The Tommies are on their way to Division I
ST. PAUL, Minn. (BVM) — On July 17, the University of St. Thomas announced that it would make history. The NCAA had approved a motion granting the Tommies the ability to go straight to Division I. It was an unprecedented decision as the normal process for a Division III school to move to Division I takes a minimum of 12 years and requires the school to first transition to Division II.
After the announcement, St. Thomas proceeded to accept invitations from the Summit League, Pioneer Football League and Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA).
“In the history of college football, which is like 127 years old, no one has been blessed with this opportunity so that’s not something that we take lightly,” Tommies head football coach Glenn Caruso said.
It’s an opportunity that St. Thomas was not even asking for, but was forced into after May of 2019. It was then that the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAC) announced that St. Thomas would be involuntarily leaving the conference after the 2020-21 season.
“When they actually removed us from the conference I think I was pretty surprised only because I didn’t think it would actually happen,” Tommies head women’s soccer coach Sheila McGill said.
The announcement was a shock to everyone because the Tommies were a founding member of the conference and were a part of the conference’s most famous rivalry, the Johnnie-Tommie football game.
In a statement, the MIAC cited “athletic competitive parity in the conference” as their main reason for forcing the Tommies out. The size of St. Thomas’ undergraduate population, double the size of the second biggest MIAC school, was also a reason for the removal.
Although many believe football was the main reason for the removal, all St. Thomas athletic programs have had historic success in the conference. In total, the Tommies have won a conference-record 516 conference team championships.
With the announcement last year, St. Thomas began the process of finding a new home.
“No. 1 was to find a place that was going to sustain our growth over the next hundred years,” Caruso said. “The last league that we were a part of was good for us for hundred years now we’re looking for a league for the next century.”
St. Thomas president Julie Sullivan and athletic director Dr. Phil Esten led the thorough search for a new home.
“I think they’ve done an awesome job doing their research,” McGill said. “We’re finding the right fit for St. Thomas.”
“I could be doing this another 25 years and look back and I still think I’ll be astonished at all of the work and the leadership that had to go into getting to this point,” Caruso said.
Leadership believed that the best place for the Tommies to end up was in the Summit League as a Division I program, providing that the Tommies find different leagues for football and hockey, which is where the Pioneer Football League and the WCHA came in. However, they are still waiting for the official announcement about men’s hockey joining the WCHA, which will come at a later date.
“The types of schools that are in it are not only impressive but collectively I think they do a great job of the way that I think college athletics should work is that you’re asked to be excellent and have a tremendous experience in what you do athletically, but never at the expense of the center’s excellence in the classroom,” said Caruso.
Now the Tommies can focus on their final season in the MIAC and the bright future ahead of them. As far as St. Thomas is concerned, it’s business as usual.
“We still want to be St. Thomas,” McGill said.
“It’s always been about the culture and the people you’re with,” Caruso said. “As long as we get to go with our culture as the University of St. Thomas then I’ll be happy no matter where we go.”
The Tommies do not want to change who they are because of the move. It also means that they are not going to change who they recruit.
“The majority of our kids are kids that have multiple offers at Division II and Division I schools but choose to come here for a lot of reasons…so we’ve been recruiting FCS type guys, scholarship-type guys for years,” Caruso said. “We’re not going to change the type of young man we recruit. He has to take his academics seriously, his football seriously, he’s got to be selfless and thoughtful and that’s not going to waiver.”
This is important to the whole athletic department and appreciated by the coaches. Instead of building a program up, creating a tradition of success and then moving on to a bigger job, they get to stay where they are and continue where they started.
“The environment that we’ve created has become something that I enjoy what I do, I enjoy my staff,” McGill said. “There is such benefit to moving forward this way, to moving forward in a place you already created, to moving forward in a place you already trust, to moving forward with people that you trust surrounding you. Those things make that transition step super exciting.”
The players also get to reap the benefits of their hard work to become DI athletes without having to transfer to a different school. They can stay with the program they originally chose.
“I think that all of our players, our recruits that are talking with us are all incredibly excited because St. Thomas has something unique,” McGill said.
Coaches are also excited because although they plan on recruiting the same type of high-character athletes, the move does give them the ability to reach a larger pool of athletes who may have previously overlooked the private school in St. Paul.
“Now those players who are leaving Minnesota for a DI experience have another option,” McGill said. “It makes it exciting to know that we have the opportunity to keep some of those players at home that wanted to stay but didn’t have the opportunity to.”
The Tommies also revel in the opportunity to be something that they have rarely ever been in recent years — the underdogs.
“There is a lot of work to be done and we’re excited to do it,” Caruso said.
