NCAA Division III institutions not only provide high-level competitive athletics but also an elite academic experience, and in order to maintain the goals associated with that mission, the New England Conferences would do well to realign.
The main reason behind this realignment would be a focus on saving dollars for the institutions whenever possible.
With the recent scheduled closings of Hampshire College and Anna Maria College, the focus must be on reigning in travel budgets with the end goal preserving more athletic programs and each institution's academics.
A way to save money is for the colleges and universities at the NCAA Division III level in New England to realign the conferences regionally. This would make the conference travel schedules more inexpensive and reduce the travel time for the student athletes but would not hinder elite programs with larger budgets from scheduling any team they wish during its non-conference schedule.
The proposed hypothetical realignment would not apply to certain sports. For example, football would not be subject to these new leagues because not all schools have football programs, and these changes would not include the more niche programs such as skiing, gymnastics and equestrian, among others. These niche programs could remain in the conferences currently established for those sports.
With these parameters in mind here is what the ideal conferences in New England would look like:
You can see the advantages associated with the proposed CCC, as three schools are located in New London and three in the greater Hartford area which would greatly reduce travel times and budgets. With all the conference schools being so geographically close, it would also reduce missed classroom hours (associated with travel) and allow more time on the back end for focus on academics.
Volleyball impact: Wesleyan, Trinity College, Conn. College, W. Connecticut State and Hartford would compete for the title.
Volleyball Impact: Middlebury College and Plymouth State would be the top candidates vying for the conference crown. When St. Anselm drops down to Division III in 2027-28, they will automatically strengthen the conference and become a viable contender for the title.
Volleyball Impact: Colby College, Bowdoin, Bates and the University of New England would challenge annually for the crown.
Volleyball Impact: This conference would be wide open as Johnson & Wales, UMass-Dartmouth, Roger Williams and Bridgewater State would be top contenders, but Salve and Wheaton would also be extremely competitive.
Volleyball Impact: Williams College and Springfield College would instantly become the favorites for the crown but could get tested by Amherst as well.
This Greater Boston conference would drastically cut travel times for all the schools and for all sports, but Brandeis would save countless thousands of dollars between all sports. The Brandeis Judges currently make multiple cross-country trips as part of the University Athletic Association, which fields teams from all over the country.
Volleyball Impact: MIT, Tufts, Emerson, Lasell, Brandeis, Wentworth and Emmanuel would among the contenders for the conference title.
All of these programs would again be roughly one hour of travel time from one another.
Volleyball Impact: Wellesley, Babson, Gordon and Endicott would compete consistently for the conference crown.
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