THE MALCOM X-FACTOR: NCAA: Quit the Name Games

What’s in a name?

A quick internet search tells me that mine might refer to anything from Scottish nobility to an Australian Olympian to a small town in Iowa. In pop culture, I’ve been everything from a mathematician to a dysfunctional kid genius to a dead child psychologist.

But after nearly two decades, my name—unique spelling and all—is something that has become a part of who I am. A name isn’t something that should be changed on a whim or disregarded, and it’s surely not something that should be “phased out.”

But that’s exactly what the NCAA is trying to do to our beloved football division. Because when Appalachian State beat the University of Massachusetts last weekend to claim the school’s second straight Division I-AA title, it wasn’t really a repeat effort. In fact, according to those in charge in college sports’ highest governing body, it was really the Mountaineers’ first NCAA Division I Football Championship.

What’s an NCAA Division I Football Championship, you ask? That’s the new championship trophy for the Football Championship Subdivision, the name chosen to replace the I-AA label that has been around for the last 28 years. Quick, try to log onto the old website, i-aa.org. That’s right, dead.

And it’s not just us, either—officials are hoping to refer to our cousins in I-A as the Football Bowl Subdivision.

I’m not a linguist by any stretch of the imagination, but you’ve got to be kidding me.

I laughed at these names when they were announced before the year began. Nobody took this stuff seriously, and we all kept on along with our “big brother” (I-A) and “little brother” (I-AA) distinctions. It’s what we’re used to.

It pains me to say it, but there’s a reason that there are two clearly separated divisions in college football. There’s a reason that Appalachian State is the best team in the one that Harvard and the other Ivies play in, while Ohio State is the best in the division that dominates the headlines, newscasts, and water-cooler talk everywhere. I don’t know of any “state” named Appalachia, and while Ohio isn’t exactly big-time in the grand scheme of things, at least it’s literally on the map. On the map, and in I-A football.

Why? It’s simple.

They’re better than us.

So much better, in fact, that the NCAA itself was very much behind the delineation of Division I into I-A and I-AA when it first took place in 1978. They supported it, because they knew it was best for the schools that never competed for the big bowl games. It was best, because schools had already made the I-A/AA distinction psychologically.

For the Ivy League, the distinction is even greater—we’re a subdivision of the second-rate subdivision. With no hope of ever competing for the title as the Mountaineers and Minutemen did thanks to the league’s inability to partake in the 16-team playoff, the Crimson and co. knows a little bit about fake attempts at inclusion.

And just as we’re referred to as I-AA participants without all of the rights the rest of the I-AA schools have, it’s in very poor form for the NCAA to act as if its two so-called “subdivisions” are even remotely equitable in terms of talent, attention and prestige.

They’re not, and we both know it.

That’s why this exercise in re-naming is illogical, misleading, and downright insulting.

We know who we are, and we’re okay with it. As a fan, I wear my I-AA school distinction as a badge of honor. I’m not exactly in the business of playing professional sports, so I’ll take the higher academic standards, more scholarly focus, and smaller class-size that usually comes with schools in the I-AA mold. I can watch those other guys on TV, just like anybody else.

If I were a I-A athlete, I’d be insulted, too. With I-A/AA classifications, there was never a question as to who would be picked first on the proverbial playground that is college sports. Now, people will surely be confused, and as anyone with a brother or sister can tell you, nobody likes to be confused with their (admittedly less good) sibling.

Fans rioted at UMass after their team lost in the championship game, and rightly so. Maybe it was because they were upset about the game’s outcome, or maybe it was because the alcohol was flowing a bit too freely last Friday night. Or maybe, just maybe, losing in such a ridiculously named game was too much for that little town of Amherst to handle.

That’s why it’ll always be I-A and I-AA or bust for me. I will not dignify the NCAA’s ludicrousness by referring to Football Championship Subdivisions or Football Bowl Subdivisions.

Unless, of course, my editors make me.

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.