Division iii redshirting

Jon A wrote:

I'm having a little bit of confusion on this. I'm planning to sit out this upcoming outdoor season so I am able to run a fifth year. I was told by one of my coaches that because I was sitting out I wouldn't be able to practice with the team. However I can run meets unattached. How accurate is it in restricting an athlete to not practice with the team because of supposed rules by the NCAA?

I seriously doubt that's accurate. I know you can practice with the team when you are redshirting at a D1 school.

Division three rules are different. You may not practice with the team after the first competition and retain eligibility. Nor may you compete for the team. The rules exist to prevent...well REDSHIRTING.

I believe you can still practice with the team if you get a medical redshirt.

I went through this process myself (D3 runner).

Technically, it is not a redshirt if you just don't join the roster for the outdoor season. You retain your eligibility, and there is no paperwork or anything to figure out. Medical redshirts are retroactive, and are only necessary if you competed in meets in the beginning of the season. As long as you don't compete for the team and are not declared on the roster, you don't need a redshirt.

Technically, you cannot practice with the team once the first meet is completed. However, this rule is essentially impossible to enforce. We had people who were off the roster practicing with us pretty much every day. If you are caught then you would lose that season of eligibility, but the chance of being caught is so minimal.

You can run meets unattached (you are allowed to do this even if you are on the roster). You cannot travel to said meets on the team bus/van.

Hope this helps.

Who would you be caught by if someone were to catch you? The athletic director?

You can only use a medical redshirt. You have to provide a letter from a doctor explaining the injury. Without the injury there is no redshirtingin D3. You can redsirt indoors and then compete outdoors, they are seperate seasons.

No one said this was an NCAA rule;

The coach probably doesn't need you wasting time and resources taking away from his athletes who are actually competing this season.

If you declare yourself "redshirt" and thus selfishly not competing for the team, why would he want you at practice every day?!

This is obviously his team rule and has nothing to do with NCAA

robert saget wrote:

We had people who were off the roster practicing with us pretty much every day. If you are caught then you would lose that season of eligibility, but the chance of being caught is so minimal.

Not only that--for the people who were *on* the roster, every day they practiced with people who were not would be counted as a day of competition--and you only get a limited number of those per year.

A novel idea, maybe, but possibly worth a try: how about just *following the rules* rather than trying to see how much you can get away with? Whaddaya say, athletes? Coaches?

Team rule? wrote:

No one said this was an NCAA rule;

The coach probably doesn't need you wasting time and resources taking away from his athletes who are actually competing this season.

If you declare yourself "redshirt" and thus selfishly not competing for the team, why would he want you at practice every day?!

This is obviously his team rule and has nothing to do with NCAA

How is it taking away from his athletes when he can help push his athletes in training? I don't see the problem with it. Only difference is he's not competing.

Not really wrote:

You can only use a medical redshirt. You have to provide a letter from a doctor explaining the injury. Without the injury there is no redshirtingin D3. You can redsirt indoors and then compete outdoors, they are seperate seasons.

NOT TRUE. You can simply not join the roster for the season, and you will save eligibility. I know at 10 people who have done this with no official "redshirt" designation.

There is no redshirting once you have competed in a meet, unless you can document an injury and get a medical redshirt.

For the people raising an issue with non-roster athletes practicing with the team -

There are no "additional resources" used by these runners. They simply run with the team most days. No uniforms, no transportation, no access to varsity weight room, no access to athletic trainers. They are not a drain on the coach - they are not asking for personalized training or attention. They simply run with the team. It in no way affects the team members.

The rule is clearly there to prevent funds from being used on non-roster members. Also note that these are not just hobby joggers running with the team - they are guys who are coming back from injury or taking a season off to save eligibility and/or focus on school. Not just random fun runners.

Eat sleep run 224 wrote:

Team rule? wrote:

No one said this was an NCAA rule;

The coach probably doesn't need you wasting time and resources taking away from his athletes who are actually competing this season.

If you declare yourself "redshirt" and thus selfishly not competing for the team, why would he want you at practice every day?!

This is obviously his team rule and has nothing to do with NCAA

How is it taking away from his athletes when he can help push his athletes in training? I don't see the problem with it. Only difference is he's not competing.

A fair question. We had alumni and community runners work out with us every once in a while. Once on an easy day a classmate of mine, who never ran track but liked to work out, asked to run with us and our coach was fine with it. Our easy day was his hard day and everyone had a good time. D3 doesn't like redshirting as a general policy, but I have a hard time agreeing with their practice rules if its okay for these other people to run with a team.

I guess technically under D3 rules, my classmate used a year of track eligibility that day. We should have made him run in the conference meet.