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. D-III schools are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships, while D-II schools can.
D-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]
Requirements
D-III institutions must sponsor at least three team sports for each sex/gender, with each playing season represented by each gender. Teams in which men and women compete together are counted as men's teams for sports sponsorship purposes. In a feature unique to D-III, the total number of required sports varies with each school's full-time undergraduate enrollment. Schools with an enrollment of 1,000 or less must sponsor five men's and five women's sports; those with larger enrollments must sponsor six for each sex/gender. Institutions that sponsor athletic programs for only one sex/gender (single-sex schools, plus a few historically all-female schools that are now coeducational) need only meet the sponsorship requirements for that sex. There are minimum contest rules and participant minimums for each sport.[2][3]
D-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.[3] Student-athletes cannot redshirt as freshmen,[4][5][6] and schools may not use endowments or funds whose primary purpose is to benefit athletic programs.[7]
D-III schools "shall not award financial aid to any student on the basis of athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance".[8] 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".[9] 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.[10] 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.
Another aspect that distinguishes D-III from the other NCAA divisions is that D-III institutions are specifically banned from using the National Letter of Intent, or any other pre-enrollment form that is not executed by other prospective students at the school. The NCAA provides for one exception—a standard, nonbinding celebratory signing form that may be signed by the student upon his or her acceptance of enrollment. However, this form cannot be signed at the campus of that college, and staff members of that college cannot be present at the signing.[11]
Conferences
All-sports conferences
An "all-sports conference" is defined here as one that sponsors both men's and women's basketball. While the NCAA has a much more detailed definition of the term, every NCAA conference (regardless of division) that sponsors basketball meets the organization's requirements for "all-sports" status.
↑ 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 14 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 12 other sports.
Ten D-III schools currently field Division I programs in one or two sports, one maximum for each gender. These schools are allowed to offer athletic scholarships only for their D-I men's and women's sports.
Five of them are schools that 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.[12] These five colleges (plus three others that later chose to return their D-I programs to D-III) were granted a waiver (a.k.a. a grandfather clause) in 1983 to continue offering scholarships, a waiver that was reaffirmed in 2004.[12] Presumably due to Title IX considerations, grandfathered schools are also allowed to field one women's sport in D-I, and all five schools choose to do so.
Three formerly grandfathered schools moved completely to D-III. The State University of New York at Oneonta, which had been grandfathered in men's soccer, moved totally to D-II in 2006. Rutgers University–Newark, which had been grandfathered in men's volleyball, did the same in 2014.[13]Hartwick College, which had been grandfathered in men's soccer and women's water polo, moved its men's soccer program to D-III in 2018 and dropped women's water polo entirely.[14]
The other five schools chose to field D-I programs in one sport for men and/or one sport for women after the original grandfather clause went into effect, so they were not grandfathered and thus were not allowed to offer athletic scholarships. Academic-based and need-based financial aid was still available, as is the case for all of D-III.
In addition, Lawrence University was formerly a non-grandfathered program in fencing, but the NCAA no longer conducts a separate D-I fencing championship. Lawrence continues to field a fencing team, but that team is now considered D-III (see below).
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.[15]
Since no more colleges would be allowed to move individual sports to D-I, the five non-scholarship programs (led by RIT and Union) petitioned to be allowed to offer scholarships in the interests of competitive equity.[16][17][18] D-III membership voted in January 2022 to extend the grandfather clause to allow all ten colleges to offer athletic scholarships, effective immediately.[19]
Football and basketball may not be D-I programs at D-III institutions, because their revenue-enhancing potential would give them an unfair advantage over other D-III schools. In 1992, several D-I schools playing D-III football were forced to bring their football programs into D-I, following the passage of the "Dayton Rule" (named after the University of Dayton, whose success in D-III football was seen as threatening the "ethos" of Division III sports). This led directly to the creation of the Pioneer Football League, a non-scholarship football-only Division I FCS conference.
In addition to the D-III schools with teams that play as D-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 D-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.[20] 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.[21]
Inclusion programs
D-III announced the creation of a LGBTQ inclusion program in 2019. Named as their LGBTQ OneTeam Program, it is designed to create more LGBTQ inclusion in D-III athletics within the NCAA.[22] The program has facilitators from more than 40 colleges across the country, including Smith College, Agnes Scott College, and more.[23] The group publicly condemned laws trying to limit transgender people in sports in 2021.[24] A member of the program – Rhea Debussy who is a transgender rights activist – publicly left the program after changes to the NCAAtransgender policy in 2022.[25]
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and 1 in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Patriot League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising private institutions of higher education and two United States service academies based in the Northeastern United States. Except for the Ivy League, it is the most selective group of higher education institutions in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and has a very high student-athlete graduation rate for both the NCAA graduation success rate and the federal graduation rate.
The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Participating schools are located principally in the Northeastern United States, from which the conference derives its name.
The South Atlantic Conference (SAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, which operates in the southeastern United States. The SAC was founded in 1975 as a football-only conference and became an all-sports conference beginning with the 1989–90 season.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
The Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Division I FCS level in 2022. Originally established as the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) in 1978, it was renamed as the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001, and briefly rebranded as the ASUN Conference from 2016 to 2023. The conference still uses "ASUN" as an official abbreviation. The conference headquarters are located in Jacksonville.
NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment offered in Division III.
College athletics in the United States or college sports in the United States refers primarily to sports and athletic training and competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education in a two-tiered system.
NCAA Division I independent schools are four-year institutions that compete in college athletics at the NCAA Division I level, but do not belong to an established athletic conference for a particular sport. These schools may however still compete as members of an athletic conference in other sports. A school may also be fully independent, and not belong to any athletic conference for any sport at all. The reason for independent status varies among institutions, but it is frequently because the school's primary athletic conference does not sponsor a particular sport.
In college athletics in the United States, recruiting is the process in which college coaches add prospective student athletes to their roster each off-season. This process typically culminates in a coach extending an athletic scholarship offer to a player who is about to be a junior in high school or higher. There are instances, mostly at lower division universities, where no athletic scholarship can be awarded and where the player pays for tuition, housing, and textbook costs out of pocket or from financial aid. During this recruiting process, schools must comply with rules that define who may be involved in the recruiting process, when recruiting may occur and the conditions under which recruiting may be conducted. Recruiting rules seek, as much as possible, to control intrusions into the lives of prospective student-athletes. The NCAA defines recruiting as “any solicitation of prospective student-athletes or their parents by an institutional staff member or by a representative of the institution’s athletics interests for the purpose of securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment and ultimate participation in the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program."
College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America.
College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
The TCNJ Lions are the athletic teams representing The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). They are a member of the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) and compete within Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The LIU Post Pioneers were the athletic teams that represented the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, located in Brookville, New York, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports through the 2018–19 school year. The Pioneers most recently competed as members of the East Coast Conference for most sports; the football team was an affiliate of the Northeast-10 Conference. LIU Post has been a member of the ECC since 1989, when the league was established as the New York Collegiate Athletic Conference.
NCAA Emerging Sports for Women are intercollegiate women's sports that are recognized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, but do not have sanctioned NCAA Championships.
The NCAA transfer portal is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) application, database, and compliance tool created to manage and facilitate the process for student athletes seeking to transfer between member institutions. It is intended to bring greater transparency to the transfer process and to enable student athletes to publicize their desire to transfer. The transfer portal is an NCAA-wide database covering all three NCAA divisions, although most media coverage of the transfer portal involves its use in the top-level DivisionI (D-I).
↑ NCAA. "Bylaw 14.2.4.1 Minimum Amount of Participation". 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual(PDF). p.93. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 8, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2012.
↑ Under Bylaw 14.2.4.1, a D-III athlete uses a year of eligibility by either practicing with or playing on a team. This differs from the rules for D-I and D-II, in which only playing on a team counts as participation.
↑ 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).
↑ "Bylaw 15.01.5 Student-Athlete Financial Aid Endowments or Funds". 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual(PDF). NCAA. p.107. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 8, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2012.
↑ "Bylaw 15.01.3 Institutional Financial Aid". 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual(PDF). NCAA. p.107. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 8, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2012.
↑ "Bylaw 15.4.1 Consistent Financial Aid Package.". 2012–13 NCAA Division III Manual(PDF). NCAA. p.110. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 8, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2012.
↑ "LSDBi". ncaa.org. Archived from the original on September 9, 2015. Retrieved March 21, 2013.
↑ "Bylaw 13.9.1 Letter-of-intent Prohibition". 2018–19 NCAA Division III Manual(PDF). NCAA. pp.80–81. Archived(PDF) from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved January 28, 2019. A staff member whose child or other close relative signs such a form can be present, but only in a personal capacity and not as an official school representative.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
