While moving into NCAA Division I can hardly be called routine, it’s far from unusual. Most every year, schools decide to make the move and suffer through the difficulties of the transitional years. In 1999, Birmingham-Southern College was one of those schools as it began the switch from NAIA to NCAA Division I. Eight years later, Birmingham-Southern finds itself at the beginning of another transition—one without recent precedent. Birmingham-Southern is now moving to Division III.
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AM: How has the transition been going?
Dean: It’s gone well. Last year was a transition year out of Division I and we're starting to get ourselves in line with the Division III level. This fall began our first year as a reclassifying institution, and we have a four-year process to go through. We’ve also added six new sports since last season, and we’re building a new facility to accommodate our new football, track and field, and lacrosse teams. Overall it’s been very positive.
What have been the keys to making the transition work so far?
I think the college, led by our president and Board of Trustees, is committed to having a quality program. It was a very difficult decision to move out of Division I. We had only been Division I seven years, and the decision to move to that level in 1999 was somewhat controversial. A lot of people wondered how a school of 1,300 could play at the Division I level.
But truth be known, we did it very well. In three years in the Big South, we won eight conference championships in five different sports. As we make the change to Division III, the attitude is we don’t want to lose the quality of our programs.
What were the reasons behind the change?
Finances were a big one. We decided if we didn’t give athletic scholarships, we could save quite a bit of money in addition to reducing operating expenses. The second reason was to increase enrollment, and we’ve already added 150 new students with football, track and field, and lacrosse. The third thing is we really felt we were more suited to compete against schools of our own size, mission, and academic quality. And when we joined the Southern College Athletic Conference that’s the exact fit we found with the other 11 schools.
How did the coaching staff react?
When word that this decision was being considered came out, all of the coaches and student-athletes were against it. We went through a difficult couple of weeks leading up to the board’s vote, but once the board voted to make the change, the majority of our coaches embraced it.
We did lose a lot of student-athletes—basically our entire basketball and baseball teams. So we didn’t field a men’s basketball or baseball team last year. We also lost four or five head coaches and two key administrators.
How did you replace those people?
In the administrators’ cases we didn’t replace them. That’s where we started to scale back and look more like a Division III program where everybody wears two or three hats. As far as coaches, we’re still committed to hiring the very best we can regardless of the what level we play. We feel if we’re going to try to recruit student-athletes to come to Birmingham-Southern and pay their own way, the least we can do is provide them with the very best coach we can hire for their team. We feel like we’ve been able to replace these coaches with high-quality people and that we will have a very good Division III program in all of our sports.
How has your day-to-day job changed?
When we were Division I, we dealt with 30 to 35 corporate sponsors every year and selling the corporate packages took a lot of time and energy. We had a television show we had to pay for, and radio networks for men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. Last year we did away with all of that.
But we brought on football, track and field, and lacrosse, so I spent most of last year working closely with those coaches to try to help them recruit student-athletes. I’ve done more in recruitment in Division III whereas before I was doing more on the business side of college athletics. We still do fundraising but not as much as we did when we were in Division I.
How has recruiting changed?
It’s been an adjustment, especially for the coaches who had been offering athletic scholarships. Now they are not involved in the financial aid process at all. So they’ve really got to go out and sell the quality of the education here. They’ve got to sell the fact that we’ve got as nice facilities as you’re going to find in Division III. And we have quality coaches—they sell themselves, really.
Have there been any surprises?
Not really. The rules in Division III are a lot different than Division I—they’re not nearly as restrictive, for obvious reasons, and that’s something we’ve had to adjust to and learn. But college athletics is college athletics. The kids still want to get an education. They still want to win games and compete for championships. It doesn’t matter what level they play at.
Do you think that your school would have been better off making the move to Division III in 1999?
As we look at it today I would say yes. And it was considered back then. If you remember at the end of the 1990s, the stock market had gone through an all-time boom which meant our endowment was at an all time-high. Things were flourishing financially on our campus and all over the country and that’s when the decision was made.
We felt if we were going to be a national liberal arts institution, Division I athletics might give us a marketing vehicle to put our name out there on more of a national scale. We had an outstanding men’s basketball program with a great coach and had won two NAIA national championships We felt if we could ever win a conference championship and go to the NCAA tournament and be part of March Madness, our name would be out there with the Gonzaga’s and George Mason’s of the worlds—upstarts few had heard of until they played in the NCAA tournament.
Once we were there a few years, some key board members decided that being Division I had done a lot of positive things, but was too expensive. The recognition we were getting nationally didn’t translate into any increase in enrollment or giving to the college and those are the two keys areas to making a college work financially. The board thought we probably ought to be in Division III, not give scholarships or spend as much money, and increase enrollment through student participation instead.
Has adding the new sports been the biggest change in making the move?
That’s one of the changes obviously. We still have scholarship athletes in our program and that causes uncertainty in who we play because some of our teams have scholarship athletes and some do not. Scheduling has been difficult, but our saving grace is that we were able to join a very good Division III conference and they plugged us into their schedules right away. Just learning the different rules in Division III and getting in compliance has also been a big change. Football has been an unbelievable change in terms of starting a team from scratch. We had no infrastructure at all for a football program and a lot of work has gone into getting that started.
Was football on the radar before you moved to Division III?
No, it really wasn’t. When the discussion started in the spring of 2006 about the move to Division III, football was mentioned casually but nobody said that we were definitely going to start a program. My thought was we’d look into it, try to save some money, and maybe start it two or three down the road. Well, two weeks after the decision was made to move to Division III, our president said we’re starting football right away, so let’s go hire a coach.
How does football differ from other sports?
Just the sheer numbers. We brought in 126 student-athletes this fall to play in the football program. We have six coaches, two athletic trainers, and three managers. We have bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of athletic equipment and weight equipment, and all the bells and whistles that go with a football program.
While I love my coach and I’m excited about what we're doing, it’s a bit overwhelming at times with everything involved. We’re going to San Antonio this weekend and dealing with plane tickets and hotels and buses and feeding that many people is just amazing. I was a basketball coach before I got into administration and taking 12 kids on the road was a piece of cake compared to a football team plus coaches, support staff, and equipment.
How did you keep watch over such a big endeavor?
I’ve had a lot of cooperation. Coach Joey Jones and I see each other every day, and we talk about purchasing, scheduling, recruiting—all of those things. We’ve kind of been joined at the hip for the last 18 months trying to put all of this together. I haven’t done nearly as much as he and his coaches have done in the recruiting process, but in terms of the administrative duties, he and I have worked very closely to keep a handle on everything and make sure we’re doing everything the right way and being good stewards of the resources the college gives to us.
How did your athletes react to not being eligible for postseason play during the transitional period?
They didn’t like it worth a hoot and neither did I. But it is what it is. If you’re going to be a member of the NCAA, you have to accept the rules. I think it’s unfortunate—and I’ve told the NCAA this—that a freshman on our campus who is paying his or her way to college will not have an opportunity to play for a championship. I don’t think it’s fair, but that’s the rule and we have to accept it and move on.
How do you keep everyone motivated when there’s no postseason to work toward?
That’s the biggest challenge that any institution faces in a transitional period. We went through it before and we’re going through it again. The coaches who have been through both of these changes recognize and understand that when they talk with a prospective student-athletes that’s the one thing they’re going to have to overcome. And you try to overcome it with quality of education, quality of the campus experience, great facilities, good coaching, and a winning tradition. Only one team from each conference gets to move on to NCAAs anyway and we’re going to be one of those that don’t. But every year we get a little closer. We can tell kids we’re recruiting for next year, “When you’re a senior, you can play for a championship.”
Do you think the NCAA should change eligibility rules for transitional schools?
I definitely do. There’s not been a lot of Division I programs go Division III, so I don’t think the NCAA really understood how to deal with a school like us. They couldn’t look at us realistically and practically and say football is just starting up, why should we make them have to wait.
There’s no reason those kids should be denied the opportunity of playing for a championship, or the track and field kids, lacrosse kids, and in our case, basketball and baseball, which are new teams of all non-scholarship kids. Maybe wait two years, but let them play their junior and senior year. I said to the NCAA, “You all talk about the welfare of student-athletes all the time. Tell me how that’s in their best interest when you make them go to school four years and never let them have a chance to play in a postseason tournament.” All they could tell me was, “Well that’s what the membership decided. The experience of intercollegiate athletics trumps playing for a championship.” And I said to them, “You obviously haven't talked to these kids and asked them. They want the opportunity.” It doesn’t seem to make any sense to them—and it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.
I completely understand keeping our teams that have scholarship athletes out. We have to wait four years until we get those kids out of the program, but they could have let the other teams in after a couple of years. But the NCAA is not set up that way. Everything is black and white and in my opinion the don’t look at it practically. I don’t mean to be critical, but it’s been very frustrating for us.