After a year and a half of conceptualizing, presenting, listening and rethinking, the Division II Championships Committee has developed a plan that will be submitted to the Division II Management and Presidents Councils for endorsements at their April meetings.

The proposed plan is similar to what was presented to the membership during the January Convention in Indianapolis.

Under the plan, the nation would be divided into eight regions. All members of a conference would fall within their region, and all in-state games would count as in-region, as would contests against opponents in contiguous states.

The plan also includes a concept that would combine  regions in championship play in certain sports. Sports that use earned access or automatic qualification would continue to apply them in the new plan.

“The Championships Committee believes that this plan does what the Management Council requested, which is to apply Division II’s regionalization philosophy in a fairer, more consistent and more understandable way,” Division II Vice President Mike Racy said. He also noted that the plan is more consistent with Division II’s regionalization philosophy, which is to group schools by geographic area to limit missed class time and reduce travel costs.

The new approach will make regions consistent from sport to sport and from year to year. It also will eliminate situations that require some institutions to travel across out-of-region states to play a game against an in-region opponent.

Still, Racy emphasized that the proposal is not final.

“We know that a few sports and a couple of conferences may not support the Championships Committee proposal,” he said. “There will be a number of opportunities between now and April for further dialogue. If somebody has a better idea, the Championships Committee still wants to hear it.”

Principles

At its February 1-2 meeting, the Championships Committee agreed to the following principles involving championships regionalization:

• Regions will be determined by state boundaries (see accompanying map).
• A state may reside in more than one region.
• Conferences will be assigned to specific regions for automatic qualification and postseason competition.
• Conference opponents will count as in-region contests regardless of which state they are in.
• All opponents within a region will be considered in-region opponents.
• Opponents within a state will be considered in-region, regardless of their conference affiliation.
• All opponents (regardless of conference affiliation) in contiguous states will be considered in-region.

In addition, institutions in Montana will be able to consider Nebraska and Colorado as contiguous states, and vice versa, since there are no Division II schools in the states that border Montana. Also, for football only, institutions in the West region may consider North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico as contiguous states, and vice versa, since there are no football-playing schools in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho or Wyoming.

Other business

In other business, the Division II Championships Committee:

• Reviewed the timeline for implementing the new legislation regarding championships eligibility. The committee approved nullification calculations and agreed to release that information early this summer. The new championships-eligibility legislation will be in effect beginning this fall.
• Reviewed a request from the Management Council to review legislation related to skill instruction. At the January Convention, the membership defeated Proposal No. 34, which would have permitted student-athletes and members of the coaching staff in sports other than football to engage in countable athletically related activities outside the institution’s playing season.
• Approved Grand Valley State University as host for the 2007 Division II Men’s Golf Championships.
• Approved Missouri Southern State University-Joplin as host for the 2007 Division II Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Championships.