This is the second article in a series examining the current state of Div. III athletics.
The 2006 Div. III NCAA champions have been crowned in soccer, volleyball, cross country and field hockey. Five teams have won their sport's highest honor and realized the dream of every kid that has ever put on a uniform.
But the paths that carried these five teams to national titles were very different from the ones their predecessors took, and with decade-old changes to the championship selection process now firmly entrenched in most sports, their effects are being felt - and debated - across the nation.
In 1997, the NCAA changed its championship selection process from a system of entirely at-large selections to a one in which a majority of the slots go to automatically qualifying conference champions, with at-large bids filling the rest of the field. The legislation had both immediate and longer-term aims, and its effectiveness on both counts is still being debated.
Immediately, the legislation was enacted to address concerns among smaller, traditionally less successful schools that access to NCAA championships was nearly impossible for smaller players.
"There was a feeling among what you might call the 'have-nots,' schools that never qualified for Nationals," Director of Athletics Bill Gehling said. "They were saying that the NCAA Tournament was a closed club, that the selection committee would use subjective criteria that closed them out."
More long-term, there was a "for the good of the sport" argument. Smaller teams from weaker conferences now have a chance, however slim, at a Cinderella run at a national title, and coaches have an extra card to play in the recruiting process. Together, these are designed to help spread the talent - and hardware - more evenly, especially in sports like volleyball, field hockey and lacrosse, which tend to be dominated by schools from particular regions.
There is evidence that this has worked, although the cause is hard to pinpoint. In volleyball, for example, the 1990s were a story of two teams, Washington University in St. Louis and Central College in Iowa. But no team has repeated as champions in the 2000s, and while the powerhouses are still there, the field is spreading out.
Field hockey, which expanded the championship field from 19 to 24 teams in 2005, saw Salisbury's three-year reign come to an end this season, as Ursinus won its first-ever title. Women's soccer has not had a repeat champion since 2002. While it's difficult to tie this budding parity to the expansion of the field and increase in conferences earning automatic qualifiers, many believe that it is the cause.
"The automatic qualifying system guarantees access [to championships], and I actually don't have a problem with that because it helps grow the sport," Gehling said. "Traditionally weaker leagues, like the [Commonwealth Coast Conference] right around here - I've seen it grow. I've seen them putting more money into program, hiring more coaches, getting better kids, and the quality of play is improving."
According to Middlebury field hockey coach Katharine DeLorenzo, the expansion of the bracket has augmented other factors, namely the widespread improvement of playing facilities, in building programs and leveling the playing field.
"It used to be that weak conferences were embarrassingly weak, but now those conferences have fairly representative teams in the tournament," DeLorenzo said. "The automatic qualifier used to introduce bad teams into the tournament and that's less the case. The expansion of the bracket has assisted in bringing along teams that are now playing on better surfaces. It gives them a chance to really succeed."
But this 'spread-the-wealth' plan is not a complete success, and it's been hampered by a lack of parity within the newcomer conferences, which often send the same teams year after year. A look at the Commonwealth Coast Conference illustrates this point: Roger Williams has won five of the last six men's soccer titles, and Endicott has won at least three straight titles in men's basketball, women's soccer and men's lacrosse.
"[The legislation] didn't increase access - it just changed access," Williams Director of Athletics Lisa Melendy said. "Now one team from these conferences gets to go, but it's often the same team in any given sport. It has increased access certainly for conferences as a whole, but I would maintain that most teams in those conferences still have no actual opportunity."
Hand in hand with the move to automatic qualifiers came a revamped selection process for at-large bids that relied exclusively on statistical analysis. This was supposed to remove the favoritism that tended to reward historically strong schools with repeat bids. But according to Gehling, it has come with some unintended consequences for strong programs in strong conferences - a label that fits many NESCAC teams.
For its member teams, that tough NESCAC regular-season schedule will likely yield a few more losses than teams in other local conferences, possibly dropping NESCAC schools out of contention for an at-large bid.
"I actually don't have a problem with [automatic qualifiers] as long as there are enough at-large bids to address outstanding teams in very strong conferences, and there aren't right now," Gehling said. "The way it's being implemented now is hurting really strong conferences too much."
This is doubly detrimental as conference tournaments became the gatekeepers to the NCAA championship. Now, a season of dominance can be undone in a single weekend of tournament play.
"It also makes the way NESCAC does its tournaments that much more frustrating," Gehling said. "You have teams playing a game on Sunday after a game on Saturday and have it deciding their access to NCAA championships."
Not all administrators agree, although feelings may vary from sport to sport, as each has a different-sized bracket. Also, some sports, like field hockey, are played by fewer schools than soccer or volleyball, and so do not have a wealth of good teams.
"In general, I don't think the third-place team in a conference, even one as strong as the NESCAC, should have a spot in the national championship," said DeLorenzo, whose Panthers made their seventh straight NCAA appearance this year with an at-large bid after a NESCAC title game loss. "Making the NCAA tournament has to remain a real achievement and my concern is that that's not upheld if there's too much leeway in at-large bids. There has to be room for teams that can really make a run at national championship to be in there, but I think, by and large, there is."
However, while he stressed that NCAA championships are not the focus of Tufts athletics, Gehling still sees serious problems in the tournament's format.
"The national championship becomes something far different from what it should be; instead of best teams vying for a title, it's a nice little tournament," Gehling said. "A lot of really good teams are in it, and you're not going to win unless you're a heck of a team, but there are teams that are top-20 in the country that aren't there. That's not a tournament format that makes sense to me."
