Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308310088
SECTION: COLLEGE FOOTBALL PAGE: FB2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY and JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Division III football is a bunch of sawed-off shotguns and cigar butts," said Mike Kelly, the head coach at longtime power Dayton. "It's guys who are an inch too short or 20 pounds too small. But they pay their way because they want to play, because they don't want to give up the game.
"Their hearts are just as big as the guys at Virginia or Notre Dame. The competition is the same. Their pains are the same after they lose, their smiles are the same when they go to bed the night of a victory.
"It's purity."
More schools play football in the NCAA's Division III - 198 - than in any other classification. The champion will be crowned Dec. 11 at Salem Stadium, home for the next three years of the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.
Some refer to it as "small-college" football, but how can you call it "small" when the offensive line at Washington and Jefferson, last year's Division III runner-up, weighed an average of 292 pounds per man?
Really, it's easier to explain what Division III football is by explaining what it's not:
No athletic grants-in-aid, no spring practice, no athletic dorms, no training tables, no airplanes (or, very few), no nine-man coaching staffs, no Proposition 48, no cheating (well, a lot less than in Division I-A).
\ A shock to the system
Roanoke native Joe Bush played at VMI in the 1960s and was an assistant coach for the Keydets from 1970-84. He stepped down from Division I to III to become a head coach in 1985 at Bridgewater, then moved the next season to Hampden-Sydney.
It was culture shock, said Bush, who has coached at two of the six Division III schools in Virginia.
"The fact that you're a teacher [was the biggest shock]," said Bush, 50. "At Bridgewater, I was on the faculty. You coach other sports. You have part-time coaches and your full-time coaches have other responsibilities. And you don't have spring practice. That's two major shocks there.
"We have 27 practices [before the season]. I think I-A has 29. The difference is, they have spring practice. We have to do all our evaluation, all our fundamental work within these 27 practices.
"And coaches do laundry."
Bush said he has enjoyed his experience in the Division III Old Dominion Athletic Conference "a whole lot more" than he expected.
"It's probably the way football [and] college athletics was meant to be," he said. "We have over 100 guys come out for the team and they'll come out because they want to play. We don't cut anybody. We dress everybody for home games.
"Nothing changes. We don't coach any different. We're there all day Sunday and Sunday night. We work just as hard. We get guys who could play I-AA. We just don't get that many. . . . We might have three or four.
"Some [coaches] come and go. There's probably less turnover, but some people are asked not to come back. As long as you run a good program and treat the kids fairly [and] do what's right, you're OK. I didn't have any desire to get back in that [Division I-A] rat race."
Kelly is beginning his 13th year as Dayton's head coach. The Flyers have won two NCAA Division III championships in five Stagg Bowl appearances, but this season they move to Division I-AA competition as a result of NCAA legislation prohibiting schools that are Division I in other sports from playing football at a lower level.
"I've been told by some of the fans who really follow us that when you're in the stands, if you close your eyes, you have no idea whether Ohio State or Dayton is on the field," Kelly said. "We tackle the same way, block the same way. We have the same coaching abilities."
James "Moose" Malmquist is in his sixth and last season on the NCAA's Division III Football Committee. The athletic director at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., Malmquist said people who haven't witnessed Division III football don't realize the commitment involved.
"Division III football is as close to the ideal of what we always thought college football would be," Malmquist said. "It's a certain approach to athletics, not a ticket to mediocrity."
Ithaca College has played in seven Stagg Bowls, winning three titles. Coach Jim Butterfield is beginning his 27th year as the Bombers' head coach and has fought a stigma about Division III for most of those years.
"I think the greatest misconception is a lot of people think Division III is an intramural program where everyone can play," said Butterfield, whose team is ranked No. 3 in the preseason coaches' poll. "A lot of people look at Division III football as a necessary evil.
"I doubt football in any Division I program is more competitive, more exciting or more meaningful than it is to our kids. Maybe our guys didn't have the speed or the size to play at North Carolina or Syracuse, but we are the largest division in NCAA football, so there's obviously a desire for what we're doing.
"In a Division III school, kids can do any damn thing they want. Don't take that wrong. They take the classes they want. The football program isn't the sole reason they're here. I also know that 25 percent of our players play other sports here. Playing two seasons is one thing we try to sell."
\ Long and winding road
Bush said it was not uncommon, when he was at Bridgewater, for the Eagles' players to sleep four to a room, two to a bed, on overnight road trips.
"We still do that," said Emory & Henry coach Lou Wacker, whose Wasps went 10-0 during the regular season in 1992. "You'd better believe it. We might have it set up where our seniors will be just two to a room, [but] you've got to cut corners where it hurts you the least.
"It's the budget and you've got to learn to live with it. All of our blocking sleds were there when I got there and I dare say that some of those sleds are 25 years old. We'll get 'em welded [if they break]. Let me give some of our people here credit for that."
Washington and Lee coach Gary Fallon remembers a Pennsylvania team that rode six hours on a bus to Lexington and vowed never to come back. The Generals, on the other hand, have traveled to either Sewanee (eight hours) or Centre (seven hours) every year since 1955.
On the way to Sewanee, located near Chattanooga, Tenn., the Generals frequently stop at the University of Tennessee and practice at 92,000-seat Neyland Stadium. On their way to Centre, in Danville, Ky., they might hold a workout at Commonwealth Stadium at the University of Kentucky.
Ferrum College coach Hank Norton, for whom 10- and 11-hour trips have been routine, frequently puts his team on a bus at midnight Thursday and doesn't stop until the Panthers have reached their destination the next morning.
"That gives them more than 24 hours to rest before the game," said Norton, who began that practice when Ferrum was a junior college and played two New York teams, Nassau and Hudson Valley. "We like Shoney's because that's all-you-can-eat, but I'm afraid they don't like us."
Ferrum is another of the schools that puts four players in a room, which comes as a surprise to Hampden-Sydney defensive tackle Chad Wheeling.
"I don't see any way you could put two linemen in the same bed," Wheeling said. "It's hard enough for two of us even to sit on the same bed."
\ Paying the price
Bush estimated that most of the teams in the ODAC have budgets between $50,000 and $80,000. That includes travel, recruiting, equipment, officials, tape - everything but salaries. Norton said Ferrum's budget exceeded $40,000 for the first time in 1992.
"It's higher than mine," said Wacker, who, as an ODAC member, generally faces shorter road trips than Ferrum, an independent. "I can't give you our exact figure, but it's not $40,000. I don't think it's [$30,000]. I would almost bet our budget is the smallest in the league."
There is a perception among other Division III schools that some of the perennial powers, such as Ithaca and Dayton, have budgets in the $80,000-$90,000 range. Butterfield, whose teams have played in the Stagg Bowl seven times since 1973, said his budget is $55,000.
"I figured it up the other day," said John Gagliardi, who is beginning his 45th year as a Division III head coach and 41st at St. John's (Minn.). "We have a budget of $23,000, not including salaries. We have 161 players on our squad. So, we're spending $143 per player."
Jeff Bourne, assistant to the athletic director at Virginia Tech, said it would be a rare Division I-A football program that would not spend $1 million for the items that constitute a typical Division III operating budget. Scholarships would cost another $750,000 to $1 million.
\ Raw recruiting
Although there are no scholarships in Division III, recruiting can be just as intense. Nevertheless, Bush says recruiting is one of the best aspects of Division III football.
"The recruiting process is a whole lot easier," Bush said. "It's like selling insurance. You talk with everybody. You're not worried about scholarships, [so] you go out and try go get as many guys to come to Hampden-Sydney as you can.
"The more people you talk to, the better chance you have to bring people in. You don't have to sit down and evaluate film and say, `I'm going to take this guy and offer him a scholarship,' [or] `I'm not going to take this other guy.' "
Norton, in his 34th year at Ferrum, says his staff tries to visit every high school in the state each year. Ithaca contacts approximately 1,000 prospects every year and will have anywhere from 60 to 90 freshman come out for the team. Some Division I-A programs won't have half that many.
\ Aid and comfort
There are no athletic scholarships in Division III, but there is financial aid. It can come in the form of a pure grant based on need, a loan, an academic scholarship, a work-study arrangement - or a combination of those.
The NCAA Manual stipulates that in Division III no special consideration be given to a student's athletic prowess. The rules require that aid be available in the same amount for a non-athlete as it is for a student-athlete.
"Coaches aren't involved," Bush said. "In fact, it's an NCAA violation to have a coach even mention financial aid [to a prospect]. Your financial aid is based on a parents' confidential form that goes to Princeton, N.J., and comes back."
Tom Blair, Roanoke College's financial aid officer, says the formula takes into account such items as adjusted gross income, income tax paid, untaxed income, size of household, family members and number of children in college. The family is given a minimum figure that it must contribute to a student's education.
At that point, the cost of the individual institution becomes a factor. At three ODAC schools - Hampden-Sydney, W & L and Roanoke, which does not have a football program - tuition, board and fees are in the $18,000 range. The same expenses at Emory & Henry run close to $13,000.
Wheeling, from Salem, said it would have been difficult to turn down Emory & Henry if he had not received a tuition exchange from Roanoke College to Hampden-Sydney. Wheeling's father is on the staff at Roanoke, which waives tuition for children of staff members.
Wheeling, who played at Salem High School, received a $1,500 college scholarship in 1990 as the Spartan Athlete of the Year. It was one of three scholarships that helped him get through his first year - until the tuition exchange went into effect - and he also has a work-study job.
"During the spring I work with the tennis team, stringing rackets and setting up the courts," Wheeling said. "I'm also a youth minister around the Farmville area, [but] I'm going to have some good bills when I get out of here."
\ Students, then athletes
Not only is Division III the largest of four classifications into which the NCAA is separated for football, but it also is the most diverse. There are schools in New England that rank among the top 25 academically in the country, yet, at the other end of the scale, there is no Proposition 48 to regulate admissions.
"There's more room to fudge with the rules in Division III than any other division because there's no enforcement," said Mike Walsh, Washington and Lee's athletic director. "It's up to the individual integrity of each school to observe the rules."
If there is a loophole, Walsh said, it is the NCAA rule that allows Division III programs to give academic grants to students who are in the upper 20 percent of their high school graduating class or who have earned at least a 3.5 grade-point average or scored at least 1,050 on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT).
"The problem we're having is our standards are so high that [if a prospect] has 1,200 or 1,250 on the SAT, he may be accepted, but he won't be on scholarship," Fallon said of W & L. "If we had a great athlete and he got financial aid with 1,050 at our school, we'd be investigated."
There have been investigations involving Division III schools. The basketball program at Sewanee, W & L's rival, was banned from postseason play for one year and the head coach was fired when it was determined that financial aid had been given on the basis of athletic ability.
"The admissions process and awarding of aid is handled cleanly and clearly," said Malmquist, a Division III committee chairman. "Unlike Division I, in Division III you're selling, not buying."
Malmquist said roughly 60 percent of all students at Gustavus Adolphus receive some form of aid, and that figure is not high for Division III. Almost 80 percent of the student body at Roanoke College receives some assistance, including all in-state students.
\ The big difference
Players at the Division III level must laugh when they hear Division I-A officials fight legislation that would require their football teams to take a bus on road trips of less than 250 miles or remain on campus before home games.
"I know a lot of players who went Division I and didn't like it," Wheeling said. "I never despised football a bit. There's pressure to win, [but] you're playing for the game and not the bucks.
"The worst thing for me is, you don't have the fan support like you have in Salem, where the whole city packs up and goes to a road game. It's pretty bad when you hear students talking about going up to the UVa game when you've got a home game the same day."
Wheeling was a 6-foot-2, 225-pound tight end when he arrived at Hampden-Sydney. A second-team All-ODAC selection last year, he now weighs 280, but not everybody shares his commitment or love for the game.
"You get some spoiled kids [in Division III] and you have nothing to hold over their heads," Bush said. "The greatest player you have can say, `I don't want to play.' If a kid says, `I want to be a student,' what are you going to say?"
Nobody knows that better than Fallon, whose 5-4 team of 1992 has been decimated by the loss of the ODAC's leading receiver, the starting quarterback, the team's leading tackler and the top freshman. All were underclassmen.
"We had a starting defensive tackle last year, Brett Odom, who decided not to play this year," Wacker said. "Somebody is forking out about $13,000 a year and they're not doing it for him to play football. If he wants to go to med school and he thinks he should concentrate on labs, who can find fault with that?"
\ A bowl of their own
The Stagg Bowl, to be played Dec. 11, can only be the end-all for two of the 198 teams in Division III. That doesn't mean it's the be-all for everyone, either.
There are more than a few Division III members who feel the "purity" of the classification is smudged by a championship tournament.
"I'll probably be crucified for saying this, but I think [playoffs] at this level can get things out of whack," Fallon said. "You're seeing coaches getting fired now in Division III. I saw [Ithaca's] Jim Butterfield and said, `Had a good year?' and he said, `No, I didn't.' They were 7-3 or 8-2 . . . "
No ODAC team has won the national championship since the Stagg Bowl became the NCAA final in 1973. Ferrum and Emory & Henry have won regional championships before losing in the national semifinals.
E & H is ranked 11th in the preseason coaches' poll. Is the commitment there for an ODAC team to win the Stagg Bowl?
"I tell you what, if I didn't believe they could, I'd resign," said Wacker, whose Wasps reached the 1992 quarterfinals. "I definitely think so. A few years ago [1989], when we made the final four and lost to Wagner, which won the national championship, I definitely feel we had a team capable of winning that ballgame.
"I'd like to be there to prove my theory."
Those who have been part of past Stagg parties say they never will forget the experience, and Salem will provide a special weekend to some deserving players and coaches for the next three Decembers.
"Being on the sideline at the Stagg Bowl is no different to Division III coaches and players than a bowl game is in Division I," said Dayton's Kelly. "The difference is that 7,000 people watch the Stagg Bowl, while 70,000 watch that other bowl game.
"On the field, it's the exact same feeling, as I'm sure it's the same feeling for a high school coach in the state championship game. The thing that always bothered me in Division III was that people who didn't know looked at the game as a lot less than it was."
Butterfield, who played at Maine, has a program at Ithaca that's about as big-time as it gets in Division III.
"When I was a little kid, I loved football," he said. "My greatest dream was to play in a bowl game. I imagined myself in the Rose Bowl or the Cotton Bowl. Then I grew up to be a midget.
"To have the opportunity I've had to coach for a national championship, for our players to have that opportunity to play, is tremendous. A national championship is a national championship. It means an outstanding job is being done, period."
by CNB