A while back, there were some rumblings in the D-III world about restructuring the Division. Membership was increasing, and there was a growing feeling that some basic philosophical divisions were emerging. More rumblings from the NCAA convention:

Several delegates forcefully argued during last Monday's discussion concluding the NCAA Convention that restructuring is too severe a step for dealing with membership growth and its byproducts -- some because they think the problems driving the discussion are exaggerated, and others because they object to the notion that schools wanting to continue honoring traditional Division III ideals may have to move into a new division to do so.

But others were equally adamant that the current problems are real. A couple of the record 122 presidents who registered to attend this year's Convention pointed to close votes on proposals that morning as yet more evidence -- in addition to data on membership voting trends and demographics presented by the working group -- that there is a widening gap between two different philosophies of conducting intercollegiate athletics.

Don't think that discussions about the underlying mission of sports in education is the exclusive purview of Division III. It spills into arguments about paying student-athletes, the rationale behind scheduling a 12th college football game, and whether elite high school athletes should simply be siphoned off into club teams, free from academic and high school association restrictions.

What do you think is behind the "and most of them will go on to something else," ads or the news that the NCAA is forming a presidential task force on the issues of commercialism and student-athlete welfare?

That's something executive director Amy Perko (audio from the Convention) and the Knight Commission have been actively tracking since their groundbreaking report in 1991.