On any given day, the south wing of Oakland University’s Recreation and Athletic Center is likely to be brimming with students galloping around the indoor track, pumping iron in the expansive weight room or shaking their groove thang in one of the many private fitness rooms. In the north wing, student-athletes, smaller in number but larger in stature, are most certainly dropping countless beads of sweat and expanding their lungs like Homer Simpson stretches a 32-inch waist band. They’re working to meet the labor demands of competing at the highest level of collegiate athletics.

 

However, if it weren’t for a decision made by the OU athletics department in the late 90s, all of these students would likely be elsewhere at this precise moment. The RAC is just one of the benefits OU students have reaped in the first decade since the Pioneers became the Golden Grizzlies and jumped from Division II of the National Collegiate Athletics Association to Division I.

 

The move

Prior to making the move to Division I, the OU athletics program was enjoying a great deal of success in Division II. A member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, along with notable state institutions like Grand Valley State, Wayne State and Ferris State, OU was consistently competing for conference titles in men’s and women’s basketball, and among the Division II superpowers in men’s soccer and swimming and diving.

 

Yet, something was missing. In spite of their success, the Pioneers, as they were then nicknamed, weren’t blazing much of a trail in terms of marketing. When coaches went to recruit outside of their familiar Southeastern Michigan market, they were often met with quizzical looks and questions such as, “Where is Oakland? I’ve never heard of it,” and “Why would I want to go to California to run track?”

 

Athletic Director Tracy Huth suggested to the administration, desperate to generate buzz about the university in order to create growth, that a move to the prominence of Division I athletics was wise. He believed that an OU presence on ESPN’s score ticker and possibly March Madness brackets filled out by millions each year would do more for the university than any number of Division II national championships.

 

“It was clear to us that, in spite of all the successes we had at Division II, we were not serving the marketing function to the university that we needed to,” Huth said.

 

“This was definitely not a decision that was made hastily,” Huth said. “It was thought out very thoroughly, so I think there was a great framework and support network. You never know exactly what to expect, but that piece of the puzzle made the transition much more plausible.”

 

The transition demanded that the university make a greater commitment to upgrading its training facilities and academic support services in order to compete with other programs in Division I.

 

Paul Rice, who coaches cross country and track and field for both men and women, was a 1992 cross country All-American and remembers OU athletics as a much more modest entity than it currently is.

 

“There was no recreation center at all,” Rice recalled. “When I think of what we have today, it seems really odd that we went through what we did when I was running.”

 

Women’s basketball coach Beckie Francis came to OU in 1997 from Stony Brook University in upstate New York while Oakland was making a serious effort to move up to Division I. The DII to DI transition was nothing new to Francis. She had already guided Stony Brook through the same process and was an assistant coach at the University of Buffalo when it stepped up to the highest level. To Francis, the ascent to the most competitive division was a stimulating challenge that she was eager to try for the third time.

 

“I was extremely excited,” Francis said. “One of the main reasons I took the OU job was because of the Division I move. I interviewed in 1997, and saw tremendous potential. I bought into it from day one.”

 

Other coaches, however, were not quite as enthusiastic about the move. Greg Kampe, leader of the flagship men’s basketball program, said he was deeply concerned about entering the “shark-infested waters” of Division I. He feared that the pressures of winning might dictate him to compromise his principles in order to win enough to stay on OU payroll.

 

“From a selfish point of view I was kind of against it, because I had known a number of basketball coaches and programs who had ventured out into Division I and had gotten beaten up pretty bad,” Kampe said. “At the time, we were a Division II power, we were beating everybody, our kids were all graduating, I never had any kids getting into trouble. When you make that move you always worry about the risks you take.”

 

A successful transition

The Golden Grizzlies didn’t have to wait long to enjoy a respectable degree of success in Division I.

 

OU spent its first two years as a “transitional” Division I program, playing a Mid-Continent Conference schedule, but not eligible for any postseason action.

 

Since being eligible for postseason competition, OU’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, coached by Pete Hovland, have won the Mid-Continent Conference or the Summit League, as it was renamed in 2007, every season.

 

Prior to moving up to Division I, the swim teams had established themselves as the dominant men’s program, winning four consecutive national titles. The women’s program, coached by Huth prior to its joining Division I, had also established itself as a national power.

 

For Hovland, the trade-off of national championships for the opportunity to compete against the best, where OU has established itself as a top 30 program, is a challenge that has carried mixed blessings.

 

“We had become the best in our trade at Division II, and we knew that wouldn’t be the case any more moving forward,” Hovland said. “I get asked if I prefer winning all the time or competing with the best, and that’s a tough question to answer. Of course, I loved taking a whole team full of guys to nationals every year, but at the same time, it’s pretty neat to be on the deck for the Division I finals, which most people say is the fastest swim meet in the world top to bottom.”

 

Other programs enjoyed a measure of immediate success as well.

 

The women’s basketball program finished 13-3 in their first season of Mid-Continent play. The men’s soccer squad had very high winning percentages in each of their first four seasons in Division I. The men’s basketball program provided one of OU athletics’ hallmark moments in its second season in 2000, defeating a rebuilding University of Michigan squad.

 

Francis said the camaraderie of the athletic department as a whole was the main reason for these programs’ initial and sustained success.

 

“The previous coach before me, Bob Taylor, left the cupboards loaded,” Francis said. “I had great coaches around me like Pete Hovland, Tracy Huth, Greg Kampe … I leaned on their wisdom.”

 

Room for improvement

Of course, as is the case with most athletics departments, the successes of some programs have been balanced by mediocrity in others. Since the move to Division I, the volleyball program has never won more than eight matches out of roughly 30 in a season, and the baseball program has never finished above .500.

 

Huth said a big part of the athletic department’s plan is to get those struggling programs to catch up with their more successful peers.

 

“I think that’s an avenue where some of those programs that have been very successful are starting to help us,” Huth said. “We have good people associated with some of those sports, and I think you are going to start to see some of those sports improve.”

 

Kampe now says that, despite his initial discontent, the jump to Division I has done wonders for OU.

 

“I decided at the time it might not be the best thing for me personally because of how hard it was, but it was the best thing for the university,” Kampe said. “I thought that Dr. [Gary] Russi was very ahead of his time in his thinking and was very wise to push forward with this, and as you can see now, it has turned out tremendous.”

 

Rice concurred with Kampe’s sentiment, saying that to see the impact the jump has made for the university, one doesn’t need to look any further than the building in which his office is located.

 

“The Rec Center is a real testament to what this move has meant for Oakland University.”

 

Photo on front page courtesy of OU Athletic Communications: Basketball coaches Greg Kampe (left) and Beckie Francis (right) are entering their 26th and 10th seasons, respectively, behind the benches at Oakland, and were both around for the transition to Division I.