proposals to increase the number of schools required to propose legislation at the Convention; preserve participation opportunities for female student-athletes by limiting the use of male practice players; and place limits on athletics activity during the one date of competition that schools can schedule during a sport’s nontraditional season.

Division III Management Council