The NCAA gave the University of St. Thomas permission Wednesday to jump directly from Division III to Division I, the final authorization for a bold move born out of the expulsion of the Minnesota private school from its conference for being too dominant.
The Tommies, who had secured a spot in the Summit League for all but three of their 22 varsity teams pending NCAA approval, announced that they will join the Pioneer League for Soccer and the College Hockey Association West for women’s hockey. The men’s hockey program is still in the process of finding a conference.
“We are more like our national Catholic peers in being a comprehensive university that competes at a level that expands our platform,” said St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan. “So I think it is pretty consistent with the trajectory of the university.” “
When most school presidents at the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decided 14 months ago that they wanted the Tommies out, the leaders of St. Thomas first focused on Division III alternatives and the potential to move to Division II. Summit League commissioner Tom Douple, eager to add the Twin Cities market, targeted St. Thomas for the conference and played a vital role in encouraging the NCAA to allow it. The Big Ten Minnesota member is the only other complete Division I program in the state.
“When you think about the future and what it could be, there is certainly a lot to be excited about, whether it be advancing to the postseason in certain sports or competing against certain teams or whatever, but for now only knowing that we have That no one has done before is really a testament to the institution’s perseverance and strength, ” said Athletic Director Phil Esten.
The NCAA Division I council ruled in June that St. Thomas could make a formal request to waive reclassification rules for Division III schools seeking Division I membership that currently require a 12-year process. with a stop in Division II. The council planned to vote in April on a proposal to reduce the reclassification process to five years, but the exemption was granted to St. Thomas in this unique and urgent scenario.
UST is the first school to make the two-level jump since the national governing body for college sports established the current rules in 2010. Buffalo made the two-level jump in 1993. Dayton did the same that year, but the Flyers already they were in Division I in basketball.
The 2020-21 school year will be the final season for the Tommies at the 100-year-old MIAC they helped found. The Catholic institution of some 6,000 college students located in the state capital, St. Paul, is more than twice the size of the other schools at MIAC and has long produced the most powerful programs in that league in many sports. The Tommies have won the All Sports Trophy at MIAC for 13 consecutive school years on both the men’s and women’s sides, and have won 15 NCAA national team sports titles since 1982.
“DI is not a homogeneous division, just like D-II and D-III is not,” said Sullivan. “When it says DI, it doesn’t mean we are becoming the state of Ohio.” So we are delighted with this, because we believe that this really expands the platform by which we have an impact. We broaden the geographic reach of our student recruitment, our visibility through our competition. ”
Like any transitional school, St. Thomas will have provisional Division I status for four years until he is first eligible for the postseason competition in the 2025-26 seasons.
The Summit League currently covers seven states with the following schools: Denver, Fort Wayne, North Dakota, State of North Dakota, Omaha, Oral Roberts, South Dakota, State of South Dakota, and Western Illinois.
The Pioneer League is a non-scholarship FCS conference that currently covers eight states from California to Florida to New York. It includes the University of San Diego, where Sullivan previously served, as well as Dayton, Drake, Davidson, Marist, Stetson, Morehead State, Butler, and Valparaíso.
The Tommies could be part of the new iteration of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, a group of seven schools that will separate from WCHA next year: two in Minnesota, one in Ohio and four in Michigan. New CCHA commissioner Don Lucia said last month that St. Thomas is a program in which the league “would certainly have an interest.”
On the women’s side, the Tommies will reach the strongest league in the sport, joining Bemidji State, Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota State, Ohio State, St. Cloud State, and Wisconsin.
There are no NCAA or league requirements for larger facilities that must be met, Esten said, but St. Thomas will continue to assess its needs as the process of raising the profile and raising competition unfolds. The biggest need over time is likely to be a hockey stadium, with Tommies teams currently playing in an off-campus suburb at a facility shared with a high school.
The university has a large pool of donors, with an endowment reported at over $ 518 million a year ago, well positioned in the region to raise the additional funds that will be needed to support Division I programs. The virus that has shut down college sports has not had a big financial impact on St. Thomas, as it is still on a Division III budget for another year.
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