Everyone knows what Division 1 college sports is all about; it’s football, basketball, and maybe baseball at the big-time schools like the University of Alabama and University of Michigan. But who knows about Division 3 athletics? Division 1 football programs have revenues in the millions of dollars,. The University of Texas brings in $93,942,815 annually according to a 2012 study by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), but is there a similar financial impact with a football team at a Division 3 school? A few say they know the answer and that a Division 3 football team has a much greater and positive impact. But how?
Massachusetts is home to 46 Division 3 colleges and universities; 20 of those schools have football programs. Some of the 20 Division 3 schools that have football have just recently started in the last 10 years. Anna Maria College began its program in 2009, Becker College in 2005, Endicott College in 2003 and before that Mount Ida College started in 1999.
Adding a football program to small colleges provides more benefits than just increasing the school’s annual revenue. It can increase male enrollment, public exposure, and school spirit. But with the benefits come struggles. Adding a football program is a very expensive process for a school, often involving the addition of facilities, equipment, and staff. It can also change the school’s atmosphere for good or bad.
In a 2009 article by the National Football Foundation, when asked about the new addition of a football program, Anna Maria College President Jack Calareso said, “Adding athletics programs in general is important to enhance the experience for all students, and it’s great for our alumni and our community… For a small college, this has been a topic that has garnered a lot of attention, and it certainly helped with enrollment, helping us to recruit both athletes and non-athletes alike.”
This project will dive deeper into the reason several schools have started a Division 3 football program as well as the reasons some of the 26 other schools have chosen not to. It will look at the process of starting a football program and the struggles faced by athletic departments and coaches that come with it as well as its effect on the school’s students.
