Last year, NESCAC presidents voted to restrict NCAA tournament placements to teams that won division championship tournaments beginning in the 2001-02 season. The decision came as NESCAC presidents sought to reinforce the conference's image as one which places its highest priority on academics. Due to opposition from many member schools and a decrease in the number of available at-large bids, that decision was overturned.
"It seemed to me that this was a hot issue for those involved," said President Tom Gerety. "It went down very easily but with a condition."
The condition Gerety spoke of is that the policy of at-large acceptances will be revisited at the end of this year. As previously decided, NESCAC schools will still be unable to participate in East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) tournaments.
"I'm happy the NESCAC has decided to allow at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament," said Sports Information Director Kevin Graber. "The NESCAC is one of the strongest Division III athletic conferences in the nation, often with two or more teams in the top 20 in a number of sports."
"I'm definitely excited about this," said Abigail Ouimet '03, a field hockey player. "NESCAC field hockey is a really strong league, with Middlebury, Bowdoin, Williams and us. Last year we didn't win the conference tournament, we got an at-large bid and still got a really high seed. This will let the NESCAC be better represented at NCAA, as it should be."
"It's unfortunate when a deserving team is excluded from meaningful postseason play, like the NCAA tournament," said Graber. "That's the pot of gold at the end of the sports rainbow for any student-athlete."
Until 1994, NESCAC teams did not compete in NCAA tournaments. Gerety said that the NESCAC schools were still looking to find the best system by which to choose which teams would be playoff bound. Since 1998, the number of at-large bids offered to NESCAC teams has dropped. "What we didn't anticipate was the decline in at-large opportunities," said Gerety.
Member colleges once adverse to NCAA tournament participation have since come to support the idea of national postseason competition. "Once people tried it," he said, "they had been bitten."
Cross-country and track team Coach Erik Nedeau praised the change in policy. "Allowing teams to take at-large bids is a definite improvement over last year, when some of the best teams were left out of the playoffs," he said. "If [you are] in the top 10, you've got three or four teams from the NESCAC and only one or two can go on to nationals, then nationals are just that much less competitive. In any case, the best teams should be able to go on to the playoffs."
Gerety made clear that the change in policy was not made in response to a specific team's exclusion from an NCAA tournament, but rather in consideration of larger principles. "What matters is not an occasional at-large bid to one of our teams," he said. "That is a trivial matter."
In addition to the allowance for at-large bids, NESCAC presidents voted to eliminate mid-week games from postseason schedules for most sports.
"Moving tournament play to the weekend is great news," said Graber. "It not only eliminates conflict with classes and exams for the players, but it also allows other students to attend the games that might otherwise be busy in the classroom."
Owing to their tournaments' unique three-day schedule, only men's and women's basketball will continue to hold their tournaments on mid-week dates. The presidents decided that a Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule would be more academically devastating than a mid-week game.
Because of the scheduling restrictions, some tournaments will have unconventional schedules. "We end up having to go to play at Bates on a Saturday night because they're the only team with lights," said Ouimet. "We don't have our homefield advantage but it's good to be able to accommodate the schools which had concerns."
Despite what he viewed as logistical improvements, Nedeau wondered what the ultimate effect of the changes would be. "I don't necessarily know that it will place more emphasis on academics," he said.