Petition Letter from Menlo College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC)
To the NCAA Division II Membership Committee, the PacWest student-athletes, and the entire college athletics community,
We are Menlo College's student-athletes. We’re not just athletes who show up to games and practices; we’ve been fully hands-on, leading, learning, and living every single part of Menlo’s journey to NCAA Division II.
From day one, we have been in the room, at the table, and in the community. We helped write the handbooks, ran compliance meetings with our peers, educated each other on rules, and represented our teams and Menlo at conference meetings and retreats. We didn’t just watch this process unfold; we built it together.
We’ve balanced heavy class loads, tough practices, and service commitments, all while leading initiatives that shaped Menlo’s entire athletic department. We’ve taken ownership of this transition because we believe in what Division II stands for: balance, integrity, and putting students first. We are living proof of what it means to be a true Division II student-athlete.
We have put in the work. We’ve sacrificed, grown, and pushed each other to be better every day on the field, in the classroom, and in the community. We’re not just prepared to wear the NCAA patch; we have already earned it daily through our actions and commitment.
Yet, despite all of this, the NCAA has chosen to hold us back. They have denied us the chance to move forward alongside our peers, including Jessup University and Vanguard University, who, like us, dedicated themselves to this journey and were granted full membership.
This decision doesn’t make sense to us. It doesn’t help student-athletes; it hurts us. It shakes our trust in the fairness and honesty that the NCAA should stand for. We believed this process was about growth and integrity, not rigid checkboxes and arbitrary hurdles.
We’ve been every bit as diligent and forward-thinking as Jessup and Vanguard. We’ve done everything asked of us and more. But instead of being supported, we feel like we’ve been left behind for reasons that don’t reflect the hard work and heart we’ve put in. We were given no chance to have a voice in the NCAA decision, or to fix or clarify things. Instead, it feels like there’s nothing we can bring to the table, even though we, the student-athletes at Menlo, are the most affected by this decision.
This decision impacts us profoundly:
It makes us question whether hard work and doing things the right way matter.
It limits the opportunities we’ve worked toward as athletes, students, and leaders for years.
It disrupts the community and culture we’ve fought to build at Menlo and across the PacWest.
It sends a message to every student-athlete that effort and integrity might not count when it matters most.
We genuinely believe the NCAA has nothing to gain by holding us back and everything to lose: our trust, respect, and faith in a system that’s supposed to be student-athlete-centered.
We are taught to live by core values: integrity, accountability, teamwork, and respect. We hold ourselves to those standards every day. We expect the same from the organization that governs us.
We ask our fellow PacWest student-athletes everywhere to stand with us.
Please sign this petition to support Menlo College. Support the voice of student-athletes. Stand up for fairness and what’s right. Help us ask the NCAA to reconsider its decision and grant Menlo College full active Division II membership, because we have earned it, and it is the right thing to do.
Together, we can show the NCAA that its most significant strength is us, the student-athletes, and that decisions should always reflect integrity, fairness, and a proper student-first mindset.
With pride, grit, and one unified voice,
Menlo College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC)
On behalf of all Menlo College student-athletes