💕 Two for Tuesday. Just two weeks until the ball drops.

🎶 Your Morning Pick Me Up. Oops! … I Did It Again. Britney Spears

“One year ago, the NCAA and Team IMPACT announced an expanded collaboration centered on a simple but powerful idea: connect student-athletes with children facing serious illness or disability through the shared experience of being part of a team.

Since then, the collaboration has grown opportunities for children and families across the country while creating meaningful experiences for NCAA student-athletes.

The collaboration builds on Team IMPACT’s long-standing mission of matching children with college athletics teams for a two-year experience that includes attending practices and games, participating in team activities and building relationships that often last far beyond graduation.”

» By the Numbers. 409 NCAA schools currently have active Team IMPACT matches with more than 23,000 student-athletes participating. Division III currently has 237 matched teams for an all-time total of 1,255.

» Championships. Four DIII teams that won national championships in 2025-26 also had active Team IMPACT matches: Springfield (men’s volleyball), Tufts (field hockey and men’s soccer) and Wisconsin-Oshkosh (women’s volleyball).

» What They’re Saying. “Seeing how resilient she is and how she gets through her tough times with a smile on her face, I think has made me realize bad days don’t have to be bad days.” - NYU’s Eden Williamson on her relationship with Amina, a 10-year-old living with sickle cell disease.

» Want to Join? As the NCAA and Team IMPACT look ahead to the second year of the collaboration, schools, teams and families interested in participating can learn more and apply through the NCAA-Team IMPACT collaboration page.

A MESSAGE FROM SIMPLE.LIFE

When motivation is lacking, jumping into heavy routines is the fastest way to burn out. That’s why millions of people are turning to walking as the foundation of their fitness journey.

Walking lets you enjoy the outdoors, clear your head, and practice mindfulness. It’s simple, sustainable, and can support lasting weight loss if you know how much you need. The “10,000 steps a day” rule is outdated; everyone’s lifestyle is different.

With Simple, you’ll get access to habit-based coaching that’s helped users lose over 18 million pounds. Take the quiz to discover your personalized walking target.

Take the Quiz

“The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference announced that Grace Schott will become the Interim Commissioner and outgoing Commissioner Jay Jones will serve in a six-month Senior Advisor role to the conference, ensuring a smooth transition and leadership continuity.

Having accepted a Professor of Practice position at the University of Indianapolis, Jones departs the full-time HCAC Commissioner position after seven successful years with the conference. In addition to his faculty role at UIndy, Jones will be serving as a Senior Associate with the 3 Fold Group, a consulting firm focused on work in the small college athletics space.”

» Situational Awareness. “Since joining the HCAC in 2023, Schott has steadily expanded her influence across virtually every dimension of conference operations, from enhancing the student-athlete experience and leading SAAC and Special Olympics initiatives to strengthening championship administration, communications, awards programs, and service to the membership.”

» What They’re Saying. “As a longtime Adjunct Professor, the classroom has always been a meaningful part of my career, and I’ve long believed that service as a full-time faculty member would hopefully be a part of my life’s journey. That opportunity came a little sooner than expected but was impossible to resist. Regardless, this transition is bittersweet because of the incredible people who make the HCAC what it is.”

“There are rivalries built on hatred and rivalries built on proximity. The one between Hope College and Calvin University is built on something rarer. It is built on balance.

Consider a single number. Across 218 meetings of the men’s teams, stretching back to a 31 to 13 Hope win in 1920, the two schools have scored 14,813 points and 14,789 points. Twenty four points separate them. That is roughly one tenth of a point per game across more than a century of basketball. Design a rivalry in a laboratory and you could not get closer.”

» Court Awareness. “Hope plays in Holland. Calvin plays in Grand Rapids. The drive between the two campuses takes about half an hour, which means these are not just conference opponents but neighbors. Students share hometowns. Alumni share offices. Families split down the middle at Thanksgiving. That closeness explains the temperature of the thing. It is loud and it matters enormously, but it lacks the venom you might expect. A national writer once observed that everyone is thrilled for tip off and yet the animosity that usually accumulates between two schools competing this closely for this long never quite took hold here. People who have attended for decades describe the same feeling: this is a family argument conducted at maximum volume.”

» Why It Lasts. “Since Calvin joined the MIAA in 1953, the two schools have won outright or shared 65 of 73 league titles in men’s basketball. Only seven seasons in seven decades ended without at least one of them holding a piece of the crown. That is the real engine. The rivalry is not close by accident or by tradition alone. It is close because both programs have been excellent for seventy years without interruption, and neither has been willing to let the other get ahead for long.”

» Legal. “As major universities across the U.S. strike deals with the Trump administration over antisemitism complaints, a handful of small liberal arts colleges have been quietly settling cases of their own. In the past week, Oregon’s Reed College and Pennsylvania’s Haverford College have both settled complaints accusing them of failing to protect Jewish students in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war. Pomona and Occidental Colleges, both in southern California, settled complaints in late 2024 and 2025, respectively. At least nine other small liberal arts colleges — which unlike universities mainly focus on undergraduate and interdisciplinary education over research — are still locked in disputes.”

“With more than 8,000 breweries, some of which produce dozens of different beers every year, America is home to the largest and most diverse beer culture in the world. But as exciting new beers appear weekly in bars and on specialty shop shelves, we shouldn't forget their forebears: the brews that spawned, defined, and advanced the craft beer movement, made by the influential brewers who brought our country from a low of fewer than 100 breweries in 1978 to where we are today.

The final list, like any list of this type, is sure to spur debate. However, thanks to the collective knowledge and expertise of our 21 voters, we think it's an exceptionally telling look at the beers that have shaped American craft beer history.”

☕ Thanks for starting your day with us.
Please support D3Playbook with a subscription

Copyright © 2026, D3Playbook.com All rights reserved