Division Three Football Senior Classic

The following are excerts from the D3 football.com website article reporting information about the D3 Football Senior Classic

Trying to make it work

Division III will have an all-star game in 2009.

Peter St. Lawrence, a former safety at St. Olaf, and the Collegiate Development Football League he co-founded are putting on the D-III Football Senior Classic on Dec. 5 in Salem, Va., the site of the Stagg Bowl. Ninety players will be selected to complete in a North vs. South-formatted game.

Played two Saturdays before the national championship, the inaugural D-III Football Senior Classic will use the same hotels, banquet facilities, practice fields and game field as the national finalists do when in Salem. St. Lawrence’s group hired Marty Yutachak, who puts on the New Jersey vs. the Northeast high school all-star game, to be the D-III Football Senior Classic’s executive director. And there are modest plans in other areas — the game will be carried live on UStream; players arrive on Thursday, participate in a banquet Friday and passing clinic for Roanoke-area children on Saturday morning. They are also promised gear and exposure to media and pro scouts.

St. Lawrence is highly motivated as well, touched by his experience as a player.

“Because St. Olaf college and D3 football gave me a new life, I will not feel complete until I have spent myself giving back to both,” he wrote when we exchanged e-mails in September.

After starting his career at I-AA Central Connecticut State, getting injured, losing his scholarship and returning home for a year to work, St. Lawrence wrote about getting a second chance at St. Olaf.

“I saw the power of second chances and the power of players from different backgrounds coming together from all over the country, bonded by a common love for the game and the dream of a better life. Players from [New York], Florida, California, Washington all venturing out to small-town Northfield, Minn., because they believed the coaches when they said, ‘this is not just small-time D3 football, it’s a life, its big, and we have something special here.’ ”