This update is a tool to enhance communication between the NCAA national office and the Division III membership, with distribution to athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives, presidents, national SAAC, conference commissioners and the National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators listserv. We encourage athletics directors to share this communication with their athletics department members. Please contact Katie Mucci to include an item or share comments, and remember to check out the Division III governance homepage for the latest news and information.
Celebrate graduating women for their academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership with a nomination for NCAA Woman of the Year. Each member school can nominate up to two graduating female student-athletes if at least one of the nominees is a student-athlete of color or international student-athlete. Submit your school’s nomination(s) through the NCAA Program Hub by 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday, June 21. Visit ncaa.org/woty for details.
Sports Sponsorship and Demographic Form
The Sports Sponsorship and Demographic Form is now open. Completing the form is a membership requirement, and it must be submitted no later than Sunday, June 30. If you have additional questions, please contact Nan Thomas or Keke Liu.
If your school did not meet sports sponsorship requirements for 2023-24, you should consider filing a sports sponsorship waiver via Requests/Self-Reports Online. We recommend reviewing the Filing a Division III Sports-Sponsorship Waiver Request resource. If you have additional questions about the waiver, please contact Eric Hartung.
Division III Federated Playing Rules Resource
The Division III staff has developed a one-page resource to explain the Division III Federated Playing Rules process.
Today’s Top 10 Award
Nominations for the 2025 Today’s Top 10 Award will be accepted beginning Monday, June 3, for college athletes who completed their athletics eligibility in the 2023-24 academic year. This award is given to 10 student-athletes who have brought distinction to themselves, their schools and college sports. Award nominations are submitted through the NCAA Program Hub and are due by 5 p.m. Eastern time Monday, July 8. A school may nominate more than one student-athlete for the Today’s Top 10 Award. Please note: Each nomination must be entered by a separate Program Hub user on your campus. Contact Melody Lawrence with any questions.
Division III Webinars
Webinars will be from 1:30 to 2 p.m. Eastern time the first Tuesday of the month on the following dates and topics:
June 4 – Athletic Training Working Group Updates.
Aug. 6 – Recap of Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Management Council and Presidents Council Meetings.
Sept. 3 – Outcomes of Division III Financial Reviews.
All past webinar PowerPoints are on the Division III webinar webpage.
Certifying transfer student-athletes. Per NCAA Bylaw 14.5.1, a student-athlete who transfers to a Division III institution from any other collegiate institution is required to serve an academic year in residence at the certifying institution before being eligible to compete. However, there are several exceptions to this general rule that would allow a transfer student-athlete to be immediately eligible at your institution. The exceptions can be found in Bylaws 14.5.4 (Two-Year College Transfers) and 14.5.5 (Four-Year College Transfers).
To determine whether a transfer student-athlete meets any exceptions, it is important to first understand their complete and accurate educational and athletics participation history. To do so, we recommend creating a timeline starting with the student’s high school graduation date and continuing through the student’s enrollment at your institution. You’ll want to know the following:
Each institution the student was enrolled at full time.
Any gaps in full-time enrollment (i.e., academic terms when the student was not enrolled in college or when the student was part time).
Athletics participation history, both practice and competition, per term at each institution.
Use all of your resources to ensure the timeline is accurate, including transfer tracers from previous schools, Transfer Portal information (if applicable), official transcripts and your registrar’s office for reviewing transferable credits. Once you have a full educational and participation history, you can accurately identify the type of transfer (two-year college transfer or four-year) and apply the correct transfer legislation.
REGISTER: 2024 NCAA Regional Rules Seminar
Register today for the 2024 NCAA Regional Rules Seminar scheduled June 12-14 in Las Vegas. This year’s program offerings allow attendees to select from a menu of more than 100 educational sessions. You can register for the virtual livestream through the registration site.
The three-day seminar allows athletics administrators and those with responsibilities aligned with NCAA rules to engage with one another, NCAA staff and others. Attendees include campus and conference athletics compliance administrators, coaches and other campus administrators (e.g., financial aid, registrar) from Division I, II and III member schools and conferences. Click here to register for the seminar. Current registrants may edit their seminar schedule by logging back into the registration platform.
An additional Association-wide introductory session on the NCAA Post-Eligibility Insurance program was added to the menu of program offerings and may be of interest to seminar attendees.
If you have questions about the above information or the seminar, please visit the event webpage or reach out to ncaaregionalrulesseminars@ncaa.org.
ATHLETICS COMMUNICATION UPDATES
NCAA and D3SIDA Recognition Award
The NCAA Division III and D3SIDA Recognition Award seeks to honor the best work — including news releases, feature articles, videos, blogs and other materials — produced by Division III campus and conference athletics communication offices. Each top honoree will receive a $1,500 credit to attend Division III Day at the annual College Sports Communicators convention. The next submission deadline is Nov. 15. For more information, click here.
Media Coordination/Statistics Staff Contacts
To find information about whom to contact at the NCAA for media coordination and statistics, the 2023-24 assignments can be found here.
The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics oversees the Emerging Sports for Women program. An emerging sport is a women’s sport recognized by the NCAA that is intended to help schools provide more athletics opportunities for women and more sport-sponsorship options for schools, while helping that sport achieve NCAA championship status. Click here for more information.
Diversity Spotlight Initiative
The Diversity Spotlight Initiative recognizes and promotes outstanding diversity development projects, programming and initiatives occurring on Division III campuses and in conference offices. Each month an institution or conference is identified by the selection committee to be featured on the DIII webpage and in the DIII Monthly Update. In addition, the featured institution or conference office receives $500 toward its next diversity initiative. Click here for more information.
The NCAA Division III Special Olympics Spotlight Poll is a storytelling initiative on ncaa.org/D3SpecialOlympics. It features new stories each month that highlight a Division III and Special Olympics joint activity or event. That school or conference receives $500 to use for its next Special Olympics event. Written and digital submissions both are accepted. Featured stories are selected based on inclusion of the student-athlete perspective and Division III messaging. To submit a story for consideration, email d3specialolympics@ncaa.org.
The NCAA has entered an alliance with RefReps (refreps.com), to provide comprehensive sports officiating education curriculum, training materials and resources for 15 different sports. This curriculum is designed for sports officiating to be taught in the collegiate classroom. For schools already offering sports officiating courses, we believe these materials would positively enhance your programs and streamline your efforts to develop and procure resources. For schools not currently offering a sports officiating course, these materials are academically rigorous enough to serve as the entire foundation for one. Please check out refreps.com and contact Kyle Armstrong and team at hype@refreps.com to learn more about the opportunity to join this NCAA supported initiative to help address the national shortage of sports officials.
Soccer
The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Soccer Rules Committee and Playing Rules Oversight Panel recently approved eight major rules changes. Five of these changes will be applicable to Division I, II and III men’s and women’s soccer competition, and three additional changes will be applicable to Division I men’s soccer competition only. These rules changes may be viewed by going to “2024 and 2025 Major Rules Changes” located under the “Updates” section here.
As a reminder, NCAA legislation requires member schools to report annually on all student-athlete fatalities and catastrophic injuries, regardless of whether the fatality/injury is sport-related. Schools must report a catastrophic event that occurred during this annual cycle, and they must report retroactively a catastrophic event that occurred since the legislation became effective Aug. 1, 2014, if that event has not already been reported.
To assist in the collection of this data, the NCAA Sport Science Institute has partnered with the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research and the Datalys Center. In addition, an online reporting tool has been developed to facilitate reporting. Schools can also report a catastrophic event by calling the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at 919-843-8357. For more information and for answers to frequently asked questions about fatality and catastrophic injury reporting, visit the NCAA website at ncaa.org/injuryreporting.
Cannabinoids Removed From List of NCAA Banned Substances
In April, NCAA Divisions II and III adopted legislation that removes cannabinoids (which includes cannabis) from the list of NCAA banned substances. Effective immediately, THC (the psychoactive compound in cannabis) will no longer be tested for during NCAA-sponsored Division II and III drug-testing events. Schools may elect to conduct their own drug-testing events and continue to test for THC. For the full memo and other related resources sent to the membership May 16, click here.
Click here to review the Eligibility Center's May Newsletter. In this month’s newsletter, information on registering for the Eligibility Center’s upcoming Regional Rules session is provided.
LG Life’s Good Coaches Award
LG invites NCAA student-athletes to nominate coaches for its inaugural Life’s Good Coaches Award. This award recognizes coaches who create supportive environments empowering their student-athletes and teams. Student-athletes are encouraged to nominate their coach by June 30. Two coaches will be honored as “Most Outstanding Mental Health Advocates” later this year.
Fall Student-Athlete Leadership Forum
Mark your calendars! The 2024 NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum fall nominations will open at 8 a.m. Eastern time June 3. The leadership development department will send correspondence soon regarding the nomination criteria and process to those eligible to nominate learners for this program. The fall dates for the Student-Athlete Leadership Forum in Charlotte, North Carolina, are Nov. 21-24. If you have any questions, contact ldevelopment@ncaa.org.
This email was sent to NCAA Division III presidents and chancellors, athletics direct reports, directors of athletics, faculty athletics representatives, senior woman administrators, sports information directors, directors of compliance, commissioners, assistant/associate commissioners, national Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, provisional, reclassifying and exploratory members based on contact information in the NCAA Directory.
