NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland – Panelists from a variety of Division III institutions pitched their own schools as an enticing alternative for those who want to do more than play sports.

“Student-athletes dropped out of sports entirely to become more integrated into the college experience that other students find normative,” said Denison President Dale Knobel, referring to a New York Times series last spring that told of student-athletes giving up scholarships to concentrate more on classes or other campus pursuits. “Integration of student-athletes with other students and in all aspects of an individual student’s college experience is the hallmark of NCAA Division III.”

Times writer Bill Pennington’s articles on Division I student-athletes in sports other than football and basketball inspired Thursday’s forum titled “Academics, Athletics and Today’s Sports Culture—Expectations and Realities.”  The series explored the huge commitment of time and money that parents sometimes invest to help their children win what turn out to be partial scholarships.

“The scholarship is held in a special place, and it has almost mythical overtones,” Pennington said at Thursday’s forum. “There’s no question in my mind that some parents think it possesses miraculous powers. And it is obviously a great achievement and recognition of a great accomplishment, but it seemed to me this chase has really skewed people’s behavior and perspective.”

Of course, student-athletes and parents focused on winning an athletics scholarship – even one that pays only for a small portion of the cost of a college education – often will not even consider a Division III nonscholarship program as an option. But panelists ranging from Knobel to a women’s basketball coach to a football student-athlete made the case for aggressively promoting the benefits of attending a Division III institution.

“I think it’s about exposing our institutions and our division. We have a great story to tell,” said Ohio Wesleyan coach Nan Carney-DeBord, agreeing with Knobel that Division III athletics programs are well integrated into the academic life of campuses. She added that influential figures like coaches serve as models for that integration -- or what Carney-DeBord, who also serves as a professor and academic advisor, called “balance.”

“We don’t have to be accountable for the balance that we are creating,” she said. “We are the balance.”

Puget Sound football student-athlete Kavin Williams said he never thought of playing in a nonscholarship program until Division III schools recruited him, and even then thought  at first that playing at Puget Sound “would be similar to Division I football, except with a lot fewer fans in the stands.”

Still, the coaches who recruited him emphasized not only the opportunity to play football but also the chance to have a full college experience.

“All the coaches who recruited me made their pitches on the institution – how many opportunities I would have if I attended that institution, not just in athletics but with academics and future career opportunities,” he said. “They did emphasize the level of competition, but they really, really focused on the opportunities I would have attending a prestigious academic institution.”

Two college administrators urged colleagues at Division III institutions to help parents understand that most Division III institutions provide significant financial aid, even though it’s not awarded for athletics talent, and to emphasize that the division’s variety of schools serves many different student interests and needs.

It’s difficult to tell parents that their athletically talented children will not be treated differently from other students in awarding financial aid, said Mike Hendricks, vice president for enrollment management at Catholic. But schools need to make the effort to help those parents understand that aid is available, along with the opportunity to continue competing.

“The reality that I think needs to be presented to student-athletes is, in a no-scholarship model, the institution is still going to provide you with the opportunity to play athletics in college,” he said. “It will give you the facilities, the schedule, all of those resources that you need to continue on in your (sports) career.”

An administrator at an urban public institution pointed to the diversity of institutional missions within Division III, making the point that different schools appeal to different types of students, but all offer the opportunity to be both a student and an athlete.

“They have less practice-time obligations, more time for academics, more time to participate in other university offerings such as clubs, community service, internships – real intellectual growth,” said Charlie Titus, vice chancellor for athletics, recreation and special programs at Massachusetts-Boston. “We offer an opportunity to become a more complete, well-rounded individual.”

“Colleges and universities participating in Division III vary in size and complexity, but at the undergraduate level, virtually all of them emphasize participation – regardless of whether they’re fundamentally liberal arts colleges or more complex institutions,” Denison’s Knobel, a former member of the Division III President Council, said. “They are full of classrooms that emphasize conversation, dialogue and question over lecture, they stress individual and group projects and individual research, they emphasize acquisition of leadership and teamwork skills in student organizational life, and –frequently on residential campuses – they emphasize learning by living and dining and playing together.

“For Division III colleges, intercollegiate athletics are nothing less and nothing more than another one of these participatory, educational experiences.”

DeBord-Carney at one point conceded she was probably “preaching to the choir” in her advocacy for Division III athletics, and as it turned out, one of the founders of that choir was among the approximately 400 attendees at the forum.

Ken Weller, president emeritus of Central (Iowa) and a former leader of Division III who helped write its philosophy statement, was among attendees who spoke in the question-and-answer session that followed the panelists’ remarks.

“I find this panel’s presentation to be especially affirming of those original ideas,” he said, referring to that statement.

“I believe it’s important for us in Division III to get the word out, and we must not talk in apologetic terms. We must not talk about what we don’t do – give scholarships – but we should be talking as aggressively as possible about the distinctive opportunities inherent in Division III competition.”