The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) has voted to remove founding member St. Thomas after 99 years in the conference, citing competitive parity.
The Minnesota-based conference comprised 13 Division III athletic programs. The University of St. Thomas has been a member of the conference since it was established in 1920, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The St. Thomas Tommies will compete in the MIAC through the spring of 2021. The conference announced that St. Thomas was “involuntarily removed from membership.”
The other schools in the MIAC have struggled to keep up with St. Thomas, which has an enrollment more than double the next-biggest schools in the conference. KSTP news reports that St. Thomas had an undergraduate enrollment of 6100 in the fall of 2017, compared to 3100 for St. Catherine (an all-women’s school) and 3030 for St. Olaf. St. Thomas has dominated many sports within the conference – the Star-Tribune reports that St. Thomas has won the men’s and women’s all-sports titles in the conference for each of the past 11 seasons. The most publicized run has been in football, where St. Thomas has won six conference titles since 2008 and have regularly blown out conference opponents, including a 97-0 drubbing of St. Olaf in 2017.
St. Thomas has won the last four women’s MIAC titles in swimming & diving, and had won four straight men’s titles from 2014-2018 before losing to Gustavus last year. Their dominance hasn’t crossed over as much into swimming historically, with St. Olaf leading all schools with 30 MIAC men’s titles and 15 MIAC women’s titles. Gustavus has won 22 men’s and 10 women’s titles, and St. Thomas is third, with 15 men’s and 4 women’s titles.
The Star-Tribune reports that if St. Thomas stays at the Division III level, they could potentially join the WIAC – the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletics Conference. St. Thomas could also choose to move up to Division II, potentially joining the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. One issue there is hockey, which isn’t offered at the Division II level. That would force St. Thomas to jump all the way to Division I in hockey, which would be a much bigger financial commitment, as well as a 12-year transition period from Division III to Division II to Division I.
Great message to send; “Let that be a lesson to you other schools; if you succeed and get too good, we’ll kick you out in the interest of mediocrity, ugh, I mean parity. Yea, that’s it PARITY.”
This is the exact reason that Grand Valley should be moved to D1. They have 30,000+ students and compete against schools with a max of 7,000 (with most having less than 2,000). To the point that the vast majority of the GLIAC just split and formed their own Conference. But GVSU would rather trounce the little guys to appear successful, being a large fish in a tiny pond, than actually compete with others at their level.
Doesn’t everyone get a participation trophy? Boohoo
Dear swim swam: any chance you can find out more? Are there implicit or explicit guidelines re college size , academic guidelines or scholarships?
On the one hand, this could be the trend in academics to rig stuff so there’s equality of outcomes, which is bad. Or maybe there are “guidelines” which all agree to implicitly. Kinda like a mid major basketball team doesn’t belong in the ACC.
I get y’all don’t have tons of funds to go investigate, but it’d be interesting to learn more.
This is stunning: a 99-year founding member of the conference being kicked out because they are too good. What a horrible precedent.
As a swimmer in the WIAC I say they join the WIAC, someone needs to end Stevens Point men’s title streak
STU is bigger than the rest of the schools, does not fit in academically with the rest, and gives “scholarship” money. Good move MIAC.
Not sure why you think it doesn’t fit academically with the other schools. I would say there are only 2 “highly selective” schools in that conference – Carlton and Macalaster. The academic profile of its students is totally consistent with at least two-thirds of the member schools.
Also far from the only school in that conference to give academic and need scholarship to its athletes.
I don’t know how St. Thomas handles financial aid, but I’m aware of another school in the conference that gives “leadership” scholarships to recruited athletes (though the scholarships cannot be conditional on the athlete joining the team)..
Will the WIAC even take them? Why would they?
Mostly a decision about football, it appears, but a chicken $h!t move by the presidents of 9 of the 13 member schools.
Not fun for the victors or the loser when a game goes 97-0.
There are ways to prevent it from getting quite that bad in a given game. St. Thomas and/or the officials really shouldn’t have allowed that to happen.