CC's NCAA Division III league may split up
Tuesday could be an historic day for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
The NCAA Division III league, which includes all of Colorado College's teams except its Division I men's hockey and women's soccer programs, could lose several members if things go as expected at the annual presidents meeting.
Four schools located in Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee – Centre, Hendrix, Rhodes and Sewanee: University of the South – expressed their intent in early May to leave the 12-member league effective July 1, 2012.
If those four leave as expected, another three – Birmingham-Southern in Alabama, Oglethorpe in Atlanta and Millsaps in Mississippi – may follow, said CC athletic director Ken Ralph. Such a seven-team conference would all be within a bus ride of each other.
“We won’t really know what will happen until June 7,” Ralph said. “It is a foregone conclusion (Centre, Hendrix, Rhodes and Sewanee) will leave.”
That would leave four Texas schools – Austin, Dallas, Southwestern and Trinity – and CC in a new-look SCAC. Dallas will begin play in the league this fall. Any vote Tuesday would not affect the 2011-12 season.
Concerns over travel costs for the current SCAC, which would have members in seven states from Colorado to Georgia after DePauw (Indiana) leaves this summer prompted a proposal to split the league into east and west divisions that would not play each other until the postseason.
That plan would limit the number of conference games for each school, forcing SCAC members to schedule more nonleague foes. It would not affect automatic NCAA qualifying bids, unlike splitting up the SCAC.
If all seven eastern schools leave, Ralph said the remaining five schools would look to expand the league. The only D-3 independents in the West are Cal-Santa Cruz and Nebraska Wesleyan in Lincoln.
CC becoming a D-3 independent again would make little financial sense. Ralph said the Tigers had few home games in its final year as an independent because of the difficulty of working around other school’s conference games.
“We’re very happy with being associated with the Texas schools,” Ralph said.
Staying with the new-look SCAC would not save a ton of money because the Tigers would still take direct flights to Texas to avoid missing a lot of class time under the block system.
CC also would have to add more nonconference games against the D-2 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which includes Colorado-Colorado Springs, to fill holes in its schedule, especially midweek.
Joining the RMAC has been “on the table” for some time, Ralph said, with CC officials talking to league and member school administrators. The moves by the SCAC’s eastern schools had nothing to do with that consideration, Ralph added.
The additional cost of adding athletic scholarships for an expensive private school – D-3 does not award them – has been the main deterrent despite some travel savings. The challenging prospect of remaining competitive against much larger, public schools is another deterrent. Ralph acknowledged there are some vocal alumni urging the founding member of the RMAC to rejoin the Colorado Springs-based league.
CC joined the SCAC, made up entirely of private schools, in 2006 in some sports and all in 2007.
