Georgetown president: NCAA application
was rushed, leading to eventual denial

Staff report

The NCAA’s decision to deny Georgetown College’s attempt to join Division II was in part because the school rushed its application, said school President William H. Crouch Jr in a letter to alumni and friends.

“The trustees wanted to meet that (June 1) deadline because of impending NCAA DII rule changes that might extend the probationary period for new members beyond three years,” Crouch wrote in the letter posted on the Georgetown website. “We had a one month window to get this achieved. We have since discovered that many institutions hire consultants to guide them in this process, and it usually takes 75-90 days to create and submit an application with merit.”

The NCAA informed Georgetown it was “not prepared for membership” on July 13th.

“Since that time we have learned more about the process and understand our attempt to meet a deadline in short order worked against us,” Crouch wrote.

Crouch points to a regulation about forming a Student-Athlete Advisory Committee made up of student athletes on campus as one example of an error in the application due to the rushed timetable. Georgetown believed its plan to form such a committee in the fall was sufficient but has since discovered the school needed to have already met with the committee before applying. Since students had already gone home for the summer when Georgetown applied for Division II membership that meeting was not possible.

Georgetown is now applying the lessons it learned from its first attempt to join the NCAA to move forward.

“The good news for us is that the NCAA DII did not vote to extend the waiting period for new members,” Crouch wrote. “Now, our trustees are determining whether to appeal the decision in the next 30 days or reapply in February for reconsideration. If we do reapply, we will have the time to meet all the NCAA DII expectations.”

You can read the full letter here.

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