By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. –The most significant recruiting obstacle faced by the men’s and women’s hockey programs at Rochester Institute of Technology has been removed.
RIT is now permitted to offer athletic scholarships for hockey after Division III member schools overwhelmingly approved a change to the bylaws during Saturday’s Business Session at the 2022 NCAA Convention in Indianapolis. The measure was approved by a vote of 388-18, with 39 abstentions.
“This is huge for the programs,” Celeste Brown, RIT’s women’s coach, said late this morning. “The question mark we come up against a lot is dollar signs. That won’t be a question mark anymore.”
NCAA rules had prohibited schools sponsoring multidivisional programs (teams in both D-I and D-III sports) from offering athletic scholarships. So, while RIT’s hockey programs play at the Division I level, they were allowed to offer only merit- or need-based financial aid.
That often was the deciding factor for potential recruits who were able to accept athletic scholarships from other schools.
“Our staff does an unbelievable job opening doors” Brown said, “but it eventually comes down to a moment of reality for the student-athlete: ‘I can have a free education, free athletics and free housing and have no debt and no burden when I move on to the next stage of my life.’ ”
Now, the playing field is level, and it comes at a time when recruiting has become even more difficult for schools that don’t offer athletic scholarships.
“It’s really needed, especially with the transfer portal, NIL (the selling of name-image-likeness) and people over-recruiting,” men’s coach Wayne Wilson said. “The pool of players just kept getting smaller.”
Who could blame the athletes? A year at RIT, before any aid, carries an estimated cost of just over $69,000.
“I’ve always joked that our players want to play in our rink, not pay for our rink,” Wilson said.
Suddenly the tables could be turned since an RIT education should be perceived as far more valuable than what many other Division I schools have to offer.
“Before, dollars and cents took over the conversation,” Wilson said. “Now that I’m offering athletic scholarships, I can rest on the laurels of our school, our fans and our rink.”
The rule change also will impact the men’s lacrosse program at Hobart College, the men’s and women’s hockey programs at Union College, wrestling at Franklin & Marshall and rowing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
RIT officials had pushed for the rule change for several years but had few allies.
“We couldn’t ever even get it to a vote,” Wilson said. “The D-I programs couldn’t help us and the D-III schools were saying, ‘Not our problem, you’re not playing D-III. It kept falling on silent ears.”
However, Union College officials joined the push and the proposal gained a groundswell of support, resulting in the landslide vote.
Four predominately D-III schools that offer D-I hockey scholarships (Clarkson, RPI, St. Lawrence and Colorado College) were granted a special exemption in 2004.
The Tigers men’s team is 10-10-2 (6-6-2-2 in Atlantic Hockey) while the women remain winless (0-22-2, 0-8-1 in College Hockey America).
This is the 17th season at the Division I level for RIT’s men’s program and season 10 for the women. While the men’s team has barged into the national spotlight, reaching the Frozen Four in 2010 and the Midwest Regional Finals in 2015, the gap between the elite schools has been growing larger in recent years.
The Tigers are the only team in Atlantic Hockey not offering scholarships.
The recruiting battle was perhaps even more difficult for the women’s program, which jumped to D-I after winning the D-III national title in 2012. The women won CHA championships in 2014 and 2015 and earned one NCAA Tournament appearance.
“This is a great day for our department and our hockey programs,” Executive Director of Athletics Jacqueline Nicholson said in the school’s news release. “I’m grateful for the Division III membership’s support of this legislation which will have a profound effect on the lives of our student-athletes and what our teams can accomplish.”
The coaches said they expect to learn details of scholarship implementation within the next week, including how the rule change will impact current players.
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