NCAA Division III








Main logo used by the NCAA.


Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their student-athletes.


The NCAA's first split was into two divisions, the University and College Divisions, in 1956. The College Division was formed for smaller schools that did not have the resources of the major athletic programs across the country. The College Division split again in 1973 when the NCAA went to its current naming convention: Division I, Division II, and Division III. Division III schools are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships, while D-II schools can.


Division III is the NCAA's largest division with around 450 member institutions, which are 80% private and 20% public. The median undergraduate enrollment of D-III schools is about 2,750, although the range is from 418 to over 38,000. Approximately 40% of all NCAA student-athletes compete in D-III.[1]




Contents






  • 1 Requirements


  • 2 Conferences


    • 2.1 All-sports conferences


    • 2.2 Single-sport conferences


    • 2.3 Independents




  • 3 Division III schools with Division I programs


  • 4 Division III schools playing in non-divisional sports


  • 5 Reforms


  • 6 Football


  • 7 See also


  • 8 References


  • 9 External links





Requirements


Division III institutions must sponsor at least five sports for men and five for women, with two team sports for each gender, and each playing season represented by each gender. There are minimum contest rules and participant minimums for each sport. Division III athletic programs are non-revenue-generating, extracurricular programs that are staffed and funded like any other university department. They feature student-athletes who receive no financial aid related to their athletic ability.[2] Student-athletes cannot redshirt as freshmen,[3][4][5] and schools may not use endowments or funds whose primary purpose is to benefit athletic programs.[6]


Division III schools "shall not award financial aid to any student on the basis of athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance".[7] Financial aid given to athletes must be awarded under the same procedures as for the general student body, and the proportion of total financial aid given to athletes "shall be closely equivalent to the percentage of student-athletes within the student body."[8] The ban on scholarships is strictly enforced. As an example of how seriously the NCAA takes this rule, in 2005 MacMurray College became only the fifth school slapped with a "death penalty" after its men's tennis program gave grants to foreign-born players.[9] The two service academies that are D-III members, Merchant Marine and Coast Guard, do not violate the athletic scholarship ban because all students, whether or not they are varsity athletes, receive the same treatment, a full scholarship.



Conferences



All-sports conferences


An "all-sports" conference is defined here as one that sponsors both men's and women's basketball. Conferences that sponsor football are marked with an asterisk (*).




  • Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference

  • American Collegiate Athletic Association


  • American Rivers Conference*


  • American Southwest Conference*

  • Atlantic East Conference

  • Capital Athletic Conference


  • Centennial Conference*

  • City University of New York Athletic Conference


  • College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin*

  • Colonial States Athletic Conference


  • Commonwealth Coast Conference [a]


  • Empire 8 Conference*

  • Great Northeast Athletic Conference


  • Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference*

  • Landmark Conference


  • Liberty League*

  • Little East Conference


  • Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference*


  • Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association*


  • Middle Atlantic Conferences [b]


  • Midwest Conference*


  • Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference*

  • New England Collegiate Conference


  • New England Small College Athletic Conference*


  • New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference*


  • New Jersey Athletic Conference*

  • North Atlantic Conference


  • North Coast Athletic Conference*

  • North Eastern Athletic Conference


  • Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference*


  • Northwest Conference*


  • Ohio Athletic Conference*


  • Old Dominion Athletic Conference*


  • Presidents' Athletic Conference*

  • St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

  • Skyline Conference


  • Southern Athletic Association*


  • Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference*

  • Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

  • State University of New York Athletic Conference

  • University Athletic Association


  • Upper Midwest Athletic Conference*


  • USA South Athletic Conference*


  • Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference*






  1. ^ The Commonwealth Coast Conference does not sponsor football, but operates the single-sport Commonwealth Coast Football.


  2. ^ The Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC) is an umbrella organization that operates three separate leagues. Two of these, the MAC Commonwealth and MAC Freedom, sponsor competition in the same set of 15 sports, including men's and women's basketball, but not football. The third league, known as the Middle Atlantic Conference (singular), sponsors competition in football and 11 other sports.




Single-sport conferences


Football


  • Commonwealth Coast Football

  • Eastern Collegiate Football Conference


Ice hockey



  • ECAC West (men and women)


  • New England Hockey Conference (men and women)


  • Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (men and women)


Lacrosse



  • Midwest Lacrosse Conference (men only)


  • Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference (women only)


  • Ohio River Lacrosse Conference (men and women)


Men's volleyball


  • Continental Volleyball Conference

  • Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League

  • United Volleyball Conference



Independents


  • Division III independent schools


Division III schools with Division I programs


Ten D-III schools currently field Division I programs in one or two sports, one maximum for each gender.


Five of them are grandfathered schools that have traditionally competed at the highest level of a particular men's sport prior to the institution of the three division classifications in 1973, a decade before the NCAA governed women's sports. Presumably due to Title IX considerations, grandfathered schools are also allowed to field one women's sport in Division I, and all six schools choose to do so. These schools are allowed to offer athletic scholarships in their Division I men's and women's sports only.[10]




  • Clarkson University (men's and women's ice hockey)


  • Colorado College (men's ice hockey and women's soccer)


  • Johns Hopkins University (men's and women's lacrosse)


  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (men's and women's ice hockey)


  • St. Lawrence Saints (men's and women's ice hockey)


Three formerly grandfathered schools moved completely to Division III. The State University of New York at Oneonta, which had been grandfathered in men's soccer, moved totally to Division III in 2006. Rutgers University–Newark, which had been grandfathered in men's volleyball, did the same in 2014.[11]Hartwick College, which had been grandfathered in men's soccer and women's water polo, moved its men's soccer program to Division III in 2018 and dropped women's water polo entirely.[12]


The other five schools choose to field Division I programs in one sport for men and/or one sport for women, but they are not grandfathered and thus are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships. Academic-based and need-based financial aid is still available, as is the case for all of Division III.




  • Franklin and Marshall College (men's wrestling)


  • Hobart College (men's lacrosse)


  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (women's rowing)


  • Rochester Institute of Technology (men's and women's ice hockey)


  • Union College (men's and women's ice hockey)


In addition, Lawrence University was formerly a non-grandfathered program in fencing, but the NCAA no longer conducts a separate Division I fencing championship. Lawrence continues to field a fencing team, but that team is now considered Division III (see below).


Football and basketball may not be grandfathered Division I programs because their revenue-enhancing potential would give them an unfair advantage over other Division III schools. In 1992, several Division I schools playing Division III football were forced to bring their football programs into Division I. This led directly to the creation of the Pioneer Football League, a non-scholarship football-only Division I FCS conference.


In August 2011, the NCAA decided to no longer allow individual programs to move to another division as a general policy. One exception was made in 2012, when RIT successfully argued for a one-time opportunity for colleges with a D-I men's team to add a women's team.[13]



Division III schools playing in non-divisional sports


Further information: List of non-NCAA Division I schools competing in NCAA Division I sports § Division III schools competing in Division I

In addition to the D-III schools with teams that play as Division I members, many other D-III schools have teams that compete alongside D-I and D-II members in sports that the NCAA does not split into divisions. Teams in these sports are not counted as playing in a different division from the rest of the athletic program. D-III members cannot award scholarships in these sports.



Reforms


In 2003, concerned about the disparity of some D-III athletic programs and the focus on national championships, the Division III Presidents' Council, led by Middlebury College President John McCardell, proposed ending the athletic scholarship exemptions for D-I programs, eliminating redshirting, and limiting the length of the traditional and non-traditional seasons.[14] At the January 2004 NCAA convention, an amendment allowed the exemption for grandfathered D-I athletic scholarships to remain in place, but the rest of the reforms passed.[15]



Football


Further information: List of NCAA Division III football programs

There is a 32-team playoff system for a national championship, the Stagg Bowl, which has been held in Salem, Virginia, since 1993.



See also



  • List of NCAA Division III institutions

  • Todd Mooney



References





  1. ^ "Division III Facts and Figures" (PDF). NCAA. Retrieved 26 November 2017..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}


  2. ^ "Divisional Differences and the History of Multidivision Classification". NCAA. Retrieved November 26, 2017.


  3. ^ NCAA. "Bylaw 14.2.4.1 Minimum Amount of Participation" (PDF). 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual. p. 93. Retrieved December 19, 2012.


  4. ^ Under Bylaw 14.2.4.1, a Division III athlete uses a year of eligibility by either practicing with or playing on a team. This differs from the rules for Divisions I and II, in which only playing on a team counts as participation.


  5. ^ The so-called medical redshirt, officially known as a hardship waiver, is covered by a different NCAA bylaw—specifically Bylaw 14.2.5 (p. 96, 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual).


  6. ^ "Bylaw 15.01.5 Student-Athlete Financial Aid Endowments or Funds" (PDF). 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved December 19, 2012.


  7. ^ "Bylaw 15.01.3 Institutional Financial Aid" (PDF). 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved December 19, 2012.


  8. ^ "Bylaw 15.4.1 Consistent Financial Aid Package" (PDF). 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual. NCAA. p. 110. Retrieved December 19, 2012.


  9. ^ "LSDBi". ncaa.org.


  10. ^ Wodon, Adam (January 12, 2004). "Scholarships Will Continue For D-III 'Play Up' Schools". USCHO.com.


  11. ^ "Transitioning Scarlet Raiders Join CVC" (Press release). Rutgers–Newark Athletics. March 13, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2014.


  12. ^ Kennedy, Paul (February 28, 2018). "Hartwick to downgrade men's soccer, making it a Division III sport". Soccer America. Retrieved June 21, 2018.


  13. ^ "RIT's push for NCAA legislative change opens the door for women to move to Division I". USCHO.com.


  14. ^ Pennington, Bill (May 25, 2003). "Playing for Victory, Or Simply to Play? Colleges Are Split". New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2017.


  15. ^ "NCAA Division III Defeats Effort To Repeal Waiver". Clarkson University. January 12, 2004. Retrieved 26 November 2017.




External links


  • Official website








-

Popular posts from this blog

Bressuire

Image
Subprefecture and commune in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France Bressuire Subprefecture and commune Chateau de Bressuire and the Eglise Notre-Dame Coat of arms Location of Bressuire Bressuire Show map of France Bressuire Show map of Nouvelle-Aquitaine Coordinates: 46°50′27″N 0°29′14″W  /  46.8408°N 0.4872°W  / 46.8408; -0.4872 Coordinates: 46°50′27″N 0°29′14″W  /  46.8408°N 0.4872°W  / 46.8408; -0.4872 Country France Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine Department Deux-Sèvres Arrondissement Bressuire Canton Bressuire Government  • Mayor .mw-parser-output .nobold{font-weight:normal} (2014–20) Jean Michel Bernier Area 1 180.59 km 2 (69.73 sq mi) Population (2014) 2 19,300  • Density 110/km 2 (280/sq mi) Time zone UTC+01:00 (CET)  • Summer (DST) UTC+02:00 (CEST) INSEE/Postal code 79049 /79300 Elevation 98–236 m (322–774 ft) (avg. 173 m or 568 ft) 1 French Land Register data, which exclude...
Read more

Vorschmack

Image
Vorschmack Ukrainian Jewish-style vorschmack served on rye bread Course Hors d'oeuvre Region or state Eastern Europe Associated national cuisine Ashkenazi Jewish, Finnish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian Main ingredients Ground meat and/or fish Cookbook: Vorschmack   Media: Vorschmack Vorschmack or forshmak (Yiddish: פֿאָרשמאַק ‎, from archaic German Vorschmack , "foretaste" [1] or "appetizer" [2] ) is an originally East European dish made of salty minced fish or meat. Different variants of this dish are especially common in Ashkenazi Jewish and Finnish cuisine. Some varieties are also known in Russian and Polish cuisine. Contents 1 In Jewish cuisine 2 In Russian cuisine 3 In Polish cuisine 4 In Finnish cuisine 5 See also 6 References In Jewish cuisine According to Gil Marks, the German name points to the possible Germanic origin of this dish. [1] William Pokhlyobkin descr...
Read more

Quarantine

Image
For other uses, see Quarantine (disambiguation). Signal flag "Lima" called the "Yellow Jack" which when flown in harbor means ship is under quarantine. A simple yellow flag (also called the "Yellow Jack") had historically been used to signal quarantine (it stands for Q among signal flags), but now indicates the opposite, as a signal of a ship free of disease that requests boarding and inspection. A quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of people; it is 'a restraint upon the activities or communication of persons or the transport of goods designed to prevent the spread of disease or pests', for a certain period of time. [1] This is often used in connection to disease and illness, such as those who may possibly have been exposed to a communicable disease. [2] The term is often erroneously used to mean medical isolation, which is "to separate ill persons who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy...
Read more