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[ncaancaa]

I read with great interest the article, “An Ugly Game” that appeared on the back page of the Review section in the Dec. 12 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

 The anonymous author and his daughter have been disappointed with her Division III athletics experience.  Their disappointment would seem justified, based on the allegations in the article. 

Without doubt, student-athlete experiences, on occasion, do not live up to expectations.  This is unfortunate, and deserves attention, whenever it occurs. 

I am concerned that the author implies that his daughter’s experience is “not uncommon at many small private NCAA Division III colleges.” This paints with an awfully broad brush and certainly begs questions like how many “colleagues and coaches” the author spoke with to justify such a conclusion. Further, the secondary headline for the piece indicates that what is described in the article represents some kind of small college standard—which I would assert simply is not the case.  I and others would strongly argue that the experience of the young lady in question is not the norm.

Certainly her experience, as described, seems inconsistent with key tenets of the Division III Philosophy Statement.  Colleges and universities in Division III place highest priority on the overall quality of the educational experience and on the successful completion of all students' academic programs.  They seek to establish and maintain an environment in which a student-athlete's athletics activities are conducted as an integral part of the student-athlete's educational experience.  Division III member schools offer intercollegiate athletics programs because of the inherent educational value provided to participating student-athletes, not because they generate revenue or offer benefits to the broader community. 

In this regard, the student-athlete’s experience is of paramount concern.  The actions of coaches and administrators are expected to exhibit fairness, openness and honesty in their relationships with student-athletes.  It is this concept, in particular, that seems to have been neglected in the case at hand. 

In  Division III, it is the responsibility of our member schools to uphold these goals and priorities and continue to support this philosophy.  I am confident that the vast majority of our membership does exactly that.  If true, the situation described in “An Ugly Game” represents a disappointing failure of athletics administrators at one Division III school to fulfill that commitment. 

Sincerely,

Dan Dutcher
Vice President for Division III
NCAA

[sibyl]

Mr. Dutcher obviously has some skin in this game.  But my experience at a D-III institution more closely parallels what he describes than that which the author of the article describes.  Coaches here are committed to ensuring that everyone plays, although students may not all dress for every game and they may only see a few minutes of game time.  The one exception is football, but in that case we do have a JV squad that scrimmages with other JV squads.

D-I coaches have a fixed number of scholarships and the scholarships give a pretty good indication of a player's status with the coach.  D-III coaches have no scholarships, therefore they must over-recruit, because if they recruit three quarterbacks they might get three, two, or one, or none.  That's also part of the explanation of why all players get some game action; if the second-string quarterback transfers out and the first-stringer gets hurt, then suddenly the coach really needs those guys at #3 and #4 on the depth chart, and they need to have an idea about what to do.

All athletes reach some point at which their skills are overmatched.  Many reach this point in high school, others in college, others in the pros.  It's always hard to face that fact, and part of the job of a D-III coach is helping students manage that reality.  This student has not been well served at this institution, but there are many institutions that treat students properly.

[jhorstma]

I sincerely doubt colleges are using sports as a recruiting ploy. With 2 kids that participated in DIII and 1 in DI sports, I can say that my experience was nothing like Mr. Dutcher's. The coaches were all very clear about the role each would be able to play on the team (i.e. how they compared to current team members and current recruits), how they were likely to be used in competitions, and what would be required as far as committment of time, training, etc. The fact that swimming was the sport that my 3 kids participated in may have made it much easier to gauge these things because a swimmer's times are easy to find and use for comparison purposes.
I also saw examples of parents and kids that had an over-inflated view of their talent and these were the ones that most often ran into frustrations and problems with the coach. I'm not saying that this is the case with Mr. Dutcher.
My opinion is that if you want to have a successful experience with college sports, you should be realistic about your kid's current ability, spend time before making an enrollment decision observing the team you hope to join and asses how you fit in. Also, have an honest discussion with the coach about your expectations  and try to accurately gaguge your kid's willingness to put in the time and effort required for college sports, their ability to handle failure and frustration, as well as success.
My experience has been that more kids drop off the team than stay and there is always plenty of room for kids who works hard, come to practice and make a committment to the team to do whatever the coach needs in order to help the team.
jih

[spork]

Link?

[sibyl]

Not yet free.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i16/16b02001.htm