Back for the 2022 season . . . sort of

By Christan Shirk and Jim Hutchinson

D3soccer.com is back . . . sort of (more on that later) for its 15th or 16th season, depending on how you count the 2020 season lost to Covid. But until a few weeks ago it appeared that the 2021 season was going to go down as D3soccer.com's last. Jim had retired from running the website following the announcement of the 2021 All-America teams as Christan had done a few years earlier, and new leadership and personnel to take over the huge task of running the website had not been found. Throughout its history, D3soccer.com has been almost entirely an unpaid volunteer operation, but finding the next volunteer willing to take on what amounts to a second job for four to five months of the year with no remuneration was proving elusive and quite possibly unrealistic.

However, with a party interested in helping to keep the website up and running in a Board of Directors kind of way (which would crucially involve pursuing financing) there was hope, but unfortunately not for this season as it would take time to explore financing options and determine the feasibility of operating D3soccer.com without the advantage of an unpaid, volunteer managing editor. The website was headed for a hiatus with a re-launch for the 2023 season under consideration.

Given this possibility, we have decided to maintain the website for the 2022 season on a very limited, but hopefully still useful/beneficial basis. Consider this a bridge year to a potential re-launch in 2023. Like many stores and businesses have cut back hours or services due to staffing issues during and in the wake of Covid, D3soccer.com will be a basic, bare bones operation this season. Along with the help of some other behind the scenes volunteers, we will keep schedules, results and standings up-to-date throughout the season. Besides those items, the website will largely be on hiatus. That means no weekly Top 25, no regional or editorial columns, no posting the Regional Rankings, etc. throughout the season. Similarly, do not expect any additional post-season coverage (Conference Championship Central, at-large berth predications, NCAA Tournament Central) or All-America teams this year.

This is sad, not least for those of us who have personally invested so much into the website over the years. The Top 25 and All-America teams were on the chopping black in 2021 as Jim's workload needed to be reduced, but, with optimism that something would come together to keep the website up and running under new leadership, we opted to continue them as a bridge to 2022 to avoid having a gap in the website's historical record and a season of stand-out players go unrecognized. Unfortunately, that new leadership hasn't materialized yet.

Nevertheless, and despite the last-minute decision, the website is ready for the 2022 season on the limited basis upon which it will operate. The team pages and the conference pages (standings and schedules) have been created. Schedules are all but complete. While the big-ticket features (Top 25, etc.) will be absent this year, these more mundane resources (schedules, results, standings) that have been easy to take for granted hopefully prove to be useful and beneficial to the D-III soccer community.

So we at D3soccer.com welcome you back for another season. If anyone would like to discuss how they might be able to contribute to keeping D3soccer.com up and running into the future, please contact us.

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