Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
The news broke last week that Manchester University was going to make a jump to join the Crossroads League.
This is good news all the way around.
Immediately after hearing this, my mind raced ahead of the story with questions — it’s an occupational hazard.
I wondered if someone was dropping out and Manchester was going to replace them.
There has been smoke from the south side of Marion that Indiana Wesleyan was outgrowing the conference and might be looking to move up to a small NCAA division.
The money generated by IWU from athletics is pretty powerful, and when they added football, that only heaped the piles of money higher.
But they are staying.
From a financial standpoint, I don’t see how being in the Crossroads League does a school like Mount Vernon Nazarene any good. It’s over two-and-a-half hours of driving from the nearest conference member, and people from Indiana are not driving to the northeast side of Columbus, Ohio to watch their favorite small college play. And, of course, their athletes are logging a lot of miles to Indiana and southern Michigan to play in contests on a regular basis. And those driving miles cost money.
I don’t see how the money works out for them.
But they are staying.
And then there is Goshen.
Goshen’s approach to athletics is so different than the other nine members of the conference that it’s a struggle for me to see why they stay in the conference. And they make no bones about athletics’ role in their campus life model. Sports don’t matter to them as much, and that’s their choice to make, and it’s ok for them to think that. Their facilities are decent, but they don’t put a lot of energy into it.
Again, that’s not a huge secret. You sign up to play at Goshen knowing what it’s going to be like.
I don’t see them ever dropping athletics, but I thought they might want to drop down a level so that their teams are more competitive.
But they are staying.
Manchester University will become the 11th member of the Crossroads League and will begin playing in the league next fall.
What does Manchester get from this?
A whole heck of a lot!
First of all, it will give their athletic teams an identity.
Manchester is currently an NCAA Division III school. Division III bylaws strictly prohibit financial aid packages that consider athletic participation, leadership, performance, or ability.
No scholarships.
Any money students get comes from admissions, not the athletic department, and can’t be based on anything related to athletics. Those standards are the exact same standards that any other student at MU would be held to.
That makes it really tough to bring in quality athletes.
Being an NAIA school will change that.
Also consider what the opposition looks like in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference. Yes, there are a lot of Indiana schools in that league, but not that really move the needle of interest here in our area. We’re talking about Anderson, Earlham, Franklin and other schools that size. They are less than 100 miles away but might as well be 5,000 miles away in perception for sports fans here.
By joining the CL, they will see attendance at home sporting events grow, and visiting fans will also be more likely to buy tickets at MU.
Their road games will be closer to North Manchester than ever before.
And something else to consider: athletics are free advertising. Every time a college score is published or read on TV or radio, it’s a free commercial for those schools.
And while academic types hate the thought, Manchester will grow because the awareness of people in the community will grow based solely on their new approach to athletics. It’s a proven truth: athletic success is the best promotion of an overall university. Ask Butler what happened after going to the Final Four two years in a row.
All that means more money coming into Manchester University, and into the town of North Manchester for that matter.
Now, it’s going to take a few years to bring MU up to speed on a lot of things. Their facilities will fit the CL quite nicely, but they are going to need to ramp up their game when it comes to getting the word out about Spartan Athletics — in recruiting and publicity.
Manchester University athletics have been in hiding for about 20 years, but last week’s announcement means that time is over.
This is a mile-marker moment for Manchester University, and I am excited for them and for all of us, as we get reacquainted with them again.
Manchester Spartan athletics are back!
