Letter: I want a CHANGE

Dear Lorin Huffman,

I am a student-athlete at Chapman University and I want you personally to know and understand why Chapman should be in the SCIAC. We are serious about being accepted in the SCIAC and we do not take this issue lightly. We, Chapman University follow the SCIAC rules about when training starts for fall season. Since we are an independent school we could follow the NCAA rules, which states that we can start training before school starts. This would be a HUGE advantage to start training early and getting the team together before the pre-season starts. However, we stay faithful to the SCIAC rules of not starting until school starts, so that we do not have an unfair advantage - we want to make the playing field even with the other 8 SCIAC teams.

Also the rumors are not true. Chapman’s football team did not have a player that didn’t go to Chapman. It was a rumor that started once we became a DIII school in 1993. I do not want the rumors hindering our chances of getting into the SCIAC.

Also I have researched the NCAA Handout and I found that the SCIAC is the smallest Automatic-Qualifying Conference for DIII Women’s Soccer with 7 teams (Cal tech is not included) and the largest conference includes 14 teams. This means that adding Chapman to the SCIAC would not make your league any bigger compared to other conferences around the nation. I understand that this issue comes down to the fact of why would the schools in SCAC want another school to compete with for the playoff spot? But think of the rivalry and competition that Chapman University will create. We will add another school that will give the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference a good name. We follow the SCIAC rules, we do not cheat around the system, and we play hard and fair. We are the perfect university to add to SCIAC.

Sincerely,

panther_athlete