Kupchella's modest proposal

[PCM]

I'm surprised that this letter from UND President Charles Kupchella to the NCAA didn't receive any news coverage or get any mention here. The text of the news release is followed by Kupchella's letter.

University of North Dakota President Charles E. Kupchella has sent a letter to the NCAA asking that organization to consider a proposal "to eliminate 'Divisions' except on a sport-by-sport basis." The letter, which went into the mail on Wednesday, Nov. 23, is addressed to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Executive Committee and asks the committee, as well as the full membership of the NCAA, to consider Kupchella's "Modest Proposal to the NCAA to Eliminate the Remaining Boundaries Between Divisions," which was enclosed with the letter.

Kupchella said the issue of the NCAA's divisions has been on UND's radar for some time. He noted that UND included a bullet to consider the NCAA classification system under Priority/Action Area A of its new Strategic Plan, unveiled in October 2005. That bullet calls for UND to "Continue to consider optimal NCAA classification positioning for UND through the establishment of a task group to explore (a) strategies for influencing the improvement of the NCAA classification system, e.g., extending the opportunity for schools to split Division I and Division II levels of different sports as is now done in hockey, and (b) the rationale, stakeholder interest, opportunity, and financial means of moving all UND athletic programs to the Division I level as currently organized."

November 23, 2005

Modest Proposal to the NCAA to Eliminate the Remaining Boundaries Between Divisions

President Myles Brand has pointed out that the NCAA has a responsibility to monitor how division affiliation criteria affect the greater good of the Association. He has often said that institutions, not the NCAA, must determine through the most appropriate membership affiliation, how best to carry out and live by institutional values in the context of their academic mission. The following proposal takes the position that the NCAA's rules (governing division status) * themselves * frustrate the ability of institutions to meet that objective.

In Gary Brown's article in the October 11, 2004, NCAA News, he points out that while institutions do pay a lot of attention to their own identities, there may need to be equal attention paid to how divisional decisions affect the NCAA family, and that the issue of divisional "boxes" may need broader attention. Carol Cartwright, speaking as NCAA Executive Committee Chair, said that such concerns have not been systematically addressed, but that the Executive Committee would be, in fact, the appropriate body for a review. Thus, this proposal is directed to the Executive Committee.

The proposal, in summary, is to eliminate "Divisions" except on a sport-by-sport basis. The remainder of this proposal will elaborate on the logic of doing this.

First of all, the NCAA has already started down this road and, in fact, is well down the road. So called Division I schools have at least four options for playing football, for example. The range of these options is such that it belies any explanation having to do with "philosophical coherence." Division IA has 85 scholarships; Division IAA can have up to 63, while some AA schools have no scholarships at all; and, of course, many Division I schools do not play football.

Some Division III schools play hockey at Division I and, in fact, that Division recently rejected any purist notion of Division III by allowing its member schools to play Division I hockey, despite not otherwise having so-called athletic scholarships. At many Division II schools, hockey and several other sports are played at the Division I level.

It seems there are only relatively weak arguments in support of having "divisions" as basically an all-or-none proposition. One of these is that it makes it easier to have conference affiliations. Yet, more than a few colleges and universities play hockey and/or other sports at one level, with other sports at a different level, and simply belong to more than one conference. This can be, and is being done in other words.

Another reason cited in support of all-or-none Divisions is "philosophical coherence." But this, too, is less than compelling, as already suggested above. There is no coherence within current Divisions anyway. The largest Division II school has 22,000 students; the smallest has 300. They cover the entire spectrum of philosophical commitments and missions, and thus there isn't any philosophical or any other kind of coherence between and among Division II schools, other than that imposed by the athletic designation. The range of differences is, if anything, even greater in Division I.

A more substantive reason for this structure, and the one that will keep this proposal from being seriously considered, some say, is that it serves as a way to limit the number of high-dollar shares of NCAA revenue, mainly from television. This has some credibility since there are also other ways in which it is made more difficult than necessary for schools to move from one classification to another, particularly to the classification that yields the largest shares of television money. The argument sometimes made for long periods of ineligibility * another barrier * imposed on schools seeking to move "up," is that it takes time to grow into Division I. Yet, two years ago, two schools from the North Central Conference, unranked in Division II in their last year of Division II football competition, were ranked in the top 25 their first year in Division IAA. The need to finance a wholesale move by 20 or more sports * all at the same time * is certainly a major barrier in any case. Could we not find another way to move more dollars to the high-cost programs?

So, what about the reasons for decoupling sports from Division status, i.e., retain the division status but only on a sport-by-sport basis, rather than on a school-by-school basis?

First and foremost, a loosening up of the status of an institution would take out the temptations of some schools to move all of their sports up, despite the difficulty of doing so financially. It would make it harder to identify a particular institution as a Division I school or a Division III school. It is an undeniable reality that as long as there are indicators or designations for three divisions * currently I, II, and III * there will be the impression that Division I is the "best." No amount of talking about it or emphasizing "brand" at other division levels will change the fact that many believe the rank of I is something to which all institutions should, even if they don't, aspire. Second, it would allow schools that really do want to move all of their sports to the "highest" athletic level to do so following a business plan that would move one sport, or a few sports, up per year, rather than having to move them all at one time. Third, it would allow schools to have at least some sports where the focus could be on regional students. Schools would not have to recruit or play all of their sports on a national level.

A recent summer conference of Division II presidents revealed several sets of conclusions that beg for a new solution to the relatively rigid current classification of NCAA schools. A study by the Orszag brothers reported at the meeting revealed there was no significant economic or other benefit of schools moving from Division II to Division I, other than the perceived "prestige" of doing so. It was suggested that many schools, in search for visibility and "status," may be diverting resources from faculty salaries, equipment, academic programs, and other such important things, to make the move to Division I, where there is a much more significant net loss in funding every year despite much larger sums of money being spent. Every school for which the Orszag brothers had data experienced a decline in net operating revenue excluding institutional support, state support, and student activity fees when moving from Division II to Division I. The median decline was almost $2 million.

I won't develop the arguments here addressing the need to do more about the financial arms race in intercollegiate athletics, except to say that the sums of money now being spent could well be distorting even the fundamental paradigms of sport such as sportsmanship and competition. How can it be asserted, when there are hundreds of millions at stake, that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose but "how you play the game."

A proposal to decouple football from a strict adherence to division status is, as I understand it, now under discussion. The proposal here would simply take that proposal further.

In touting the Division II sports festival, President Brand, in the April 28 edition of the NCAA News, is quoted as saying, "We do not always take the time that we should to recognize and celebrate innovation." He goes on to say, "It is human nature to execute the proven approach rather than finding new and better ways of doing things. It is the safer method, after all * certainly one that is less likely to be second guessed." He then goes on to say, "Of course it is also the route to organizational malaise. When we fail to innovate, we run an increasing risk of paying more attention to the process itself than to what the process is meant to accomplish." While these remarks were directed at the championship festival idea, they hold for the concept being proposed here as well. The NCAA's current division structure should be made less rigid.

[Hansel]

http://siouxsports.com/forums/index.php?sh...pic=4447&st=100

[PCM]

Oops. Sorry.

[Hansel]

November 23, 2005

Modest Proposal to the NCAA to Eliminate the Remaining Boundaries Between Divisions

President Myles Brand has pointed out that the NCAA has a responsibility to monitor how division affiliation criteria affect the greater good of the Association. He has often said that institutions, not the NCAA, must determine through the most appropriate membership affiliation, how best to carry out and live by institutional values in the context of their academic mission. The following proposal takes the position that the NCAA's rules (governing division status) * themselves * frustrate the ability of institutions to meet that objective.

In Gary Brown's article in the October 11, 2004, NCAA News, he points out that while institutions do pay a lot of attention to their own identities, there may need to be equal attention paid to how divisional decisions affect the NCAA family, and that the issue of divisional "boxes" may need broader attention. Carol Cartwright, speaking as NCAA Executive Committee Chair, said that such concerns have not been systematically addressed, but that the Executive Committee would be, in fact, the appropriate body for a review. Thus, this proposal is directed to the Executive Committee.

The proposal, in summary, is to eliminate "Divisions" except on a sport-by-sport basis. The remainder of this proposal will elaborate on the logic of doing this.

First of all, the NCAA has already started down this road and, in fact, is well down the road. So called Division I schools have at least four options for playing football, for example. The range of these options is such that it belies any explanation having to do with "philosophical coherence." Division IA has 85 scholarships; Division IAA can have up to 63, while some AA schools have no scholarships at all; and, of course, many Division I schools do not play football.

Some Division III schools play hockey at Division I and, in fact, that Division recently rejected any purist notion of Division III by allowing its member schools to play Division I hockey, despite not otherwise having so-called athletic scholarships. At many Division II schools, hockey and several other sports are played at the Division I level.

It seems there are only relatively weak arguments in support of having "divisions" as basically an all-or-none proposition. One of these is that it makes it easier to have conference affiliations. Yet, more than a few colleges and universities play hockey and/or other sports at one level, with other sports at a different level, and simply belong to more than one conference. This can be, and is being done in other words.

Another reason cited in support of all-or-none Divisions is "philosophical coherence." But this, too, is less than compelling, as already suggested above. There is no coherence within current Divisions anyway. The largest Division II school has 22,000 students; the smallest has 300. They cover the entire spectrum of philosophical commitments and missions, and thus there isn't any philosophical or any other kind of coherence between and among Division II schools, other than that imposed by the athletic designation. The range of differences is, if anything, even greater in Division I.

A more substantive reason for this structure, and the one that will keep this proposal from being seriously considered, some say, is that it serves as a way to limit the number of high-dollar shares of NCAA revenue, mainly from television. This has some credibility since there are also other ways in which it is made more difficult than necessary for schools to move from one classification to another, particularly to the classification that yields the largest shares of television money.

The argument sometimes made for long periods of ineligibility * another barrier * imposed on schools seeking to move "up," is that it takes time to grow into Division I. Yet, two years ago, two schools from the North Central Conference, unranked in Division II in their last year of Division II football competition, were ranked in the top 25 their first year in Division IAA.

I am not sure who he is talking about, but NDSU and UNC were ranked in their final year of Division II, and SDSU was not ranked in IAA in their first year

The need to finance a wholesale move by 20 or more sports * all at the same time * is certainly a major barrier in any case. Could we not find another way to move more dollars to the high-cost programs?

So, what about the reasons for decoupling sports from Division status, i.e., retain the division status but only on a sport-by-sport basis, rather than on a school-by-school basis?

First and foremost, a loosening up of the status of an institution would take out the temptations of some schools to move all of their sports up, despite the difficulty of doing so financially. It would make it harder to identify a particular institution as a Division I school or a Division III school. It is an undeniable reality that as long as there are indicators or designations for three divisions * currently I, II, and III * there will be the impression that Division I is the "best."

Ummm yeah, Division I will always have the highest level of athletic competition and does have the highest academic standards for athletes

No amount of talking about it or emphasizing "brand" at other division levels will change the fact that many believe the rank of I is something to which all institutions should, even if they don't, aspire. Second, it would allow schools that really do want to move all of their sports to the "highest" athletic level to do so following a business plan that would move one sport, or a few sports, up per year, rather than having to move them all at one time. Third, it would allow schools to have at least some sports where the focus could be on regional students. Schools would not have to recruit or play all of their sports on a national level.

A recent summer conference of Division II presidents revealed several sets of conclusions that beg for a new solution to the relatively rigid current classification of NCAA schools. A study by the Orszag brothers reported at the meeting revealed there was no significant economic or other benefit of schools moving from Division II to Division I, other than the perceived "prestige" of doing so. It was suggested that many schools, in search for visibility and "status," may be diverting resources from faculty salaries, equipment, academic programs, and other such important things, to make the move to Division I, where there is a much more significant net loss in funding every year despite much larger sums of money being spent. Every school for which the Orszag brothers had data experienced a decline in net operating revenue excluding institutional support, state support, and student activity fees when moving from Division II to Division I. The median decline was almost $2 million.

I won't develop the arguments here addressing the need to do more about the financial arms race in intercollegiate athletics, except to say that the sums of money now being spent could well be distorting even the fundamental paradigms of sport such as sportsmanship and competition. How can it be asserted, when there are hundreds of millions at stake, that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose but "how you play the game."

A proposal to decouple football from a strict adherence to division status is, as I understand it, now under discussion. The proposal here would simply take that proposal further.

http://www2.ncaa.org/media_and_events/asso...ii/4221n18.html

not for DII schools wanting to move up

In touting the Division II sports festival, President Brand, in the April 28 edition of the NCAA News, is quoted as saying, "We do not always take the time that we should to recognize and celebrate innovation." He goes on to say, "It is human nature to execute the proven approach rather than finding new and better ways of doing things. It is the safer method, after all * certainly one that is less likely to be second guessed." He then goes on to say, "Of course it is also the route to organizational malaise. When we fail to innovate, we run an increasing risk of paying more attention to the process itself than to what the process is meant to accomplish." While these remarks were directed at the championship festival idea, they hold for the concept being proposed here as well. The NCAA's current division structure should be made less rigid.

I think he beats the "hockey horse" a bit much, hockey is a unique sport in the college realm (# teams, history of teams playing at the highest level etc).

Fact checking a little off, but all in all you can't blame a guy for trying I guess

[DamStrait]

I think he beats the "hockey horse" a bit much, hockey is a unique sport in the college realm (# teams, history of teams playing at the highest level etc).

The word 'hockey' appears in his letter 4 times; 3 times in one of the shorter paragraphs of the letter and once in the paragraph following. I think it's a bit much to characterize this as "beats the 'hockey horse' a bit much".

Edited November 28, 2005 by DamStrait

[The Sicatoka]

A look back at where a notion this crazy appeared here in the past ....

As far as hockey, to soothe the fans of some other schools why not replace "UND" with "Johns Hopkins" and "hockey" with "lacrosse" to feel better if that's what it takes.

Edited November 29, 2005 by The Sicatoka

[jimdahl]

A look back at where a notion this crazy appeared here in the past ....

If we're tooting our own horns, I would have thought you were going to provide a link to the first reference to this idea. Aside from making sure D2football and I get our proper glory, the real point of digging up that post was that it included my reasons why such a change is nearly impossible:

• It would only benefit the small schools and D-I legislation tends to be about preserving the status of the big schools.
  
• I also don't think you're going to see anyone rush to abandon multi-sport conferences any time soon, so those schools that are not D-I across all sports would always be the ugly stepchildren.
  
• And then, of course, there's Title IX, you'd have to attach women's programs to men's to ensure that women got the same opportunities at the same level.
  

Point #2 is big. If such a rule change came about (very unlikely if, IMHO), would conferences like Big Sky and pre-expansion ACC start accepting football-only members, or would they still prefer all-sport conferences? If the latter, that would relegate schools that played up to distinctly lesser single sport conferences. It works in hockey because there's no alignment between hockey conferences and most schools' other multi-sport conferences.

[The Sicatoka]

[*]And then, of course, there's Title IX, you'd have to attach women's programs to men's to ensure that women got the same opportunities at the same level.

Here's where I believe the NCAA should simply eliminate its sport requirements and only have a simple statement: You must be compliant with Title IX of federal law. Why have two separate bureaucracies trying to accomplish the same thing.

[The Sicatoka]

[*]It would only benefit the small schools and D-I legislation tends to be about preserving the status of the big schools.

With the influx of "mid-majors" (jumbo shrimp?) to DI the Super Six conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, Big East, plus Notre Dame) have whispers of their own method of "preserving the status of the big schools" swirling about them: Leaving the NCAA and forming their own consortium and making TV deals that they don't have to share with the rest of the wannabes and hangers-on.

[Hansel]

A Modest Proposal

[jimdahl]

With the influx of "mid-majors" (jumbo shrimp?) to DI the Super Six conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, Big East, plus Notre Dame) have whispers of their own method of "preserving the status of the big schools" swirling about them: Leaving the NCAA and forming their own consortium and making TV deals that they don't have to share with the rest of the wannabes and hangers-on.

Though you hear some grumbling about the influx of small schools into the bottom tiers of D-I, does it really affect big schools' revenue or influence that much? I thought the vast majority of the basketball dollars went to the big schools? Plus, as long as the big D-I's still bring in all the $$$, they have de facto control of the NCAA, no matter how many mid-tier schools jump up to I-AA or I-AAA. Do the top tier schools really care how many hundreds of schools are competing for those bottom 15 Big Dance autobids?

The schools that I would actually expect to be most opposed to such a change are the NDSU's of the world who aren't that dissimiliar from UND but who feel like they sacrificed all their minor sports to play football at a higher level -- they wouldn't want to see smaller athletic programs that couldn't transition all sports derive the benefit of playing football at that higher level.

My proposal, linked above, solves the problem of 1000 schools opting up to play basketball at D-I by linking the ala carte system with division membership requirements. If a school can average 4000 fans per basketball game, they can go D-I in that sport; if they can average 10000 fans per football game, they can go D-I in that sport. That's not a huge leap from the current soft limit on DI-A football membership.

[The Sicatoka]

A Modest Proposal

From the link:

In modern usage, the phrase "modest proposal" has come to indicate a proposal that is anything but modest. Such a 'proposal' may serve to advance a cause or argument, by promoting discussion on the merits of the argument's opposite.

Yes, Dr. Kupchella has anything but a modest proposal (for NCAA overhaul) and clearly he's promoting discussion on the merits of the proposed and present systems. Thanks for noticing.

[The Sicatoka]

My proposal, linked above, solves the problem of 1000 schools opting up to play basketball at D-I by linking the ala carte system with division membership requirements. If a school can average 4000 fans per basketball game, they can go D-I in that sport; if they can average 10000 fans per football game, they can go D-I in that sport. That's not a huge leap from the current soft limit on DI-A football membership.

To help my understanding of what you are saying: Instead of the schools "picking" a level, their level is set for them by objective criteria (what they do in terms of attendance and I'd assume fiscal support). Am I correct?

[jimdahl]

To help my understanding of what you are saying: Instead of the schools "picking" a level, their level is set for them by objective criteria (what they do in terms of attendance and I'd assume fiscal support). Am I correct?

Well, I'd still let schools pick, just restricted to picking from divisions for which they meet the objective standards. This is already in place for I-A football. If you have 15,000 fans per game, you can classify as I-A, if you don't you can't. However, 15,000 doesn't force you to go I-A in football, it just permits it; schools (Montana?) that average more than 15k per game can still choose to classify as I-AA (or even II or III) for institutional reasons.

My proposal is adding a similar system (perhaps also including minimum funding) to the other divisions of football (at least I-AA and II) and to other sports, as needed. A primary critique against Kupchella's ala carte proposal is that 1000 small schools could misclassify themselves as D-I in basketball to try to chase TV $$$, while not really fielding an objectively D-I caliber team. This idea is a way to extend Kupchella's ala carte division proposal to ensure schools classify each sport in a suitable division; it further has the benefit of using techniques already in place in NCAA governance.