Grid loop boosts Castleton, Norwich
Toolbox
By Tom Haley STAFF WRITER - Published: May 6, 2009
At first glance, football fans might have thought that the new Eastern Collegiate Football Conference was simply a cosmetic name change.
It's so much more.
If Anna Maria College, Becker College, Castleton State College, Gallaudet, Husson University, Maritime College of State University of New York, Mount Ida and Norwich University had stayed under the umbrella of the North Atlantic Conference, there would have been no automatic qualifier for the conference champion.
Now, under the football-only league called the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference, the champion will be automatically in the NCAA Division III playoffs beginning in 2011.
"It's huge," Castleton Athletic Director Deanna Tyson said.
"It all came down to the AQ (automatic qualifier)," Castleton head coach Rich Alercio said. "We were not going to get the AQ as the North Atlantic Conference because we did not have seven original members."
Only Castleton and Husson are NAC members in other sports and that is why the conference would not have been granted an AQ for its champion.
Last season, Husson went undefeated (7-0) against Division III competition, with its only losses coming at the hands of Division II programs Merrimack and American International College. Yet, the Eagles did not receive an NCAA playoff berth.
"We are thrilled as a staff and we are thrilled as a conference," Alercio said. "Our president, Dave Wolk, was instrumental in this. He was willing to go to Annapolis (Md.) and speak on its behalf if he had to."
"All the presidents were in favor of it. Also, the fact that it is a football-only conference makes all of us feel very special," he said.
Alercio said the players in his first-year program were told of the announcement on Monday and those that will be aboard in 2011 were very excited.
Norwich head coach Shawn McIntyre made the announcement to his players after spring practice.
"They were extremely excited," McIntyre said. "The only negative for our conference in recruiting would be that coaches from other schools we were competing against would tell recruits that our conference does not have the automatic qualifier for the playoffs.
"Now to have it is very big," McIntyre said.
"I think in Division III, it is all about the experience for our players and the ultimate experience would be the chance to go play in the national playoffs," New York Maritime College head coach Clayton Kendrick-Holmes said.
Kendrick-Holmes said all the coaching staffs in the conference are out on the road recruiting and that "the programs are only going to get better."
Former Mount St. Joseph Academy/Williams College lineman Eric Ludwig is the offensive line coach/recruiting coordinator at Maritime College and he knows the new conference is only going to make the Privateers program more enticing to prospective players.
"I think it is going to be a really big deal," Ludwig said. "In the NAC, we were not going to get the AQ after two years."
"It is a huge deal to be able to tell kids that if they win the league that they can go to the playoffs," he said.
Ludwig is also excited about coming back to Rutland County for Castleton games and renewing acquaintances with Castleton coaches like Brian Grady, Steve Wolf and C.J. Sullivan, all people he had an MSJ connection with.
Grady was his head coach, Sullivan a player just one year behind him, and Wolf an assistant on the Mounties staff.
"Coach Wolf helped me a lot during the recruiting process," Ludwig said.
"The establishment of the ECFC will offer our member institutions the opportunity to participate in an outstanding regional football conference and provide our student athletes with a competitive and enriching football experience with the opportunity for postseason participation and athletic and academic recognition," Norwich University Athletic Director and Chairman of the ECFC Athletic Directors Council Tony Mariano said.
In addition to scheduling benefits and the competitive experience of conference play, the conference will provide a full awards program, including weekly and postseason honors.
Competition among ECFC institutions will begin in September, 2009. A full conference schedule will be played between the eight institutions beginning in 2010.
tom.haley@rutlandherald.com
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