Division 3 National Field Discussion

F*ckTheSystem wrote:

Platteville decided to not run their full team during the regular season because they thought they were good enough to make nationals without any good quality regular season races. Because of this and the committee's weak criteria, They did not make nationals and neither did Oshkosh.

If that was their logic, it was terribly foolish. Given the explicitly stated at-large criteria, you have to run well against teams from other regions in inter-regional competition if you want to get an at-large bid. If they were as good a month ago as everyone seems to think they are now, they should have had no problem beating St. Thomas, with or without all of their top runners. St. Thomas didn't have a runner in the top 20, had a 70-second spread, and they still beat UW-P by ~25 points.

UW-P left themselves with no margin for error and it bit them. I have a hard time seeing injustice there.

Yea!!! Cortland was 4 points behind Geneseo at their conference meet and 13 behind them at regionals without their 4th man. Mid season they were not even ranked in their region. They are coming on very strong! Definitely deserving of the bid they received.

Right, like the "scholarships" the expensive private schools hand out to their athletes is legit. How many "leadership" scholarships do schools like St. Thomas or Dickensnon hand out to their student athletes over non-student athletes?

-If you think they would hand out "leadership" scholarships or aid to XC runners at a D3 school like St. Thomas, you clearly know nothing about the world of sports and money.

UAA_FAN wrote:

What everyone is failing to realize is that Carnegie earned their spot at nationals by winning their region. Yes they almost likely won't win the meet or finish top 4 but they still deserve to go. It's a shame that Platteville and Oshkosh don't get to go but the committee knows better than me picking them over St. Thomas or Calvin (in my mind the last two in).

The committee relies heavily on head to head because it's the tried and true best way to cover their asses when angry coaches come calling- "If you wanted to go to nationals, you should've beaten those other guys in that September invite. Your top 3 guys were under an ebola quarantine? Sorry, we aren't allowed to compare lineups meet to meet as long as 'most' of your team ran."

It's definitely not the best system, but it's probably not the worse either. Because rationalizations for bad/good races in this sport are endless, bias always creeps into more subjective comparisons (such as those that myself and others have been making in this thread).

That being said, I like using UAAs for interregional comparisons. Obviously the sample sizes are tiny, but it's the only time before nats that teams from 5 different regions run against each other in a meaningful meet.

The UW-Oshkosh and Oberlin meets had multiple ranked/closed to being ranked teams from different regions, and it definitely was a meaningful meet, as all the teams had to know how important the head-to-head victories would be

There are definitely kinks in the system, one of which has got to be name-recognition and program history. That is certainly the case in this year's Great Lakes selections. Calvin is a perennial in second consecutive reloading year. I agree that Rose deserved the bid simply for beating Calvin but taking 4 from the men's side of the Great Lakes doesn't typically produce much at the National meet. Teams finishing 3rd-4th (even 2nd some years) in the GL don't seem to finish any better than mid/high 20s or just barely ahead of the South region auto teams. I get the idea of representing all of the regions but it may be time to realign them - i.e. dilute the Midwest into the GL, etc

Poser was injured. Everyone needs to stop thinking UWP "held out" runners because they thought they were good enough to make nats. It is injustice, it's bullshit and that's where it ends. I wish people would give a shit about the teams actually competing at nats rather than bitching about how largely irrelevant teams (in the trophy race) got screwed.

I am more concerned about Oshkosh not making it over Plateville. Obviously Plateville has to go before Oshkosh but in my (and plenty of others) opinion Plateville should have gone, allowing Oshkosh to go. This also allows other quality individuals to go that would represent other schools as well.

JWilliam wrote:

Right, like the "scholarships" the expensive private schools hand out to their athletes is legit. How many "leadership" scholarships do schools like St. Thomas or Dickensnon hand out to their student athletes over non-student athletes?

-If you think they would hand out "leadership" scholarships or aid to XC runners at a D3 school like St. Thomas, you clearly know nothing about the world of sports and money.

I run for a D3 school, and we're an above average team, but far from a powerhouse (we've never gone to nationals as a full team). I'm on a "leadership" scholarship, and running is the only reason that I could have gotten it. My academic record is unremarkable, and finances aren't a big issue for my family. Also, I'm not particularly fast. A bunch of my teammates that I've talked to got the same thing. I can only assume that other expensive private schools do this as well.

I went to a top private d3 school - top in both academics and athletics - and went to nationals more than once. None of my teammates had any scholarships of any type. Only financial aid.

another unusual name wrote:

not my usual name wrote:

I run for a D3 school, and we're an above average team, but far from a powerhouse (we've never gone to nationals as a full team). I'm on a "leadership" scholarship, and running is the only reason that I could have gotten it. My academic record is unremarkable, and finances aren't a big issue for my family. Also, I'm not particularly fast. A bunch of my teammates that I've talked to got the same thing. I can only assume that other expensive private schools do this as well.

I went to a top private d3 school - top in both academics and athletics - and went to nationals more than once. None of my teammates had any scholarships of any type. Only financial aid.

This - no offense, but the difference between schools that offer BS scholarships and pure financial aid is pretty clear

I currently run for a small private D3 team that is going to nationals this year. None of us are on any sort of scholarship related to running. Only financial air and merit based aid (definitely not correlated to running whatsoever). Our coach has very little pull with financial aid. The only thing he does is get us into the school easier.

If your coach gets you into school, that's an NCAA violation and your team should not be at the NCAA Championships.

OctoberRun wrote:

If your coach gets you into school, that's an NCAA violation and your team should not be at the NCAA Championships.

Nope.

OctoberRun wrote:

If your coach gets you into school, that's an NCAA violation and your team should not be at the NCAA Championships.

Wrong.

NCAA Rule 2014-15...

3.1.2.11 Recruitment. It is permissible for one institution to recruit prospective student-athletes with a view

to their possible enrollment at another institution in the consortium, provided the individuals qualify for admission

to that institution and the athletics interests of the member institution are not involved, directly or indirectly,

in influencing the admission or award of financial assistance.

Skimmed your original post. It is against the rules but it happens almost everywhere.

OctoberRun wrote:

NCAA Rule 2014-15...

3.1.2.11 Recruitment. It is permissible for one institution to recruit prospective student-athletes with a view

to their possible enrollment at another institution in the consortium, provided the individuals qualify for admission

to that institution and the athletics interests of the member institution are not involved, directly or indirectly,

in influencing the admission or award of financial assistance.

That rule doesn't pertain to that issue, it refers to recruiting within a consortium. The only schools I can think that it would apply to are the Claremont McKenna Schools. So if you're the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps cross-country coach but you are technically an employee of Scripps, you can recruit an athlete to Harvey Mudd, you just can't talk to their admissions office.

Calling the admissions office about a recruit has never been a violation at any level of the NCAA.

D3 just blows in general. I don't know why people take it seriously. I go to a D3 school and competed on the D3 team and just had a hard time taking it seriously. It's like being on the JV B-Team, with the JV A-team being D2 and Varsity being D1. We have this hotshot at our school who thinks he's slick sh*t because he won a title when he has the talent to go D1 and is really just the best of the bad people.

F*cking joke division. Even if I were to win the whole thing I would always know there are people far, far better than me at the same age who win the real championship.