And there are even more nuances! Looking at rugby, I learned women’s rugby is classified by the NCAA as an “emerging sport” and an “equivalency” sport, but not men’s rugby. This has implications for things like athletic scholarships:
Rugby is an NCAA Division I and II emerging sport for women and is an equivalency sport which means athletic scholarships can be split into partial awards in any proportion up to the maximum allowed. For example an NCAA I school can award 24 women each a 1/2 athletic scholarship and still comply with the team limit of 12. . . . Rugby is not an NCAA sport for men and varsity level men’s teams compete primarily against club programs and generally do not award athletic based scholarships.
1 Like
This is the same as crew, where the women’s teams are NCAA and the men’s (by choice) are not. There are only 6 sports that are ‘head count’ sports where the entire scholarship must go to one student athlete and the rest are all ‘equivalency’ allowing scholarships to be split among different athletes.
4 Likes
Son was a recruited football player but only at the D3 level. Decided not to go to a school that he didn’t want to attend just to play. Went to college he really liked and thought about walking on to the football team but decided to tryout for the very competitive rugby club program who just hired an excellent rugby player/coach, instead. Couldn’t have been a better choice. He loves his school and his team. Yes we have an annual fee, no they don’t have fancy busses to take them to matches but he has had wonderful opportunities (playing in Australia now for the summer) and realized how much happier he is because it isn’t as much of a grind as football is. He is in a club for his major, an officer of the rugby club, in a frat, took up surfing, golfing and is getting great grades. He is grateful he chose the path he did.
11 Likes
Did a similar route not playing d3 sports and went to a normal school. Best decision I ever made. Got to still play for fun through club and IM while also having time to be with friends, join a frat, na shave a part time job as a campus tour guide. All worked out.
3 Likes
Love hearing this - thanks!!