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NCAA Slots UT Tyler in Division III Membership Lottery

The NCAA Division III Membership Committee has slotted UT Tyler to enter a four-year provisional process that will, if successfully completed, result in full membership in Division III.

The committee slotted three full classes of provisional members through a membership lottery of eligible institutions to enter the four-year provisional process. This selection represents the first time institutions have been able to enter the Division III provisional process since the membership moratorium was lifted in August 2002.

“The University of Texas at Tyler is elated to be included in the NCAA's first DIII Provisional Membership class,” said Dr. Howard Patterson, director of athletics. “We have been working for over a year to initiate many of the NCAA's policies and procedures in the event we were fortunate enough to be chosen in the first group and those efforts are going to pay off.

“This is extremely meaningful to our student-athletes, who are now eligible for all of the American Southwest Conference awards, with the exception of Conference Championships,” Patterson added. “The NCAA does not allow provisional member institutions to compete in post-season play-offs until they become full NCAA DIII members.”

This was the first time institutions seeking to enter NCAA Division III had to enter a lottery to do so. The lottery is a random-selection process designed to create a fair way of determining which institutions may enter the provisional process. It is the first step of a new provisional membership process designed to provide an extensive educational program for each institution.

Nineteen institutions, including UT Tyler, completed the Division III exploratory year and applied for the lottery. Institutions were permitted to defer membership, so only 15 institutions vied for 2003-04, the first year available. All institutions entering the process were slotted, and all have numbers reflecting the order of their selection to permit the Division III Membership Committee to advance an institution should one from the previous class leave the provisional process.

Division III Provisional Institutions for 2003-04:

1. Palm Beach Atlantic University
2. University of Texas at Tyler
3. Penn State Berks-Lehigh Valley College
4. University of Maine at Presque Isle
5. Finlandia University
6. Mount Mary College

Division III Provisional Institutions for 2004-05:

1. Mount Aloysius College
2. Crown College
3. Keystone College
4. Tri-State College
5. Presentation College
6. Mitchell College

Division III Provisional Institutions for 2005-06:

1. La Sierra University
2. Northwestern College (Minnesota)
3. Salem College
4. Bethany Lutheran College
5. North Central University (Minnesota)
6. Purchase College

Division III Provisional Institutions for 2006-07:

1. Johnson and Wales University, Denver

To be eligible for the lottery, institutions had to fulfill an exploratory year and attend required exploratory education sessions. Each school entering the provisional process will seek to complete a four-year comprehensive educational plan that includes in-person visits to campus by NCAA membership services staff.

“The key to this new provisional process is the new educational program,” said Christopher Bledsoe, chair of the Division III Membership Committee, member of the Division III Management Council and director of athletics, intramurals and recreation at New York University.

“We’ve had a provisional educational process in the past, but this new program promises to be more thorough, including in-person education and much more practical and hands-on information. We want institutions to have a clear understanding of what it means to be a member of Division III,” Bledsoe said, noting that these institutions have not previously been members of the NCAA.

The Division III Membership Committee recommended to the governance structure that each class of provisional institutions be limited to six to provide for a meaningful educational experience. It also recommended a random-selection process to ensure fairness. The Division III membership approved the new provisional process at the NCAA Convention in 2002.

“We chose a lottery to select from eligible institutions because it was clear that there were more institutions interested in joining than could be accommodated at one time,” Bledsoe said. “This method provided for a fair way of determining which institutions were slotted in each class.”

Participating at the NCAA Division III, non-scholarship level, UT Tyler is entering the third year of a four-year implementation of 13 men’s and women's sports. Men’s and women’s tennis began in fall 2001, and men's and women's soccer, cross-country and golf began in fall 2002. Men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and volleyball will begin in the 2003-04 academic year. Softball is scheduled to begin in 2004-05.

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Contact person: Emily Battle, (903) 565-5604