Why the NCDA is Really One Big Family

Recently there has been a lot of lamenting about how certain teams and/or people within the NCDA are hated, or the subject of egregious bias. Instead of sitting here trying to downplay this occurrence, I decided to take a look at why this takes place.

After a lot of thinking the best reasoning I could come up with was this: we all hate or love each other like family members do. If you think I’m wrong ask yourself this: don’t the Michigan schools seem like that one older brother sister that you can just never find a way to beat?

Growing up as the youngest in a family with two older brothers and an older sister, I know a lot about inter-family competition. I know that constantly my mind is on taking what my brothers have done, and either beating them face-up, or in any manner possible. To compare that to the NCDA, other than Ohio State the first two years, hasn’t the entire league been trying to take what GVSU, SVSU, CMU, and MSU have accomplished and tried to find a way to one-up it? Hell even within the state of Michigan you can tell these guys might as well be siblings with how much they hate each other on the court, but have incredible levels of respect for each other off the court. Yes, people are going to hate it if a team complains or doesn’t always play to the letter of the law. Last I checked that also happens a lot in a sibling v. sibling situation. There’s honestly no way to keep that from happening and I don’t think I’d ever want it to.

Even here on the East Coast the five teams (assuming RIT and PSU can keep up with things) are all playing catch up to the “older brother” that is James Madison. We all hate playing them, and we all have no problem telling them that we hate playing them. The one thing we do keep clear though is: we hate playing JMU because they’re good, they know they’re good, and they let us know about it. Sort of sounds like an oldest brother keeping the younger brothers in their place right? This is the lay of the land in our league and its pretty hysterical how well this works out.

For those who still don’t see what I see, feel free to take a look at the chart I’ve made below. I’m sure it isn’t completely accurate, but it was the best I could come up with.

Conference Overall Family Role
Michigan Elder statesmen with family money
Ohio Married into the family looking for respect
Kentucky You know their successful, just not on top yet
East Coast Little brothers of the league
Illinois Quirky cousins you don’t see too often
Individual schools Role
Grand Valley State Head of household
Saginaw Valley State Heir apparent
Michigan State Middle child
Central Michigan Fiesty youngest sibling
Kent State “Why do I never get any respect in this family?
Ohio State brother/cousin spending too much time in the gym
Miami (OH) Cousin w/o talent, but a lot of heart
BGSU Jury is out on them for now
UK Strong, organized, parent
WKU “Why do we always have to play against dad?” (UK)
North Texas/NSULA Blue collar hard working family
JMU Youngest out for blood of the oldest
TU One member who hasn’t quite figured it out yet
UMD Brother/sister-in-law that can’t travel
VCU/RIT/PSU Newborn, role TBD
DePaul/Moody Cousins that are just happy to see the fam again
UWP That one relative that’s way away from everyone

Author: ssmith19

Former Captain and Vice-President of Towson Dodgeball. Sporting #19, Sean's talents as a content writer range from previews, interviews, postgames, and excessive uses of both satire and sarcasm. Also, he is the first person to bring some much needed East Coast flavor to the NCDA site.

4 thoughts on “Why the NCDA is Really One Big Family”

  1. This has been my favorite blog post on here ever!! Funny,edgy,greatly kinda cools things down. But a jab should of been taken at alumni. Old grandparents: Have knowledge about the game but talk like they know everything. Still thinks they are the better than everyone currently in the league.

  2. Love love love!

    Building off of this great article and Raymer’s comments in the latest podcast, there definitely was a lot more love at Nationals this year. This league is becoming closer all the time and more and more players are reaching across the court.

    We compete hard and laugh hard.

  3. Me from the sideline: “Dan! Why do you never smile?”
    Dan: “I’ll smile when I have something to smile about.”

    Few hours later during captains meeting someone makes Dan laugh

    Me: “DAN I SAW YOU SMILE!”
    Dan: “Damnit.”

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