National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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May 26, 2010 9:35:51 AM

Of the 16 teams selected to the Division I Women's Rowing Championship that begins Friday, six are from the Pacific-10 Conference, four are from the Big Ten and three are Ivy Group members.

That kind of dominance will change in a few years when automatic qualification is implemented for the 2013 championship.

After a debate that broiled within the rowing community for the better part of two years, the Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet approved the rowing committee's recommendation to establish AQ as a way to build the sport. The proposal originally was to become effective in 2011 but was delayed for two years because of budget concerns and the need to finalize how to accommodate cases in which there are more AQ conferences than AQ slots available.

That complexity figures to occur as 11 leagues already are jockeying for position, including at least one set of odd bedfellows. This year, nine schools – including Big 12 and SEC refugees Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and Alabama – formed this year under the Conference USA umbrella, even though the new league has but three C-USA members (UCF, SMU and Tulsa).

Did AQ drive that configuration? Absolutely, said Tennessee coach Lisa Glenn.

"It's simply broadening the scope of your opportunity to be represented at the championship when you can attempt to fill all the possible criteria," said Glenn, who coached the Lady Vols to the inaugural Conference USA championship earlier this month. "The criteria for an AQ in 2013 will be winning your conference championship."

Tennessee received an at-large bid this year, but Glenn, a former member of the rowing committee, said it made sense for the Vols – as it did for other members of conferences that didn't figure to expand league sponsorship anytime soon – to cover all their qualifying bases.

There may be a few more unusual groupings on the way. Right now, 10 conferences (the Atlantic 10, the ACC, the Big East, the Big Ten, Conference USA, the Colonial Athletic Association, the Ivy League, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, the Pac-10 and the Patriot League) have the requisite six members to qualify for AQ consideration. Some conference reach the required numbers by importing one or two members from other leagues.

But only six of those leagues (A-10, ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Ivy, Pac-10) would have earned an AQ this year had it been in effect since current standards require conferences to have six members for at least two consecutive years (the Colonial is in its second year; the MAAC, the Patriot and Conference USA need one more).

An additional league – the West Coast Conference – has five schools but is considering a sixth. The remaining seven schools that sponsor the sport have yet to affiliate with a conference.

The championship field expanded to 16 teams for the first time in 2009, but since NCAA championship policy requires not more than 50 percent of any field to be allocated to automatic qualifiers, the rowing committee is going to have to figure out a method for managing the excess.

‘Row-ins'

As other championships stage play-in contests to determine which of the AQ-eligible leagues not granted automatic access to the championship in a given year make the field, so too will the rowing committee establish a "row-in" model beginning in 2013.

What that looks like is yet to be determined. It's likely that however many teams need to row their way in would compete in a mini-meet two days before the championship begins. Among models being discussed is to seed all of the AQ conferences. Seeds 8 through however many more then would "row in" for one slot. Another model that might be implemented if there are only nine or 10 AQ conferences would be to take seeds 7 through 9 or 10 and have them compete for two slots to prevent a head-to-head row-in.

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Associate Commissioner Marshall Foley chairs the group charged with figuring all of this out.

"As it turns out, in 2011 there would have been no need for a row-in because we had only six conferences that would have been AQ-eligible," he said. "But looking ahead to 2012, we know there are probably going to be at least three and possibly four more conferences, so the proposal became a row-in that would take place at the championship site two days before the meet."

Another reason to pause AQ until 2013 was to give Division I time to budget for it. Had it been implemented earlier, row-in teams might have had to pay their own way – a situation neither the rowing committee nor the championships cabinet want.

Foley said his committee should have a recommendation for the championships cabinet this fall.

For now, the rowing community is trying to calm the waters now that AQ is in place. The debate was familiar to those in other sports mulling AQ as a way to encourage schools and conferences to fully fund teams that would compete for conference and national championships.

Conferences that have little trouble qualifying a number of teams even without AQ typically resist the idea, since AQ doesn't always guarantee the best 16 teams will be selected. The non-power leagues are naturally prone to liking AQ since it assures access those conferences wouldn't otherwise have. The challenge is for the two sides to agree upon AQ as a way to grow the sport.

Tennessee's Glenn said her new conference affiliation is a prime example of the championship incentive.

"With a shot at a title, schools will push for it and make everyone else stronger," she said. "It shouldn't take a conference affiliation to get stronger – because you can do that the old way just by competing for an at-large bid to the national championship – but somehow it does that."

Judy McLeod, who as executive associate commissioner of Conference USA played a role in assembling a rowing league that featured both schools in the 2010 Bowl Championship Series title game, said it's a "no athlete left behind" mentality when championship opportunities are at stake.

"Everyone's No. 1 goal was to provide their student-athletes with an opportunity, and they didn't want to be left out," she said.

Initial talks about forming a single-sport conference became moot because of the moratorium on that approach in Division I, McLeod said. Since the three Conference USA schools had already been blessed by the league to do something with rowing, it became a choice of either working with the other leagues to make sure the C-USA schools were accommodated or have the new configuration be housed with Conference USA. In the end, all nine schools chose the latter.

Brown Associate AD Tom Bold, who chaired the committee during the AQ debate, said his group certainly heard the concerns over a "watered-down" pool – even from the conference he represents. In the end, though, the committee recognized AQ as having been successful in growing other sports and believed it was the right approach for rowing, too.

"As a committee, we acknowledged the concern about AQ not always ensuring the top 16 teams getting in – and that might be the case early on – but we felt like down the road, those schools and conferences that benefited from the AQ would become stronger," he said. "I like to point to Gonzaga basketball as an example. About 10 years ago, they were the underdog, and now they are a national power."

Foley, who assumed the leadership role from Bold and now will oversee the plan to format the AQ models, said the discussion was divided predictably between the haves and have-nots.

"But when you look at what AQ has done for other championships sports – to incent schools to provide support for their programs – championship access is a big part of that," Foley said. "I've made no secret that I favor AQ. Beyond just my personal affiliation with a conference whose champion probably wouldn't earn an at-large bid, I still see what AQ has done for the funding and support and growth of sports at the mid-major level."