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» Conference Meeting Day at the NCAA Convention. Thanks for supporting D3Playbook and enjoy today’s free edition.

» Best News of the Day. Ann King, former Director of Athletic Communications at Russell Sage College was posthumously awarded the Division III Commissioners Association Dan Dutcher Meritorious Service Award at the 2024 NCAA Convention on Jan. 11.

» Weather Forecast For Phoenix. Sunny, 55

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TOP STORY
1. DIII Management and Presidents Councils Approve Pause on Membership Dues Assessment

by Justin Whitaker, NCAA

“The Division III Management Council gathered Wednesday, and the Presidents Council met Thursday at the 2024 NCAA Convention in Phoenix.

The councils approved a two-year pause in an extra assessment on top of annual NCAA dues for Division III members. The pause will reduce the annual Division III dues from $2,000 to $900 for institutions and from $900 to $450 for conference offices for fiscal years 2025 and 2026.

While the NCAA Board of Governors sets the Association's annual membership dues, at the 2016 Convention, Division III delegates approved an additional assessment to provide more revenue, approximately half a million dollars annually, to the division's operating budget. The councils approved the pause to spend down the excess beyond the mandated reserve and provide budgetary relief to the membership.”

» Media Rights Agreement. “Both councils discussed the NCAA's new media rights agreement with ESPN and ratified funding to support the production of Division III championships of men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball semifinals and championship on ESPN+. With the increase of annual revenue, the councils felt it was advantageous to expand marketing and branding for the division while amplifying exposure to Division III and maintaining its commitment to gender equity.”

» Removing Cannabinoids. “Following September 2023's recommendation from the Committee for Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports, the Management Council approved, in concept, noncontroversial legislation to remove cannabinoids from the list of NCAA banned substances.”

» Men’s Ice Hockey Expansion. “The councils approved the expansion of the men's ice hockey bracket from 12 to 13 teams, effective with the 2024 season.”

» Keep Reading

2024 CONVENTION
2. Friday at the NCAA Convention

It’s the next-to-last day of the 2024 NCAA Convention in Phoenix, Ariz. Here is a list of DIII meetings scheduled for today.

• NCAA Issues Forum, 8:00-11:00

• DIII Conference Meetings, 12:30-6:00

• NADIIIAA Reception, 4:30-6:00

• DIII SWA Reception, 5:00-6:00

» Full Schedule of Events

RECOGNITION
3. NADIIIAA Announces Community Service and Administrator Award Recipients

“The National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators (NADIIIAA) has announced the recipients of the NADIIIAA Community Service Award and Athletics Administrator Awards.

Each of the selected recipients are being recognized for their impact at the institutional level, and in their communities for the 2022-23 academic year. The recipients will be recognized at the NADIIIAA reception taking place in conjunction with the NCAA Convention on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, in Phoenix at 4:30 pm MT.”

NADIIIAA Community Service Award

• One-Time Project Category: Howard Payne University

• Special Olympics Activity: Juniata College

• Community Partnerships: Stevens Institute of Technology

Athletics Administrator Award

• Emerging Athletics Administrator: Katie Gonzalez, Illinois Wesleyan

• Transitioning Athletics Administrator: Sara Lee, Denison

» Read More

FEATURE
4. Lexow Thriving In New World at Gallaudet

by Andrew Robinson, City of Basketball Love

“What Cam Lexow is doing this year is remarkable in plenty of ways.

It’d be one thing if the Abington graduate had simply changed colleges to start grad school. It’d be another thing if Lexow had just changed sports for her fifth season of eligibility. It’d be another thing entirely if she were merely going from a place where speaking and hearing were normal to one where it makes her an outlier.

All of that is a part of what Lexow is doing this year. She is in her first year of the graduate program at Gallaudet University, a federally chartered institution for the deaf and hard of hearing, playing basketball for the first time since senior year of high school after her first act as a soccer player at the University of Virginia. She’s doing all of it using a language she only started learning three years ago.

For most, it would be an impossible scenario.

Most people aren’t Cam Lexow.”

» Court Awareness. “Lexow, who graduated from Abington in 2019 after playing four years of varsity for the Ghosts in soccer and basketball, is completely hearing-abled. She is the only player on the Bison roster who can say that, so all communication with her teammates is done through American Sign Language (ASL).”

» Reality Check. “Less than 10 percent of all students at Gallaudet are hearing-abled and the majority of them are in the graduate program. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision to go through the stringent applications process for the university, which is located in Washington, D.C. and with guidance from her mentors in the ASL program at Virginia, Lexow knew what it would entail.”

» Between The Lines. “She’d also been an athlete all her life and wanted to continue that as well at her next stop. The Gatorade PA State Player of the Year in soccer as a senior at Abington, Lexow appeared in 48 matches over three seasons with the Cavaliers but going from Division I to Division III in soccer didn’t quite have the pull. Alongside that, she had started to really miss basketball.”

» What They’re Saying. “Being immersed in the deaf community is right where I need to be in order to achieve what I want to do,” Lexow said. “I want to be able to give access to deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind and be able to counsel the deaf community in their language and be educated in deaf culture. The only way I’m going to do that is being in their environment.”

» Continue Reading

NEWS
5. Lightning Round

🗞 News. Former Mary Washington baseball alum Jin Wong ‘97 has been named assistant general manager of the Chicago White Sox. He was a third-team ABCA All-America selection in the OF in 1996.

🗞 News. A community college and a university in the State University of New York system have announced plans to integrate their neighboring campuses. Clinton Community College plans to relocate to nearby SUNY Plattsburgh by the 2025–26 academic year.

🗞 News. Investing in Division III athletics programs may not yield enrollment growth for their colleges, a recent Urban Institute analysis shows. The left-leaning think tank studied 325 DIII colleges and found athletic investments had little correlation with enrollment changes.”

STREAMING
6. What 2 Watch This Weekend

Friday
🏀 WBB: Houghton (14-0) vs. St. John Fisher (12-2), 530
🏒 WIH: #8 Norwich (10-3-1) vs. #11 Elmira (10-4), 600
🏀 MBB: #6 Trinity, Conn. (15-0) vs. Connecticut College (11-3), 700
🏀 MBB: #7 Trinity, Texas (15-0) vs. St. Thomas (13-2), 700 
🏀 WBB: #9 Scranton (13-1) vs. #13 Catholic (13-0), 700
🏒 MIH: #2 Elmira (13-2) vs. #13 Norwich (8-4-2), 700
🏀 MBB: #4 NYU (11-1) vs. #5 Case Western Reserve (11-1), 730
🤼‍♂️ MWR: Budd Whitehill National Duals, Friday-Saturday

Saturday
🏀 MBB: #8 John Carroll (13-1) vs. Marietta (11-3), 200
🏀 MBB: #2 Guilford (14-1) vs. #17 Randolph-Macon (11-3), 300
🏀 WBB: #16 Amherst (11-1) vs. Bates (11-2), 300
🏒 MIH: #10 Trinity, Conn. (9-2) vs. Bowdoin (8-3-1), 300
🏒 WIH: #6 Middlebury (5-2-2) vs. #9 Colby (8-2), 300
🏀 MBB: Coe (14-1) vs. Nebraska Wesleyan (13-2), 500
🏀 WBB: #4 UW-Whitewater (14-0) vs. #22 UW-Stout (11-3), 800
🏒 MIH: #6 St. Scholastica (11-2) vs. #12 UW-Eau Claire (9-5-1), 800

TRANSACTIONS
7. Comings and Goings

• BARUCH - Ashley Fung named assistant men’s volleyball coach 

• ELMHURST - Jakob Lemke named assistant men’s lacrosse coach

• HILBERT - Announced addition of women’s golf as a varsity sport in the fall of 2024. Laura Edholm named head coach.

• MOUNT HOLYOKE - Andrea Ricketts-Preston named director of athletics 

• RANDOLPH-MACON - Hannah Segur named assistant softball coach

• SIMPSON - Announced addition of acrobatics and tumbling as a varsity sport beginning in 2025-26

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