The NCAA Division III Wrestling Committee is meeting this week in Indianapolis. Among the items under discussion is the regional alignment for future seasons. The committee recently expanded from four to six members in order to allow each region to have a representative on the committee. Ron Beaschler of Ohio Northern (Midwest Region) was added to the committee prior to the NCAA Championships. Jeff Swenson of Augsburg (West Region) was added sometime after the Championships. The current committee roster is below.
Update: Scott Honecker of Williams College is also on the committee and will ultimately replace Dave Kemmy whose term ends in August of this year.
| Title | Name & Institution | Conference | Term Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|
| AD | David Kemmy Roger Williams University |
Commonwealth Coast Conference | AUG 2017 |
| AD | Jeff Swenson Augsburg College |
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference | AUG 2020 |
| AD, Director of Athletics & Head Wr. Coach | Eric Van Kley Central College (Iowa) |
Iowa Intercol. Athletic Conf. | AUG 2020 |
| Head Wrestling Coach | Nathan W. Shearer Washington and Lee University |
Old Dominion Athletic Conf. | AUG 2018 |
| Head Wrestling Coach | Roger W. Crebs Lycoming College |
Middle Atlantic Conferences | AUG 2019 |
| Head Wrestling Coach | Ronald Beaschler Ohio Northern University |
Ohio Athletic Conference | AUG 2021 |
| Head Wrestling Coach | Scott Honecker Williams College |
NESCAC | AUG 2021 |
Wow, what a joke. The person who caused this mess with the regional alignment in the first place was added to the committee to try and fix it?!? Absolutely ludicrous.
Caused the mess?? The regional alignment was a 5 year deal from the NCAA. That’s why it wasn’t changed this past year because it hadn’t served its 5th year yet. The Swenson blame game is just ridiculous. Old118 you have to figure out how to win on the mat, not by running of the mouth.
Actually, it was supposed to be re-evaluated after year 4, not 5, which was last year. The regional alignment when it was set up was pushed by without any approval or even feedback from the coaches. I was in the meetings. The switch to 6 regionals of 30 qualifiers was approved by the coaches, but not the alignment. We were told that would be discussed at a later date and any proposals that were currently being thrown around were just that, proposals, not final plans. We were also told that the reason for the change was to get away from using historical data, but the mythical power scores used to distribute the teams was based on, you guessed it, historical data. Next thing we knew we were being told those were the final alignments. Please don’t tell me that you think the way the West has been set up is fair and does not need to be changed.
Will not disagree with you, there does need to be change. And as it appears, it will be happening this year. It will be interesting to see a new proposal. However I do not agree with just a geographical proposal. You want the best 180 wrestlers in the country to make the national tournament? It wont happen if regions are solely based off of geographical information. Not a chance.
I agree that strictly geographical will not give you any closer to the top 180 being there than the system we have now. You simply can’t have teams driving past one another to get to different regions, or making a 9 hour trip when there is another region much, much closer. Ideally, with the continued growth in number of teams, I would love to see a 7th region added in the next few years, bumping the number up to 210. If you really want to get closer to the best being represented, add another 30 (3 per weight) added after the fact using some sort of RPI-like system as D1 does. I don’t think 240 is too much to ask when you could have close to 120 teams in a couple years. I know the NCAA does not want to add because of the cost factor, but with more qualifiers you add more potential schools being involved, more families making the trip, more fans, more hotel rooms, concessions, merchandise sales, etc. It’s what D3 wrestling deserves.
The current system does a very poor job of getting the 180 best wrestlers to the tournament primarily because the West Region is both small and weak. Ideally, a system will be put in place that brings more fairness into DIII wrestling.
Agreed Andy. We can only hope they actually fix this thing.
The current system does a very poor job of getting the 180 best wrestlers to the tournament primarily because the West Region is both small and weak. Ideally, a system will be put in place that brings more fairness into DIII wrestling.
by AV on Apr 12, 2017 at 3:39 pm
Life’s not fair , kids can go to different schools or just win . Ans in me eyes it can’t get any more fair than when just one went from a conference
This just gets better and better..haha. Crooked Swenson will continue to place the interests of his own agenda over the well being of the sport. He’s nothing more than a corrupt politician. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if anything good comes out of this.
It’s not just Swenson although I agree he has a lot to do with the current system, but it’s everyone else who has special interests. I’m not confident the committee above can leave out special interests and come up with a system that is fair for D3 wrestling.
Swenson and the entire West region is ok with keeping the field the way it is. Kemmy wants Ithaca and Cortland out of their region. Sheerer is ok with this plan since W&L leaves the East on that proposal. I have seen many proposa;s that favor the region or team making the proposal.
Let’s come up with a plan that is good for D3 wrestling and all the 100 programs!
I hope the committee is able to reach something fair. It shouldn’t be too difficult to at least improve on the current alignments.
My vote, FWIW, would be to give teams the freedom to pick their own regions right before they are held (or better yet: also allow teams to send different wrestlers to different regions to take advantage of weak weights). This would do the best job at getting the top 180 to Nationals, and it would likely remove most of the politics (and also any reliance on historical data) from the process.
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