JANUARY 20, 2025 | composed by STEVE ULRICH

News and notes on the largest and best Division in the NCAA. #whyD3
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✌️ Two for One, Monday. MLK Day and Inauguration Day.

Headlines
🏅 DIII Delegates Approve Women’s Wrestling championship
🏛️ Title IX Guidance Threatens Revenue-Sharing Plans
🏒 Hobart Unbeaten Streak Sets NCAA Mark
🚨 Plays of the Weekend

🔈️ What We’re Hearing. “Title IX is not based on the market. If the market discriminates, the schools cannot. The school can’t use a marketing agency to avoid Title IX.” - Arthur Bryant, one of the nation’s leading Title IX lawyers.

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TOP STORY
1. DIII Delegates Approve Women’s Wrestling Championship

by Olivia Brown, NCAA

“Division III delegates approved all six proposals on the table at their business session Friday at the NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.

The six measures are highlighted below and available in more detail here. The division:

• Approved adding women's wrestling as a national collegiate championship.

• Expanded the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee composition to include one representative from every multisport conference.

• Reduced the requirement for multisport conference membership from seven to six member schools.

• Approved amendments to the legislative process.

• Established a process to exempt the division from applying certain playing rules.

• Established a waiver to reduce the reclassification process from three to two years.

» Wrestling. “Along with the other two divisions, Division III approved a recommendation to make women's wrestling an NCAA championship sport. Women's wrestling will become the NCAA's 91st championship and the sixth sport to reach NCAA championship status through the Emerging Sports for Women program. A women's wrestling committee will be established to begin preparing for the first championship, to be held in winter 2026. Fifty-five Division III schools are projected to sponsor women's wrestling during the 2024-25 academic year.”

» SAAC. “The division approved a membership-sponsored proposal to establish a primary representative on the national Student-Athlete Advisory Committee for each multisport conference and the group of independents. The adoption of the proposal is effective immediately. The first meeting of the revamped committee will be in July.”

» Read More

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LEGAL
2. New Title IX Guidance Threatens to Upend School Rev-Share Plans in College Sports

by Ross Dellenger, Yahoo! Sports

“As the NCAA Board of Governors entered the third hour of its meeting Thursday night, the phones of college sports leaders within the gathering began buzzing.

Texts. Emails. Calls.

While some of college sports’ most powerful executives met here to end this week’s annual NCAA convention, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights released some jaw-dropping news that stands, if upheld, to completely alter the way many schools plan to pay their athletes in the future revenue-sharing world of college sports.”

» Court Awareness. “The department issued long-awaited guidance related to Title IX: Revenue-sharing payments from schools to athletes must be “proportionately” distributed to men and women athletes, or institutions risk violating Title IX, the 53-year-old federal law requiring universities receiving federal funding to provide equal benefits to women and men athletes.”

» Yes, But. “The document is not a regulation but only guidance. Even more significant is the impending change in the presidential administration, as a Democrat leader is replaced by a Republican, a major shift that has far-reaching and sweeping impacts for the future of college athletics.”

» Between The Lines. “Asked about a new administration overturning the guidance, NCAA president Charlie Baker, a former governor, said, “It’s really hard to tell. That process usually takes a while with all the elements that are associated with turnover in administration. Some stuff happens right away, some stuff happens later and some stuff doesn’t change at all.””

» Continue Reading

ICE HOCKEY
3. Hobart Unbeaten Streak Sets NCAA Mark

The top-ranked Hobart men’s ice hockey team established a NCAA men’s all-divisions record with victories against Buffalo State, 3-0 and Fredonia, 5-0, over the weekend.

The Statesmen extended their unbeaten streak to 40 games (39-0-1), bettering the old standard of 38 set by St. Norbert (2007-08) and UMass Dartmouth (1985-86). Rensselaer, who plays DI hockey, also had a 38-game unbeaten run in 1984-85. Hobart’s 29 consecutive wins is the fourth-longest streak in DIII men’s history.

Wisconsin-River Falls holds the NCAA DIII women’s mark at 40.

NEWS YOU CAN USE
4. Lightning Round ⚡️ 

🗞️ News. “While most (Los Angeles) institutions were spared burn damage to their physical plants, many spent the last week entrenched in immediate recovery efforts. Numerous colleges are raising money to help students and staff secure housing and other basic needs.

💰️ Finances. Albright (Pa.) College will soon seek permission to borrow up to $25 million of its endowment fund to prevent “the risk of closure,” because the school was running out of “basic operational funds.”

🏛️ Law. “Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology agreed to settle in a federal antitrust lawsuit that alleges 17 wealthy institutions, known as the 568 Presidents Group, illegally colluded on financial aid formulas and overcharged students for years. Late Friday, JHU settled for $18.5 million and Caltech for $16.7 million, according to court filings.”

🏊‍♀️ Swimming (W). All good things come to an end. The Williams College women’s swim team’s streak of 141 consecutive dual-meet wins over DIII opponents ended Friday, as MIT (183-113) and NYU (170-126) both bested the Ephs. Williams had not lost a dual meet to a DIII opponent since 2008.

TRANSACTIONS
5. Comings and Goings

ALBRIGHT - Derek Stump named head men’s lacrosse coach
FRANKLIN - Ryan Hammer named head women’s tennis coach
GREENSBORO - Jacob Weinshank named head men’s soccer coach
MOUNT MARY - Cody Tesch named interim head softball coach
PURCHASE - Jake Fitzgerald named head men’s lacrosse coach

1 THING
6. Plays of the Weekend

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