National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Jun 16, 2010 8:33:19 AM

Although Division II was officially created when the NCAA established its current three-division format in 1973, it was re-created in June 2005 when a group of about 140 presidents and chancellors gathered in Orlando for a Summit that has since shaped the course of the division that used to be known as the middle child of the NCAA family.

This Friday, another 130 or so Division II presidents and chancellors – many of whom were in Orlando five years ago – will meet for the third iteration of the Summit. The fact that we are having a third means the first and second were successful.

At the time, there was a need – perhaps even a crisis – that required an assembly of leaders. Division II was losing institutions to Division I at an alarming rate, scholarship allocation in football was divisive, and members were weighing a national marketing effort against their community-based roots.

In effect, Division II had existed for more than three decades but did not know its identity until those presidents and chancellors crafted it in 2005.

That landmark session produced the division's North Star, a strategic-positioning platform built on "life in the balance" for student-athletes who seek a highly competitive and rewarding athletics experience in an educational and community setting. Members identified the division's attributes – learning, balance, passion, service, sportsmanship and resourcefulness – and promised to shape behaviors, both legislative and philosophical, around them.

Since then, Division II has strategically been transformed. The membership embraced the community environment so unique to Division II institutions, we emphasized family-friendly atmospheres to attract community members to our athletics contests, and we provided the tools and benefits that transformed Division II into a membership destination.

But these Summits also indicate another Division II attribute – presidential leadership. The Summit is the only national higher education meeting for presidents in a particular division where the focus is on intercollegiate athletics. Attendance has been steady at all three (about half the division's membership), which reflects the desire for the division's leadership to engage on national issues and to own the strategic direction of the division. That is an attribute we all can be proud to claim as our own.

Because of the importance of athletics to the success of our Division II institutions, especially given a high percentage of student-athletes on most of our campuses, it is important to regularly provide presidents with a venue that affords an opportunity for them to have a voice in the key issues facing the Division II governance structure. That, in turn, has caused an increasing number of presidents to be more engaged in their conferences and want to pursue service in the national committee structure. As a member of the Division II Presidents Council, I can attest to that influence.

This year's Summit is no less important than its predecessors. This year we will launch new tools, including the Division II Financial Dashboards and the Division II Athletics Oversight Summary, which give presidents and chancellors more resources to demonstrate the value of Division II athletics to the overall health of the campus.

We will discuss membership growth – and not in the way we did five years ago when we feared contraction. On the contrary, we are growing, and we must plan strategically for expansion in ways that align our membership with the values we collectively consider critical.

We will talk more about "Life in the Balance," in which we align policy with behavior and develop principles that allow our student-athletes to live fully the college experience – an experience for success in life.

Most importantly, we will assemble as Division II leaders who believe in the division as a whole and are passionate about acting in the best interests of our student-athletes.

This is not just another meeting on a president's overflowing daily planner. This is where the strategy hits the road.

Nancy Moody, the president at Tusculum College of the South Atlantic Conference, is a member of the Division II Presidents Council.