Ann Martin has done a little bit of just about everything in her career, which makes her a good fit for Division II athletics administration.

But this year, Martin is doing a lot of one thing – which is guiding the Division II Legislation Committee. In her role as chair, she is leading a comprehensive review of playing and practice season policies to ensure they align with the Division II strategic-positioning platform.

Division II presidents and chancellors recently charged the Legislation and Championships Committees to spearhead the review to make sure that student-athletes were able to live the balanced college experience the Division II platform describes.

Martin’s Legislation Committee jumped into the fray during its meeting in March, settling on a set of preliminary principles for the Management Council to consider during its April 20-21 meeting in Indianapolis. On the table are sport-by-sport reviews with an eye toward slightly shortened seasons and fewer contests. Another possibility is a later reporting date for fall-sport athletes to reduce the housing and meal burden on institutions.

While it’s early in the discussion, Martin is a good candidate to be among those leading it, given her varied background in athletics administration. She is in her fourth year as the assistant athletics director for compliance, marketing and promotions at Regis (Colorado), and she also has perspective as an assistant women’s basketball coach and a conference officer in her background.

She was appointed to the Division II Management Council in January 2007 and that March began a term on the committee she now chairs. Since then, her eyes have been opened regarding the Division II decision-making process, and she is confident Division II will arrive at an acceptable outcome with playing and practice seasons.

“I know it can be uncomfortable for people who aren’t in the room when these issues begin going through the structure, but I can say firsthand that the people at the table have done their homework and are taking this responsibility very seriously,” she said. “There won’t be any rash decisions.

“I have to admit, before I had the chance to be in the room, I might not have been as comfortable on the outside looking in. But now having been in the structure for the last two years, I know we will handle this issue properly.”

Martin pointed to several big-picture issues in recent years, such as community-engagement deregulation, a debate about football equivalencies, Canadian membership, skill-instruction restrictions and a new membership process. In each case, Division II members ended up making informed votes at the Convention based on the vetting the governance structure provided.

“In the case of the playing and practice seasons review,” Martin said, “the presidents have asked for a little faster pace, but our experience in handling major issues as a division is allowing us to expedite this particular process.”

The Legislation and Championships Committees meet jointly in June to review feedback on the preliminary concepts and will forward specific proposals  to the Management and Presidents Councils in July and August. Those proposals could make their way into the 2010 Convention cycle.

While Martin hopes the Division II membership adopts several meaningful changes from this package (she said moving the fall-sport reporting period to align more with the academic calendar is particularly sensible), her first priority is to make sure Division II members understand why the review is necessary in the first place.

“This is not an economically driven exercise,” she said. “While the current economic climate might have helped spur the review, much of what’s being discussed are things that Division II members have had at least on the back burner for quite some time. And now because we have the strategic-positioning platform in place, we really have a chance to make better decisions regarding Division II playing and practice seasons that align with what we say we are as a division.”

‘We’re more than the hats we wear’

Martin knows a thing or two about what Division II is supposed to be, since she’s been involved at that level her entire career. She played basketball at Rockhurst and then signed on as a volunteer assistant coach for Misty Murphy’s women’s basketball program at Colorado State-Pueblo – only after an aggressive letter-writing campaign to other Division II programs came up empty. “Now look at me – 10 years later, I’m good friends with many of the coaches who told me no,” Martin said.

Even Murphy challenged Martin with the “Are you sure you know what you want to do with your life?” speech.

“All I knew was that I wanted to get back into the athletics scene,” Martin said. “Those coaching years ended up being among the most powerful in my career. You’ll never be as close to student-athletes as you are as a coach.”

Martin went from a volunteer position to a full-time paid post on the Pueblo sidelines, and she also served as the student development coordinator, the assistant compliance coordinator, the SAAC sponsor and an adjunct professor – a typical slate for administrators at smaller schools.

That’s when Martin fell in love with compliance – “which most people think is crazy,” she says. “But I like examining the inner-workings of what we do, and it keeps me in touch with every team.”

She went on to become an assistant commissioner at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in Colorado Springs, where she also was a compliance graduate assistant, earning her master’s degree from Northern Colorado in 2005.

“I loved my time at the RMAC because I got more of a big-picture perspective and had the chance to work closely with 14 diverse institutions,” Martin said.

That’s when she met Regis AD Barb Schroeder, and she soon latched on to the Regis staff where she has remained. Now she’s on the front row of one of Division II’s most challenging and important legislative advances in years.

“That’s what I like about Division II,” Martin said. “We’re all much more than just the many hats we wear. And because we are in Division II, people from all sorts of backgrounds get the chance to be on the front lines of some of these more important decisions.”