For the love of the game.  The sports cliché of clichés.  Certainly a member of the sports clichés Hall of Fame if ever there was one.  But despite my best efforts to keep it locked away in some dark recess of my mind, it kept sneaking out as I read a story buried in the back of the local paper about the Division III hoops tournament.

I love Division III sports, and I won’t pretend to be unbiased about it.  I played D-III football (Franklin & Marshall Diplomats… Go Dips!) and my little brother played D-III hoops (College of Wooster).  I went to many of his games, including opening-round tourney contests in both his junior and senior seasons.  The Fighting Scots lost both and the family’s still pretty upset about it 15 years out.    

And that’s why I love small college sports.  While an obscene amount of attention and adulation is showered on the athletes and coaches at big-time schools, their small-school counterparts are pursuing their sports with the same amount of passion and intensity … maybe more.  The Division I tournament can be incredibly exciting, but to many of the players it’s just one more rung on a ladder they hope leads to fantastic riches and fame (or at least a nice paycheck in the NBDL or overseas).  To D-III players, this is it.  While a handful may play in Europe or elsewhere, to almost all of them this is the final rung.  There is nothing else. 

Think about the mind-set of an Eric Gordon or other one-and-done players at the D-I level and compare that to a senior at, say, Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  Gordon, of course, takes his game very seriously.  He has to if he wants to make a living doing it.  But the very nature of the arrangement means his concern is just that: his game.  Not his teammates’ game or his coach’s game or Indiana’s game.  I don’t want to pick on Gordon because he seems like a nice enough kid and I read a good article on him in ESPN The Magazine that argued he’s basically misunderstood. 

But that’s the reality of it.  He’ll be gone by next year, maybe even right after the Hoosiers lose in the tourney; I mean, is he going to stick around to finish out his classes this semester?  Greg Oden and Mike Conley led Ohio State to the championship game last spring as freshman, and it must have been so meaningful to them doing so for a school they attended for, oh, several months.  I bet they bleed scarlet and gray.

Now compare that to the kid at Stevens-Point.  This tournament is the pinnacle of his athletic career, and he knows it.  Believe me, he knows it, and he’ll play like it.  

There’s a great Web site that covers it all www.d3hoops.com/, and here’s the bracket if you’re curious … http://www.d3sports.com/playoffs/mbbbracket08.pdf.  I have a soft spot for Wooster, obviously, and Hope is always tough, and defending champ Amherst looks primed for a repeat.  Games are already under way, unlike that other tourney where the March Madness actually bleeds over into April.  The D-I tourney doesn’t even start until March 20^th and the national title game this year is April 7^th (Gotta extend that season as long as possible to make as much money as possible).

Here are some other things I love about D-III:

-It’s not the tournament where I have to wonder, “Can I even write ‘March Madness?’  Or will the NCAA sue me?”

-Games are played in actual gymnasiums rather than domes better suited to football games or political conventions.

-The games are exciting and well played and don’t last forever because there’re no TV time-outs to kill the drama and momentum.

-Because no TV, no TV announcers and in-studio analysts with their incessant blather, and no Dick Vitale.  This is a very good thing.

-Academically, there are no ‘Basket Weaving 101s’ or ‘Coaching Basketball’ courses for the players to hide in. 

-In fact, playing sports at these schools will not win you any favors in the classroom and may actually have the opposite affect as many professors (actual professors teach classes, not 25-year-old grad students) have no sympathy for the demands of your sport.

-Very few incidents involving guns.

-No groupies.  This may not seem like a plus to players at the time, but they’ll be happy 20 years down the road when they’re not married to someone who thinks American Idol is culture and shopping a way of life.

-The cheerleaders resemble, you know, cheerleaders, and there’s no dance team that looks like it was just bussed over from the local strip joint. For why this is good, see above.

-The coaches at this level are simply that and nothing more: coaches and teachers. And many of them are great. Check out this recent story on Wooster’s Steve Moore… http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/index.ssf/2008/02/college_of_wooster_coach_steve.html.  He’s run up an incredible record while graduating his players and keeping his integrity and that of his program in-tact.  There are Steve Moores all over D-III, coaches doing it the right way who have no desire to go to the next level and deal with all the BS there.  They’re not making a mound of money but they’re doing what they love.        

There’s that word ‘love’ again.  I don’t doubt that Mike Krzyzewski loves basketball, but doesn’t it all get a little muddled with the TV commercials and shoe deals and multi-million dollar contracts?  Judge for yourself: here’s Coach K’s own Web site… www.coachk.com.  You can read all about Coach K, his background and motivations and work in the community; buy books and DVDs by and about him; download his daily podcast; sign up for a camp or ‘conference on leadership.’  Wow, where to begin?

Steve Moore doesn’t have his own Web site.  There’s a bio on the school’s athletic site: http://athletics.wooster.edu/mb/coach.php.  And you can sign up for a couple of basketball camps he and the school host.  That’s the extent of it.  “At Wooster,” Moore says in that Plain-Dealer story, “I have a great situation.”

For the love of the game, indeed.

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Andy Buchanan is the principal writer and editor for Wise Guides and Fan Sherpa after spending several years as a journalist working for the Associated Press, Chicago Tribune and other outlets. When not reporting, he was often at Wrigley Field watching the Cubs or planning his next visit to a ballpark or stadium. And yes, the title of the column is literal, as he has season tickets in the last row of the south end zone at Soldier Field.

  Posted On Fri Mar 7 , 2008
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