STrib: MIAC rivals plot ouster of St. Thomas

It's going to cost UST $20 million to fund a D1 hockey program. Where would they play? Aldrich? No, they can play at Braemar.

NSIC schools with D1 hockey spend nowhere near that much. Yeah, there would be some sort of one-time facilities upgrades, but $20M? Doubt it. UST would partner with other orgs to lease hockey arena space the same way the other NSIC members do (not sure about St. Cloud). Regardless, it's probably a pipe dream at this point.

Annual hockey budgets (Men/Women/Total):
$1.6M/$1.4M/$3M = Bemidji St.
$2.2M/$1.1M/$3.3M = MSU Mankato
$2.1M/$1.2M/$3.3M = St. Cloud St.
$2.9M/$1.6M/$4.5M = UM Duluth
 

Bump. Article in Tuesday's Star-Tribune from Reusse. Says there is a meeting on Wednesday, May 22 and the MIAC Presidents may vote to change the by-laws, beginning the process of booting St. Thomas from the Conference. Reusse's sources claim the Presidents have the 9 votes they need for the measure to pass.
 

So will begin a new era in DIII MIAC Conference.
 

Just a guess on my part but I wouldn't be surprised to hear an announcement in a few days that St. Thomas is joining the WIAC.

I give that a 60% chance. I give it a 35% chance it is the DII Northern Sun, and a 5% chance it is something else.
 



per Shooter:

New athletics option for Division III University of St. Thomas could be the Division I Summit League, which includes South Dakota State, South Dakota and North Dakota State.

https://www.twincities.com/2019/05/18/charley-walters-rocco-baldelli-says-his-twins-deserve-an-a/

Go Gophers!!

If they joined the Summit League, their attendance for basketball would be lower than every other team except Western Illinois. Of course, attendance could improve with a D-I schedule.
 

From Pat Reusse's Twitter feed:

MIAC will release statement at 11 a.m. announcing that St. Thomas will "involuntarily'' leave conference no later than spring of 2021. Apparently, Tommies bowed to certainty of being voted out by the needed nine of 13 conference school presidents.

8:00 AM - 22 May 2019
 


NSIC schools with D1 hockey spend nowhere near that much. Yeah, there would be some sort of one-time facilities upgrades, but $20M? Doubt it. UST would partner with other orgs to lease hockey arena space the same way the other NSIC members do (not sure about St. Cloud). Regardless, it's probably a pipe dream at this point.

Annual hockey budgets (Men/Women/Total):
$1.6M/$1.4M/$3M = Bemidji St.
$2.2M/$1.1M/$3.3M = MSU Mankato
$2.1M/$1.2M/$3.3M = St. Cloud St.
$2.9M/$1.6M/$4.5M = UM Duluth

It costs $20 million to start up a D1 hockey team. Most of the money goes to starting scholarships.
 




It costs $20 million to start up a D1 hockey team. Most of the money goes to starting scholarships.

The numbers I included above include scholarships and all other expenses directly related to hockey. Not included would be extra administrative people (compliance) and other overhead not directly related. Just doing quick math, average cost to St. Thomas students is about $30K per year, X 18 fully funded scholarships X 2 teams = ~$1M per year in incremental scholarship cost. I'm not saying UST should go D1 hockey, I'm just saying it's not $20M unless you're including some major one-time infrastructure investment.
 

When are these writers gonna stop with the "jump to D1" speculation? Several years must be spent in D2 first. A smidgen of research helps.

I'll amend my own comment. There's some rumblings (yeah, only internet speculation) that UST might be able to petition the NCAA to jump directly to D1 due to the "involuntary" nature of this removal. That could explain how some of this played out.
 

From Pat Reusse's Twitter feed:

MIAC will release statement at 11 a.m. announcing that St. Thomas will "involuntarily'' leave conference no later than spring of 2021. Apparently, Tommies bowed to certainty of being voted out by the needed nine of 13 conference school presidents.

8:00 AM - 22 May 2019

So what's the spread going to be this fall when St. Thomas plays St. Olaf in football? 97-0 in 2017, 60-0 in 2018, 2019 ???
 



I'll amend my own comment. There's some rumblings (yeah, only internet speculation) that UST might be able to petition the NCAA to jump directly to D1 due to the "involuntary" nature of this removal. That could explain how some of this played out.

I would be really surprised if St. Thomas (who has repeatedly said they are aligned with D3 mission) jumped all the way to D1 at this point. If so, all the people on Twitter currently ripping the MIAC would need to eat some crow in my opinion. I guarantee there isn't any other MIAC school in a position, or desire to make that move - proving once again that St. Thomas simply grew into a bad fit for the conference. I doubt any other school will be signing up with WCCO as their home radio station either.
 

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National Media now running with the "too good" narrative.
 

So what's the spread going to be this fall when St. Thomas plays St. Olaf in football? 97-0 in 2017, 60-0 in 2018, 2019 ???

I have zero allegiance to any of the MIAC schools, so I have little care from a fan perspective. But from a karmic justice perspective - I hope UST wins 222-0. I hope they just absolutely run train on the entire conference over the next two years.
 

I have zero allegiance to any of the MIAC schools, so I have little care from a fan perspective. But from a karmic justice perspective - I hope UST wins 222-0. I hope they just absolutely run train on the entire conference over the next two years.

Wrong thread, you just bat-signaled/beetlejuiced Cruze
 

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National Media now running with the "too good" narrative.

Figures. That's the easy narrative to run with for those who don't know much about the conference or D3 athletics.

I've had conversations with some friends who follow D3 athletics closely. Couple of them are Tommies. The general feeling from them is that it's 100% correct that UST doesn't fit in the MIAC anymore from an institutional perspective, but that there are much better ways to go about this. Now, if there ends up being anything to the idea that UST could get a waiver to move directly to D1 due to this being "involuntary" then I think this played out exactly how they wanted. Time will tell.
 

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National Media now running with the "too good" narrative.

I mean yeah, isn't that the reason? If UST wasn't as dominate as it has been over the past few years do you think this would have happened?
 



D3 schools are allowed to be committed to athletic success.

Never said otherwise. But when a school twice the size of any other institution in it's conference starts spending more money than all the other schools on athletics and wins twelve all sports trophies in a row in that conference it's not a stretch to say that they don't really fit in that conference anymore.

The argument that the other schools should "get better at sports" or spend more on athletics makes sense if we are talking about D1 power conferences. There is nowhere else for those schools to go. For schools in a mid-tier D3 conference that argument doesn't hold water.
 

The argument that the other schools should "get better at sports" or spend more on athletics makes sense if we are talking about D1 power conferences. There is nowhere else for those schools to go. For schools in a mid-tier D3 conference that argument doesn't hold water.

Ok, but are the other schools making the necessary commitment to athletics? I don't follow the MIAC closely, but it seems the bottom teams have been at the bottom for quite some time and are rarely competitive. Shouldn't the conference also be looking at kicking them out because they are not fitting with the "mission"?

I'm also not sure what enrollment has do with it. This isn't high school, the coaches aren't walking around campus trying to find players. They recruit.
 

What I just can't figure out about this is how the other schools could have handled this so poorly. There is a very good - to me, convincing - case to be made that St. Thomas, due to factors such as size, location, and a greater commitment to athletics - simply doesn't fit in with schools like Hamline and St. Olaf. Whether it warranted booting St. Thomas I'm not sure, but there is obviously an issue here that needed to be explored.

However, as far as I can tell no one who is aligned with the MIAC, or any of the schools behind this move, has said a single thing publicly or made any effort to set forth the case for what they did (the Augsburg president's letter was private and was leaked, remember). So the entire public debate about this is being driven by the media, and in particular Reusse and Scoggins, who are quite clearly in the pro-St. Thomas camp and never make any pretense of acknowledging that might be any reasons for what happened other than a bad taste from football trouncings and a lack of desire to compete. The other schools were going to take a PR hit no matter what; however, it did not need to be nearly this bad, and I cannot figure out why they thought saying absolutely nothing in defense of what they did was a viable strategy.
 

ST THOMAS KICKED OUT!!!
All 13 Presidents (including St Thomas) called for involuntarily removal of St Thomas from the MIAC. St Thomas will have membership until the Spring of 2021.
No formal vote was taken, but there was unanimous agreement from all 13 Presidents.
 

Here is a letter that St Thomas just set out:

Dear St. Thomas Community,

Today is a difficult day for our community. The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) announced that St. Thomas will be involuntarily removed from membership in the MIAC effective at the end of spring 2021. You can find its official statement here.

As a founding member of the MIAC, St. Thomas has had a long history with these competitors, and we believe our strong presence and success in the conference has made it a better and more competitive one. This history holds importance to our entire community, including our students, coaches and alumni.

St. Thomas expended tremendous effort to remain in the MIAC and stabilize the conference. However, the presidents came to a consensus that the conference itself would cease to exist in its current form if St. Thomas remained. The primary concern cited by the other MIAC presidents is the lack of competitive parity within the conference, across many sports. They stated that St. Thomas has not violated any MIAC or NCAA rules and leaves the conference in good standing.

While this decision is extremely disappointing, we will continue to prioritize the welfare and overall experience of our student-athletes. They embrace and represent both academic and athletic excellence and are important contributors to our university’s culture. Additionally, our coaches share the values of advancing comprehensive excellence and are among the best in the country.

Although our athletic conference will change, one thing will not: our commitment to continued academic and athletic excellence. I am confident in our campus leadership who will guide us forward and optimistic that we will continue to celebrate great success.

Led by our Vice President and Director of Athletics, Phil Esten, and involving members of our community, we will immediately begin a deliberative process to explore other options. The strength of our athletic programs, our institutional commitment to excellence and our location in the metro area will make us an attractive candidate to other conferences. For answers to more questions about this transition, please click here.

I am proud of our success in athletics and of our student-athletes, who excel in the classroom as well as in competition. We have a strong and proud athletic history at St. Thomas – and I am certain we also have a bright future!

Sincerely,

Julie H. Sullivan, Ph.D.
President



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Ok, but are the other schools making the necessary commitment to athletics? I don't follow the MIAC closely, but it seems the bottom teams have been at the bottom for quite some time and are rarely competitive. Shouldn't the conference also be looking at kicking them out because they are not fitting with the "mission"?

I'm also not sure what enrollment has do with it. This isn't high school, the coaches aren't walking around campus trying to find players. They recruit.

The only MIAC school you'll find pretty consistently near the bottom of the standings in most sports is St. Mary's. The rest of the schools have had their ups and downs for the most part, but none have been consistently terrible. It wouldn't surprise me if some MIAC presidents would like to see St. Mary's leave, because it is also brings down the academic reputation of the conference.

But St. Mary's fits better than St. Thomas with the other MIAC schools in terms of institutional profile/values, though it lags behind in academic rankings. UST is a medium to large regional university (with a pretty transparent goal of becoming a national university) while the rest of the MIAC is small liberal arts colleges and small regional universities.

Enrollment is a major factor for a successful D3 athletic program for a multitude of reasons. Some D3 athletes are recruited, but not all. I played on a varsity team in the MIAC and some of my teammates were not recruited. Some were recruited in a pretty minimal way -- i.e. they met with the coach on their campus visit and got a few generic letters from the coach, but that was about it. Only the top-level D3 players are truly "recruited." Coaches don't have the time or budget to recruit an entire roster in most cases. Enrollment also helps because that means more student fees collected which leads to higher athletics budgets and more money put into facilities.

There was a study done on the factors for success in D3 athletics and the research showed that enrollment was one of the main factors. Enrollment partially explains why you'll find UW-La Crosse, UW-Whitewater, and UW-Eau Claire in the top 25 of the D3 Learfield Director's Cup despite their minimal athletic department budgets. UW-Oshkosh recently had to fold their men's soccer program due to budget cuts despite the fact it was consistently one of the best in the region.
https://www.academia.edu/27346598/Factors_for_Success_in_NCAA_Division_III_Athletics
 
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I have zero allegiance to any of the MIAC schools, so I have little care from a fan perspective. But from a karmic justice perspective - I hope UST wins 222-0. I hope they just absolutely run train on the entire conference over the next two years.

Make it 223-0, and it's the record. "The 1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game was the most lopsided in the history of college football, with Georgia Tech winning 222–0". BTW, this year's Olaf versus Tommies game is Sat., Nov. 02 at St. Olaf.
 

Make it 223-0, and it's the record. "The 1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game was the most lopsided in the history of college football, with Georgia Tech winning 222–0". BTW, this year's Olaf versus Tommies game is Sat., Nov. 02 at St. Olaf.

Kind of proves the point what is happening as to the success of the Tommies. No doubt its going to get worse as they prepare to move to either another conference or division.
 

An updated Strib article cites the 97-0 defeat of St. Olaf in 2017 as what really got the ball rolling with the anti-St. Thomas movement. Out of curiosity I looked up the box score for that game, and learned that St. Thomas passed the ball on seven consecutive plays on their first drive of the second half, while up 64-0, and with Jacques Perra, the starter, still in the game. They mostly ran the ball after that, but if you wonder where hard feelings about St. Thomas might have come from, that may be a good place to start.
 




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