NCAA Plan Could Kill Top Tiger Sports

By Joshua Haney

You could say that Peter Sejna and Tom Preissing got some pretty good job offers after leaving Colorado College last year. They both signed extremely lucrative contracts before graduation and are now playing in the National Hockey League.

Preissing leads the San Jose Sharks in points and Sejna is a starter on the St. Louis Blues power play unit. However, the two could be among the last of a dying breed — at least for CC.

After a close vote, the NCAA Division III Presidents Council recently recommended a rules change that would have major repercussions for Colorado College athletics. As part of a broad effort to improve the integrity of Division III athletics, the NCAA is considering a variety of amendments which include a ban on Division III institutions such as CC awarding athletic scholarships in sports classified as Division I.

The proposal will now be voted on by all members at the next NCAA convention in January. For Colorado College, approval means serious problems, if not elimination, for the men's hockey and women's soccer programs, the school's two Division I sports.

Currently there are eight schools that take advantage of NCAA rules which allow a Division III school to "play up" in one Division I sport for both men and women. In addition to Colorado College, programs affected would include Johns Hopkins lacrosse, Clarkson hockey, St. Lawrence hockey and Oneonta soccer. Under the proposed rules, the schools would be allowed to continue playing Division I sports, but not grant scholarships.

However, these storied programs are not going to relinquish their competitiveness without a fight. Earlier efforts to block the legislation from reaching a general vote failed and the schools are now focusing on winning that vote instead.

"Most of our efforts are currently directed towards lobbying other Division III schools before the January meeting (of the NCAA)," said Dave Reed, associate director of Athletic Media Relations for Colorado College. This is a tall order considering that over 400 institutions will vote at the convention and most have little reason to sympathize with the cause.

If that plan also fails there is one last hope. "President Celeste has vowed to go to the NCAA and fight for grandfather rights for the existing programs if it comes down to that," says Christopher Sturgess, a member of the Colorado College Student Athletic Advisory Board. The deans of the other affected colleges have made similar promises.

Meanwhile, the affected schools are currently stuck trying to recruit players that might be unable to play out their eligibility at the institutions. "Some schools are using it as a reason to convince players to not come to CC, but it hasn't been a major problem yet," Reed admits.

This can be attributed to the fact that even if the amendments are adopted, they will not take effect until the 2008-09 academic year.

The theory behind the change is that the schools gain advantages for their Division III programs by granting scholarships to Division I athletes."If there is a single, core principle that binds Division III institutions together, it is not giving athletic scholarships,” the chairman of the Presidents Council, John McCardell of Middlebury College, told USA Today. “This is part of an attempt to bring our practices into harmony with our philosophy."

But Nick Evans, a sophomore on the Colorado College men's soccer team, says Division III sports are not getting a free ride from their Division I counterparts. "If anything we (the men's team) suffer from the girl's team being D-I,” he says. “They're given priority on facilities and we are constantly in their shadow."

If the amendment is approved, the eight schools that would lose the right to grant scholarships to their Division I programs have some tough choices.

The first option is for the teams to remain in Division I, but to stop giving athletic scholarships. A few schools, such as Harvard, Cornell and Union, manage to play competitive Division I sports without scholarships, but it would be a tough transition to make. The second, and most likely option, is that the programs would be dropped down to Division III and treated like other teams at the schools. The last, unlikely, option would be a total elimination of the sports.