Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405150045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Top-ranked Trenton State's 22-8 romp finished the best season in Roanoke's athletic history. Never before have the Maroons played in four NCAA team tournaments in one school year.
Added to the NCAA trips by two basketball teams and men's soccer and women's lacrosse Maroons staying home after loss in women's lacrosse. D3 squads are individual NCAA appearances by Cathie Showalter in cross country and freshman Courtney Fitch's qualifying for the Division III men's track and field championships with a high jump of 6 feet 10-plus.
Roanoke has earned 12 NCAA team bids in five sports and won the same number of Old Dominion Athletic Conference titles the past five years. Adding to that winning tradition at the Salem college will become more difficult, however.
"I think we've been right there the last three or four years," said Scott Allison, who is finishing his fifth year as Roanoke's athletic director. "We've had programs as good as these, but we just haven't been able to get over the top, to win that one game we had to win.
"A lot of it is recruiting. Some of it is tradition. Some of it is luck. And the sports in which we've been most successful, I feel like the ODAC is good in most of those, too, and that helps us be competitive nationally."
Competing nationally is one thing, winning is another, as Roanoke learned in Saturday's loss. The growing influence of larger, public schools in Division III, once dominated by private-school programs, was on display at Alumni Field.
It's an issue off the field, too. Division III is the most disparate of the NCAA classifications, and it appears headed for restructuring - a move Allison said Roanoke favors. While it won't be played out on as many sports pages as the impending facelift for Division I glamour, it will influence more schools.
It could be a power struggle of public versus private. School enrollment could be a factor. Off-campus recruiting could be a point of negotiation. Academic quality also could be a dividing line.
While the public schools have more students and larger talent pools, the real power in Division III belongs to the upper-crust academic institutions with more diverse programs and more money - like Washington and Lee.
"Some of the schools may want to create an Ivy League of Division III," Allison said. "We'd like to think we could be part of that."
Roanoke's academic potential has improved in recent years, too. The average SAT score for an entering student is up to 1020. As the academic stature rises, the Maroons face tougher competition and standards in recruiting, too.
The competitiveness within Division III has blossomed in the past five years. The men's lacrosse program at Roanoke made seven NCAA appearances in eight years (1982-88). That's history. The Maroons' only bid since was the national runner-up finish in '92.
The women's team has kept Roanoke's NCAA lacrosse name in the bracket. The Maroons are 69-14 in coach Tracy Coyne's five seasons and have played in five of the last seven NCAAs, including two Final Four appearances.
Roanoke has played in five straight NCAA women's basketball tournaments. This season, Roanoke became the first ODAC member to put its men's and women's basketball teams in the NCAA in the same year.
Allison, the men's soccer coach, took his team to the national quarterfinals where in 136 minutes and the second sudden-death period, the Maroons lost 2-1 at Cal-San Diego - the eventual national champion.
That was a private school with an enrollment of 1,500 against a state school of 17,000. No matter what happens to the Division III concept, Roanoke must continue to make itself attractive to be where it wants to be in athletics - which is where it is now.
The Maroons spend only $220,000 annually on athletic operations for 17 varsity sports. They employ only six full-time coaches. Several facilities need improvement, like Alumni Field and the track surrounding it.
While more two-sport coaches may be a growing trend in Division III, so is increasing the number of programs for non-scholarship athletes.
Roanoke has discussed a boost for its track-and-field program - where needed numbers add to enrollment - and adding programs in baseball and women's softball.
That discussion, however, "is not as formal as I'd like it to be," Allison said.
Athletic diversity makes a campus - especially at a private school - more attractive to high school juniors and seniors, too.
Roanoke has enjoyed more than recent athletic success. The Maroons had a great 1993-94 season, but they certainly aren't one-year wonders.
They have tradition. It will be interesting to watch where they try to take it.
by CNB