Why so few D3 colleges in the Western half of the U.S.?

[Kuiper]

This isn't a topic limited to men's soccer, but it certainly affects men's soccer.  I knew that there weren't many colleges participating in D3 in the western half of the U.S., but this map posted by NCAA Research really drove home the limited reach of D3 sports.  It's largely located in the east and mostly the north eastern quadrant of the U.S. with a smattering of schools in the southeast and Texas and only a few clustered around Los Angeles and Portland.



Why is that?  A couple of possible background reasons:

- Fewer schools overall in the west and fewer small liberal arts colleges, which are the traditional homes of D3 sports.  Most of the west has large land grant state colleges, while the small colleges dotting the east and upper midwest were often started by religious groups etc before much of the population shifted west and south.

- Path dependence - because there are fewer D3 schools, other small schools don't have any travel partners nearby and therefore D1, D2 or NAIA may provide more opportunities

This can't be the whole answer, though.  Although there are fewer schools in the west, there are many more schools in the west sponsoring sports in NAIA than in D3.  For example, there are 19 NAIA schools in California, including a UC state school (UC Merced), 15 in Kansas, 13 in Texas, 8 in Nebraska, 8 in Oklahoma, 7 in Oregon, 6 in Montana, 5 in Arizona, 4 in South Dakota, 4 in North Dakota, 3 in Washington. Why did they all go NAIA and not D3?

Is there anything about D3 and its rules, though, that makes it unattractive to, or difficult to obtain by, schools in the west?

[Pat Coleman]

You're right that there are also fewer schools, which doesn't help. The growth of Division III was fairly large from about 1995 to 2010 or so, and after that, some curbs were put on entering Division III because D-III is so big already. In the late 1990s, we had the entire Northwest Conference come over from the NAIA, and the entire American Southwest Conference.

One of the reasons that the NAIA is more attractive to some schools than NCAA Division III (aside from the scholarships) is that you have to have a minimum number of sports in order to be a Division III member, based on your enrollment. One can be an NAIA member with just a couple of sports, but you can't do that in D-III.

I also suspect many of the schools we are looking at were NAIA members before Division III was created, so it wasn't even a choice.

But also, you are correct that you have to have available Division III opponents nearby in order to really be viable.

Division III is growing elsewhere, though. I think if you look at that rough line of dots on the map extending from about Richmond, Virginia, down to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a number of those schools have joined Division III in the past 25 years. That's schools such as Berry, Huntingdon, Birmingham-Southern, Centenary, MUW, etc. The Division III brand is not as unknown in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast areas as it used to be. But it will also be difficult to add a bunch of schools -- if all 15 Kansas schools wanted to come over, it's not like we would magically get to expand the NCAA Tournament by two teams to compensate. The Division III budget wouldn't get significantly bigger (other than those schools' annual dues). Division III is already basically too large.

[Kuiper]

You're right that there are also fewer schools, which doesn't help. The growth of Division III was fairly large from about 1995 to 2010 or so, and after that, some curbs were put on entering Division III because D-III is so big already. In the late 1990s, we had the entire Northwest Conference come over from the NAIA, and the entire American Southwest Conference.

One of the reasons that the NAIA is more attractive to some schools than NCAA Division III (aside from the scholarships) is that you have to have a minimum number of sports in order to be a Division III member, based on your enrollment. One can be an NAIA member with just a couple of sports, but you can't do that in D-III.

I also suspect many of the schools we are looking at were NAIA members before Division III was created, so it wasn't even a choice.

But also, you are correct that you have to have available Division III opponents nearby in order to really be viable.

Division III is growing elsewhere, though. I think if you look at that rough line of dots on the map extending from about Richmond, Virginia, down to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a number of those schools have joined Division III in the past 25 years. That's schools such as Berry, Huntingdon, Birmingham-Southern, Centenary, MUW, etc. The Division III brand is not as unknown in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast areas as it used to be. But it will also be difficult to add a bunch of schools -- if all 15 Kansas schools wanted to come over, it's not like we would magically get to expand the NCAA Tournament by two teams to compensate. The Division III budget wouldn't get significantly bigger (other than those schools' annual dues). Division III is already basically too large.

Thanks.  That's really helpful background/history.  Is the issue with the NCAA tournament that a traditional NAIA men's soccer power like Westmont in Santa Barbara could join the SCIAC (if it ditched scholarships and picked up the requisite new sports), but it wouldn't be possible for expansion in other areas because there would be no DIII conference nearby for them to join, leaving the conference champion without an automatic tournament spot (and no desire by other members to reduce the wildcard spots)?

[Gray Fox]

Westmont has seven men's sports and six women's.  The SCIAC would have to let them in. Nine play soccer.

[Pat Coleman]

Westmont has seven men's sports and six women's.  The SCIAC would have to let them in. Nine play soccer.

I mean, they don't *have* to at all, though, considering how long it took them to finally accept Chapman.

[Pat Coleman]

Thanks.  That's really helpful background/history.  Is the issue with the NCAA tournament that a traditional NAIA men's soccer power like Westmont in Santa Barbara could join the SCIAC (if it ditched scholarships and picked up the requisite new sports), but it wouldn't be possible for expansion in other areas because there would be no DIII conference nearby for them to join, leaving the conference champion without an automatic tournament spot (and no desire by other members to reduce the wildcard spots)?

I think the challenge would be more around finding regular-season competition. I come from a football/basketball background to this question, but thinking of the UC Santa Cruz women's basketball team this year up in the Bay Area -- they definitely had a team which should have made the NCAA Tournament, but because there aren't enough teams in the area for them to play (and also a couple of COVID cancellations), they were only able to schedule 13 D-III opponents. They were not chosen as an at-large for the tournament because they weren't able to schedule enough games.

If a school joined basically anywhere in the Mountain Time Zone aside from Colorado, it would probably have to do something similar.

Similarly in Florida, Palm Beach Atlantic decided somewhere around 2005 or so that it wanted to join D-III, but it found that with no other D-III opponents in Florida, it wouldn't be viable, so they backed out of the D-III pipeline and instead chose D-II.

[Kuiper]

Thanks.  That's really helpful background/history.  Is the issue with the NCAA tournament that a traditional NAIA men's soccer power like Westmont in Santa Barbara could join the SCIAC (if it ditched scholarships and picked up the requisite new sports), but it wouldn't be possible for expansion in other areas because there would be no DIII conference nearby for them to join, leaving the conference champion without an automatic tournament spot (and no desire by other members to reduce the wildcard spots)?

I think the challenge would be more around finding regular-season competition. I come from a football/basketball background to this question, but thinking of the UC Santa Cruz women's basketball team this year up in the Bay Area -- they definitely had a team which should have made the NCAA Tournament, but because there aren't enough teams in the area for them to play (and also a couple of COVID cancellations), they were only able to schedule 13 D-III opponents. They were not chosen as an at-large for the tournament because they weren't able to schedule enough games.

If a school joined basically anywhere in the Mountain Time Zone aside from Colorado, it would probably have to do something similar.

Similarly in Florida, Palm Beach Atlantic decided somewhere around 2005 or so that it wanted to join D-III, but it found that with no other D-III opponents in Florida, it wouldn't be viable, so they backed out of the D-III pipeline and instead chose D-II.

That's what I figured. In men's soccer, UC Santa Cruz has a bizarre schedule where they are technically in the Coast to Coast conference, but they play no actual conference games before the conference tournament.  This year, they instead played a full schedule of SCIAC opponents (8 out of 9 this year, only missing Cal Tech), a few games against Northwest Conference teams, and then filled out the rest of the schedule with NAIA and DII schools before traveling to Virginia to play in the CtoC conference tournament.  That's a lot of work (and travel) to remain in D3.

[Gray Fox]

Westmont has seven men's sports and six women's.  The SCIAC would have to let them in. Nine play soccer.

I mean, they don't *have* to at all, though, considering how long it took them to finally accept Chapman.

I was thinking the same thing, but Chapman got too many D1 transfers when CS Fullerton gave up football and trounced all the SCIAC teams they played.  That left a bad taste for a few years.

[PaulNewman]

I couldn't find a good thread for this, so as I'm sitting here 1/4 mile from the Atlantic Ocean Michigan seems sufficiently "out West,"  and the topic seems relevant to some recent discussions about sports, enrollment, viability, etc.

I saw a headline for an article in the Detroit Free Press that reads "Adrian College used sports to save its school.  And now they are national champions."  There's a paywall so I didn't read the article except to see a paragraph that noted in the face of rapidly declining enrollment the college invested big in sports to turn the tide.  Saw that the school got down to 850 students and seems like quite an achievement to win the D3 hockey national title.

Maybe someone who is familiar with Adrian and/or its hockey program can chime in.  I know next to nothing and I found their website confusing as it seems Adrian has multiple hockey squads with references to D1, D2, and D3 and I assume the others are club hockey programs that may be drawing students as well?

[PaulNewman]

This is real...

https://adrianbulldogs.com/news/2022/1/13/max-benedict-to-lead-cornhole-program-after-being-named-head-coach.aspx

[Gray Fox]

This is real...

https://adrianbulldogs.com/news/2022/1/13/max-benedict-to-lead-cornhole-program-after-being-named-head-coach.aspx

Pat needs to add this to the proper place on the site.
WLCALUM83  will keep us up to date with scores, etc.

[Ejay]

"Benedict resides in Tecumseh, Mich. and will begin recruiting and head coach responsibilities immediately. "

Where does one recruit HS corn hole players? High School keg parties?

[PaulNewman]

"Benedict resides in Tecumseh, Mich. and will begin recruiting and head coach responsibilities immediately. "

Where does one recruit HS corn hole players? High School keg parties?

LOL.  I expected to scroll down the bio and see that he played D1 cornhole at Detroit Mercy.

But here's the big million dollar question.....are they gonna tighten up the cornholing sub rules to be more in line with international cornhole standards?  How many generally get carried on a roster, how many travel, and how many have to wait their turn a couple of years before snagging playing time?

[PaulNewman]

Next...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_football

Then rockem-sockem robots, and Atari pong...

[WLCALUM83]

This is real...

https://adrianbulldogs.com/news/2022/1/13/max-benedict-to-lead-cornhole-program-after-being-named-head-coach.aspx

2 more cornhole sport links:

https://www.cornholeaddicts.com/leagues
https://americancornhole.com (next televised meet is scheduled for 4/22-23/22 in Cedar Rapids, IA)

ACO's got too many divisions, so I'd have to pick only 1 or 2, mainly.