As college athletics have become more and more a business enterprise, transition has been a constant as coaches, administrators, players and even the institutions study the best ways to capitalize on evolving opportunities.
Coaches have sought upward mobility within their profession for generations, often leaving behind the players they recruited.
Many student-athletes have become less inclined to accept the status quo, particularly in such high-profile sports as men’s and women’s basketball where the Division I transfer rates have skyrocketed in recent years.
For schools and conferences, the individual solutions of the best academic and athletic fits for each program similarly are works in progress, even among the country’s largest collaborations.
And it’s not just the Division I power conferences with the big TV contracts.
Take the NCAA Division III North Atlantic Conference, which includes 10 full-time members from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Only one current NAC school, Maine Maritime Academy of Castine, was among the original six members of the North Atlantic Women’s Conference in 1996, and it remained that way when three more schools joined three years later.
By 2002 the NAC was flourishing numerically, with 13 full-time participants and two associate members.
Today that membership is trending downward. Colby-Sawyer College of New London, New Hampshire, announced in June 2016 its intention to join the Great Northeast Athletic Conference beginning with the 2018-2019 academic year and Castleton (Vermont) University recently announced its acceptance into the Little East Conference beginning with the 2018-2019 campaign.
“The Little East aligns well with us both academically and athletically, and we think it’s a perfect fit,” said Castleton president David Wolk in announcing the switch in conference affiliation after 16 years as a NAC member.
“While the other members each more than double our size, we anticipate many years of healthy competition and sportsmanship among our counterparts,” he added.
One other NAC member also reportedly is planning to bolt the NAC for a different conference, though that school has yet to announce its plans.
That would leave just seven full-time NAC members, the minimum number for a conference to maintain automatic bids to the NCAA Division III tournament.
The remaining full-time members would be Husson University of Bangor, Maine Maritime Academy, Thomas College of Waterville, the University of Maine at Farmington, New England College of Henniker, New Hampshire, and Vermont entries Green Mountain College, Johnson State College and Lyndon State College.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle, Salem (Massachusetts) State University and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts are NAC associate members and field teams in some of the conference’s sports.
While there would be a two-year grace period should membership drop below seven full-time members, NAC commissioner Marcella Zalot and other conference officials are busy addressing the most recent departures.
“The last wave was around 2010,” said Zalot, who is completing her first year as NAC commissioner after spending 12 years as athletic director at Colby College in Waterville. “Castleton’s been looking to move to the Little East for some time and it’s something their president wants, so it wasn’t a big surprise. Was it disappointing? Yes, but not a surprise.
“What we’re doing now is trying to be creative in terms of the schools we’re recruiting and positioning ourselves as a place those schools want to be.”
One major challenge facing Zalot and the NAC is its geography, which she nonetheless sees as an advantage because of the cooperation among members in handling scheduling and academic issues.
“I think the core schools that are in the league are in the league, which is good, and we’ve got some plans in terms of what we want to do and we continue to work on those plans. We’ve got some schools that are interested, it’s just a matter of how we put a package together to make it something that goes from interest to the next step.”
The magic word when it comes to attracting new members, or losing current ones, is fit.
The Little East Conference, whose other members include the University of Southern Maine in Gorham, bills itself as New England’s premier athletic conference for public institutions in NCAA Division III, and that proved enticing to Castleton.
There also are private-school leagues such as the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which includes Colby, Bates and Bowdoin colleges from Maine.
Other conferences unite athletic programs from schools with other common denominators. MMA, for instance, is leaving the New England Football Conference this year to join the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference, which is sponsoring football for the first time.
MMA will remain in the North Atlantic Conference, which does not sponsor football in other sports. The Mariners will compete on the gridiron against several other NEWMAC football schools with military connections such as the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and Norwich University.
Potential new NAC members could emerge from small-college programs seeking to enhance their athletic status or existing programs from other conferences that see the NAC as a more appropriate competitive match.
“Some of the conversations we’re having now are with conferences that are more competitive than us but with schools that might not be quite as competitive as they want to be in their conference,” Zalot said.
The NAC plans to add at least one more school, but the ultimate goal is even greater expansion to help protect its NCAA automatic-qualifier status as well as address scheduling and travel considerations.
“I think in a perfect world 12 is a great number because it’s not too big for sports that everybody sponsors like basketball and soccer and women’s lacrosse that just about everybody has now,” said Zalot, “but it also insulates you a little because not everybody has field hockey, baseball and softball or volleyball.”
In most conferences, if a school gives notice of its intent to leave by May 1 of a given year, it will remain in that conference for the following academic year before moving on to its new league the following year without penalty.
That means if the North Atlantic Conference adds teams before May 1, 2018, the newcomers likely would join the league roster beginning with the 2019-2020 season.
“My goal was to have this wrapped up by now,” said Zalot, “but there are a lot of moving parts and it’s not a super-smooth process because all the parts are moving at the same time. But if we can get some things up by January or February of next year we’ll be in good shape.”
