It was an anomaly – or was it?

Just six years ago, Division III’s active membership included 69 “independent” institutions – or schools whose athletics programs were not playing in a multisport conference. Those schools constituted approximately 16 percent of the division’s active membership.

This year, the number of independents has dropped to 13 – just 3 percent of 429 Division III members – as the division’s emphasis on automatic qualification for championships via conference play has resulted during the past 10 years not only in the creation of new conferences, but also in expansion of more than a dozen existing leagues.

As Division III grew rapidly in the 1990s and through the turn of the century, the flood of new members helped push the average size of 1998’s 36 conferences (now 35 with the 2006 merger of the Lake Michigan and Northern Illinois-Iowa Conferences into the Northern Athletics Conference) from 9.4 to 10.1 schools per conference.

Fourteen of those existing conferences have added members during the past 10 years, while only two of the leagues have fewer members today.

More noteworthy – because it has increased the number of automatic championship qualifiers – seven new conferences have been created during the past 10 years.

Most of the new leagues reflect the division’s newest arrivals. Five of the seven leagues formed since 1998-99 include at least one of the 15 schools – known as provisional members – that currently are seeking active Division III membership. Eleven of those 15 provisional members already have been invited to join a conference.

But one of the newest leagues illustrates how shifting alliances in existing conferences can spin off a new league. Four of the eight members of the two-year-old Landmark Conference are charter Division III members.

Altogether, there are 74 more Division III active member institutions in conferences this year than there were in 1998-99.

It’s unlikely Division III ever again will see the numbers of independents it counted early in this decade, because of limits it imposes on the number of schools that are admitted annually to provisional membership. So, in that sense, the relatively brief “era” of independents in Division III does indeed seem like an anomaly.

However, the division is growing again after the end of a moratorium on accepting new members – and could be on track to gain as many as 50 new members by 2020.

Four of the seven schools exploring Division III membership this year (and therefore eligible to enter provisional membership as early as next summer) are located west of the Mississippi, as are six current active Division III independents (a seventh independent in the West, Cal State East Bay, plans to reclassify to Division II). That region may be ripe for the creation of new conferences – provided other schools in that area follow this year’s exploratory class’s lead.

No matter where new members come from, it seems likely that most will seek affiliation with a conference, simply because it’s the surest way to gain access to championships.

But it’s not unfathomable that at least some of those new members may find themselves cooling their heels for awhile, waiting either for even more new conferences to form or for existing leagues to expand just a little bit more to accommodate the influx.

So maybe there could be a second era of independents – even if it, too, is short-lived.