The NCAA News - News Features

III swimming seeks new approach to selecting divers for '98

BY GARY T. BROWN
Staff Writer

The Division III subcommittee of the NCAA Men's and Women's Swimming Committee has been asked to come up with a different way of selecting divers to the 1998 Division III championships.

But the Division III diving community's position is that anything less than the status quo would be undesirable.

The challenge at hand is to change the current procedure of a prequalification meet at the championships site to a selection process that would weed out nonqualifiers before they get to the site. The request came to the committee from the Division III Championships Committee in August.

"The reasons behind the request are all part of the new championships enhancement package that begins in August 1997," said NCAA Division III Vice-President Bridget Belgiovine, athletics director at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, and a member of the Division III Championships Committee. "Our request was based primarily on two principles: the ratio of participants in the championships and the goal to fully fund championships. The prequalification diving meet is outside the framework of 'fully funded.' Our goal is to provide full funding for student-athletes in the national championships. Toward that end, we're looking for the committee to discuss a different type of a qualifying format to provide for that."

The current approach

Currently, divers qualify for the Division III championships by achieving a standard score once at their conference championships meet or twice during the regular season, then attending a prequalification meet at the championships site at which they compete for 22 allocated berths.

Division III diving coaches are satisfied with that system because it offers two "layers" of qualification. Tom Quinn, diving coach at State University College at Cortland, said that outside of a prequalification meet open to all divers, the current system is the best way to ensure the best field.

"The layering system is fairly good in that we use the scores, which is not the best measure of performance, to provide the first layer, then use the best measure, which is to have divers use scores within an actual meet to qualify for the national championships, as the next layer," Quinn said.

Quinn said the two layers together are better than either alone. While providing an open qualification meet would be impractical, basing selection on scores alone raises too many variables. Divers achieve scores based on performance in front of judging panels at meets throughout the year, and because these panels are composed of coaches at the meets, scoring is subject to, well, being subjective.

"There are some real fundamental validity issues in taking people into the meet based on scores alone," Quinn said. "The system falls down when we start comparing scores between meets, but it's an excellent system in many ways when you score it within a meet.

"With scores being the first layer, using a flawed system, in a sense, to get people into a prequalification meet is far less of an evil than using a flawed system to get people into a national championship. That first layer of qualifying twice casts a broad net for the people who legitimately ought to be in the selection pool. Now when we take those divers and put them in front of judges who know what they're looking at in the environment in which the actual championship is going to take place, that's when we determine the best field."

But the nagging fallout, according to the championships committee, is that the prequalification meet produces divers, accompanied by coaches, who don't make the cut, and who then must either stay on site or return home immediately, both at their school's expense. Belgiovine thinks that situation forces athletics directors into difficult decisions.

Without a prequalification meet, however, the best alternative the Division III subcommittee could create was a compilation of scores throughout the season that would be submitted to a selection committee before the championships.

This alternative, which has been submitted to the NCAA Executive Committee for review at its December meeting, qualifies some divers automatically and others at large.

The premise is that divers who scored in the top eight on either board at the previous year's championships and who meet qualifying standards set for the current year would prequalify automatically. All other divers would be required to meet the qualifying score in a 10/11-dive format in front of a minimum of five judges. That score, as well as two others from one home and one away meet, would be submitted to a five-member diving selection subcommittee that would use specific selection criteria to fill the at-large berths.

Limited opportunities

Quinn, who was part of the diving subcommittee that was charged, in conjunction with the Division III subcommittee, with creating an alternative selection method, said the system will work procedurally, but could limit opportunities for divers to qualify.

"The idea of a 10/11-dive format is OK in the sense that you see the entire performance," he said. "The idea of having five judges is OK in that you throw out some outliers (only three scores are kept). The idea of a selection committee is OK because divers are being viewed by the same panel, and it approximates measurement within a contest.

"But the 10/11-dive format by definition limits the opportunity for divers to qualify since divers do a six-dive format in dual meets. This method will tilt the playing field toward people who have separate diving wells, separate diving coaches and who have a conference that will support diving -- and away from all those divers who have difficulty anyway -- who have part-time coaches or a nonsupportive conference or facility limitations.

"It would make for more of an elitist event based not on skill but on opportunity. It would be like not allowing a 1,650-yard freestyler to qualify based on his or her performance in the 1,000."

Susan Bassett, athletics director at William Smith College and chair of the Division III swimming subcommittee, is concerned that any alternative to the current qualifying method would compromise the field.

"We're trying to apply objective measures to a subjective sport and that's where the breakdown lies," she said. "We're absolutely sure that if we go to that alternate method, we will end up with some divers who don't belong at the meet and some divers left home who should be there. The current method really guarantees that the 22 best divers are in the meet because of the way that diving is conducted -- bringing everyone together at one place and being judged by the same panel in the same setting. You're comparing apples and apples."

Latest challenge

Bassett puts this challenge in a long line of others thrust upon the swimming committee ever since a cap limiting the number of participants in the Divisions I and III championships was put in place several years ago.

"We've been dealing with the cap for the last six or seven years," she said. "The cap imposes a selection process on swimming that doesn't go with our tradition and history as a sport. There have always been -- virtually for any meet in the world -- cutoff times, and you either make it or you don't. We've created this situation for achieving a number (of participants), which doesn't really meet the needs of our sport.

"The cap issue forced the prequalification meet on diving -- they used to have a point standard to achieve in order to get in the meet. So when we put an absolute number on divers and swimmers in the championships, then all of these situations were created. We've gone down a road with the sport of swimming and diving that has forced some things that aren't ideal for the sport."

The rationale for retaining the current prequalification meet precedes the alternate method in the document submitted to the Executive Committee.

"There's no doubt that the members of the championships committee will take a long, hard look at the rationale," Belgiovine said. "The swimming committee is not the only committee being asked to make changes. We've asked the wrestling committee to also look at how they determine their qualifiers, and we've asked tennis to look at some things.

"As a championships committee, we're charged with ensuring that all Division III championships comply with our basic guiding principles. We continually face the task of balancing the value and uniqueness of each sport while complying with our principles. The Division III presidents have said these are our principles, and we have the responsibility to figure out the best way to comply. As soon as you deviate from those principles, then where does it end?"

The championships committee will wrestle with that issue this month. Should the current method not be maintained, the Division III swimming subcommittee has asked for the opportunity to solicit input from the diving coaches at the 1997 Division III men's and women's championships to further refine the alternate selection procedure.