tony

- Uh, if the GF delegation saw that the vote was going against them, why would they expose themselves to criticism by voting for it? You, who see a conspiracy in the timing of Fargo Fourm editorials, should recognize that most politicians do not expend political capital in losing battles. - All UND's debt was forgiven for the residency program. - Nobody is asking UND to start a new program anymore, all Fargo wanted is a shot at starting a new one with the U of M without any interference from UND's administration. - You are correct - UND's actions (or alleged actions) in this matter have nothing to do with NDSU, but I've been bringing up things that UND has done recently that demonstrate a pattern of parochialism. These actions do affect NDSU more than any other institution, but the damage is not exclusive to NDSU. - You repeated a rumor that Fargo residents (as opposed to newspaper editors, NDSU administrators, or Fargo city officials) talked to the ND Congressional delegation in an effort to punish UND for the medical residency squabble. Then you made a mighty leap in logic from that shaky platform built entirely of gossip. Repeating a rumor is bad enough, using it as the basis of argument is worse. Heck, the guy who originally complained to the Forum about UND's actions listed "associate professor - UND medical school" among his titles. There was no NDSU turf protection going on here because, as you pointed out, they don't have a dog in this fight.

The thing about Sooville.com is the best you could come up with? Then again, you were looking at Bisonville.com - I doubt that I mention UND very often there*. If I remember rightly that post was in response to somebody who accused me of being SiouxRocks. If this BB software had the feature that let you look at all the posts a particular user had made at once, then you'd be able to pick a pattern in my posts much more easily - plus you'd be able to find a better example of my outrageous and despicable anti-UND posts than the sooville.com one (my favorite was calling GF's legislative delegation "puling babies"). But the sooville.com joke was hardly offensive. Heck, take off the first and last sentences and all you've got left is any one of a dozen GF Herald editorials. I'm not detecting a lot of humor in your NDSU posts - at least not "ha!ha!" humor, maybe a little dark snicker occasionally. Attacking Chapman's character is not very funny, even if done in an off-handed way as in "perhaps the Forum better get a better understanding of their bedfellow's [Chapman's] character before becoming known as the next Baa'thist information minister" and stuff like that. Maybe if I understood why you dislike Chapman so much... c'mon Star2City, get it off your chest! * For the record: I've got 218 posts on bisonville.com and use the word "Sioux" only once (in a friendly way). Use of derivations of UND or Sioux such as "soo" - only in the sooville.com thing. I called Ed Schultz "UND's pet jackass" once (the word "jackass" has been used three times in the history of the board, all in reference to Ed). Kupchella's name appeared in one of my posts. I mentioned Roger Thomas three times, once critically, because he claimed that a bill that specifically excluded UND would have applied to UND. Mentioned Ryan Bakken twice for his thoughts on Idaho State.

Uh, Fargo wasn't complaining about UND ending it's residency program. They only complained when UND stepped in and went to the U of M, which was going to replace UND's program, and told them to get off their turf. Even Star2City, whose track record of posts pertaining to NDSU, seems to think that a carpet bombing of Fargo is the only lasting solution to the "problem" of NDSU, would have a hard time explaining why this is good public policy for North Dakota.

You didn't hear that from me, Chapman, or Taylor. I've always said that I'll believe NDSU is getting into the Big Sky when I see it. It just doesn't make sense for the Big Sky to make a decision until they find out if Idaho and other schools are going to be forced to DI-AA. Oh wait, was that just a red herring? I mean, you wouldn't do that, would you PCM? If you are suggesting that Chapman is dishonest in his public statements about the support for the program, then you might as well know that if you had looked into the public record, you'd know that you are mistaken. I'd like to think you were just trying to be clever. Bisonguy, I'd go further. It would have been fair if it had simply said "athletics" rather than "DI athletics other than UND's existing programs." Does Minot State's NAIA athletic program deserve public subsidy more than NDSU's DI programs? Which has the potential for the best cost-benefit ratio? It also didn't make sense to tell the students how they can or cannot spend their student fees. And it was so poorly worded that almost any of NDSU's expenses for anything could have been challenged under this law.

Hey, they gave a lot of reasons for not going DI immediately. The primary one was scheduling. Yeah, they would have liked the NCC to go together because it makes sense but going DI was not just a bluff to get the rest of the NCC to tag along. I had no problem with UND's administration lobbying against the NCC going DI, just as I had no problem with NDSU's very low key efforts to convince the NCC to move up. What I had a problem with is UND's campaign to stop NDSU from going DI through appeals to the media and their legislative power base. UND's president should run UND and quit obsessing about NDSU. The NCC meeting was the proper place for UND to take a stand because that's where they are directly affected - everything else was uncalled for. NDSU shouldn't go DI. NDSU shouldn't add this program. NDSU shouldn't add that program. Fargo shouldn't have a medical residency program. NDSU can only add this degree if they are held up a year so that UND can add the exact same program at the same time even though they have no students for it while NDSU had around twenty waiting. And so on. Take the education degree. A duplication, yeah, but both Fargo and Grand Forks might have an Applebees (God knows who eats that crap) but if both do good business, there's no harm done. Besides, Kupchella is worried about the impact on a program that only graduates three or four people a year? Last I heard, 80 people were interested in NDSU's program. If NDSU adds a program, does that mean UND is only going to graduate two people a year? Or take an MBA, a three-hour roundtrip is not going to work for your average MBA candidate. UND's answer was that they'd put a program in Fargo. Point is, they haven't done so yet even though this unmet demand has not just appeared overnight. Oh yeah, and don't forget that UND just got done putting an end to a successful, 25-year program in Fargo for reasons only clear to their adminstration. It just seems that it makes more sense to have NDSU run an MBA program in Fargo. NDSU already has classrooms, a library, computer centers, and professors right smack dab in the center of the largest private sector in the state. This kind of stuff is just so short-sighted. I thought UND and NDSU were supposed to be cooperating on some sort of research corridor. All I hear is lip service to this idea from Kupchella while he has done nothing but worry about DI athletics or NDSU's plans for the future. Having both UND and NDSU be classified as Carnegie research extensive universities would seem like a natural goal for two schools embarking on such a scheme, but he even opposes this. Now, Scottm, I didn't realize that NDSU as making an "amusing, and pathetic" attempt at establishing an downtown campus... could you expand on this idea? Shouldn't it be "amusing, sad, pathetic, and sad?" I have no idea how NDSU can "burnish itself in Chapman's image" either. All I know about a "downtown campus" is that NDSU is finally moving out of the quonset huts into a donated building. What is pathetic and amusing about that? And btw, hopefully you are not often amused by the pathetic because that would make you one sick puppy. There is an historic opportunity for NDSU and UND to work together on something. I almost wrote, "Let's not waste it," but that kind of sentence makes me want to puke. How about, "Let's not be jackasses and blow it?"

Today's special: three replies for the price of one! Sicatoka, hard to take your analysis seriously when you think that McFeely is a Bison booster A lot of legislation has a Democratic and Republican sponsor - that doesn't mean that one party does not constitute the majority of the support for it. The proponents of that legislation probably had to look long and hard to find a guy with an NDSU background to help trot out that lame horse of a bill but the the telling point is which sponsors actually voted for or debated in favor of it. Sometimes a rep will sponsor something just so the issue gets aired and put to rest once and for all. PCM, sue you? If UND was a business, what they're doing would constitute racketeering and I could I can't force you to accept an argument if you're dead-set against doing so, so I won't try, but I've got to wonder, do you read the Herald? I mean "Blatant Homer" is the managing editor, isn't he? airmail, you could be right, but NDSU never really lobbied for UND to move up. You're making a bigger leap than the Forum editorial guy is. You certainly never saw Chapman or Taylor writing letters to the editor saying how great it would be if the NCC went DI together. In general, Chapman seems more focused on his vision of what NDSU should become and how it can best serve North Dakota, rather than what UND should do. SDSU, otoh, did lobby the rest of the league pretty hard - so your "they" fits their administrators better than NDSU's.

All editorials should be taken with a grain of salt. However, you can't discount all the points made just because you are quibbling with one sentence. I believe the editorial is referring to the poorly-worded piece of proposed legislation that would have made it nearly impossible for NDSU to go DI while specifically exempting UND from the same rules. Many, if not most, rational people might be expectd to deduce that this idea traces its ancestory back to UND given the pattern of behavior Kupchella has been exhibiting. Don't know who you mean by "they" as in "that's the last thing they wanted us to do" but it's fine by me if UND stays in DII. Having them go DI sure doesn't help NDSU unless a big chunk of the NCC comes along too. OTOH, having UND stay in DII makes NDSU's recruiting job a bit easier while helping NDSU differentiate itself from the twenty or so DII schools in the region. I doubt it will hurt UND any because they will just become a bigger fish in a smaller pond - i.e. they won't have to fight through NDSU, UNC, and maybe SDSU on their way to national playoffs. It could end up being a positive thing for both schools.

Interesting development in the Forum today. The administration is taking on UND in the press for the first time that I can remember. First shots Forum Editorial President Chapman's Response to Kupchella It's about time. Not necessarily because NDSU is always right but you can't have a debate when only one side is doing all the talking. Apparently the Forum acknowledges that UND has made a series of efforts at stopping NDSU from going DI.

Didn't mean to ruffle feathers - as a couple of you recognized, my claim that those schools were more likely to be UND non-conference opponents than NDSU conference mates was supposed to be funny. But here I go again, since when has a trademark stopped UND from using something, Sicatoka? I thought that maybe Jim would want to use www.thefarce.com. That is original (that's not sarcasm, it is original). Two problems though: the address is inhabited by squatters and Kermit is owned by Disney. You don't want to screw with Disney. Speaking of green things and unoriginal names - whatever happened to Thunder the Bleacher Creature, that loveable, overgrown muppet gone bad with drugs and booze? Did he have to be put down? I did some searching on "Bleacher Creature" and found this... very interesting... Bleacher Creature I'm thinking of doing a film on the Bleacher Creature's rise to fame, his gradual fall from grace, and the mystery of his(?) disappearance (did his demands to become UND's official mascot figure have anything to do with it?) This project has E! Television written all over it.

Trinity Bible College, Aaker's Business College, Josef's School of Hair Design? Looks more like a list of UND non-conference football or basketball opponents than NDSU's future conference mates.

Man, you guys are too easy on him. NDSU fans would have asked at least asked him that. Then the Forum would demand to see all his emails, snail mails, phone transcripts, credit card receipts, results of polygraph and blood test, a list of witnesses, and a sworn affidavit from all the presidents of all 140 or so DII schools affirming that they did receive the invitations. I can imagine the scene in the average DII AD's office upon receiving Lennon's letter: "Omigod, Stan! Lookee here! We got a letter here from NOTRE DAME!" "What? Don't sit there yapping, you gosh dern fool, open it up!" (sounds of ripping) "Um, let's see what it says, 'Dear sir, enclosed please find a list of our football team's open dates as well as several coupons for free appetizers at the Applebees on Columbia Road, redeemable if validated at the Alerus Center, usable only in conjuction with purchase of an item from the dinner menu. If you are interested, please drop us a line at 1-701-766-7825. Sincerely, Dale Lennon. Head coach, University of..." - what the sam hell! - 'North Dakota!?!' Let me look at the logo again..."

What kind of guarantee was UND offering? Most DII teams can't afford 36 scholarships so it's hard to imagine them taking a hit on a plane trip when they can take a bus someplace closer. As for DI-AA teams, they can get six figure guarantees for playing a good DI-AA team or a low-level DI-A team.

Why would a Bison fan squirm about Chapman telling Carr Assiociates saying that Lennon, Ohio State's Tressel, and Navy's coach were the three examples of what NDSU's next coach should be like? It's not like saying something nice about a UND person makes a sane NDSU fan go crazy. What might make NDSU fans squirm is that the #1 candidate turned the Bison down and another top candidate withdrew their name because the process took so long. Of course, the apparent quality of the staff that Bohl put together will temper some of that disappointment and a good season or two will make that initial discomfort disappear completely. Now maybe the Forum could do a similar story about UND and ask to see all the correspondence between Roger Thomas and DI conferences and schools and find out, for the record, if there is any truth to the rumors about UND pursuing DI.

Jim, missed your post. I really believe that there will be some new standards for DI/DI-AA regardless of those BB powers that have underfunded football programs. Most likely they'll say that a school has to either offer a minimum of say 55-63 or none at all - heck, there may be a rule like that already in place. I can see why having the DII-like dilution of DI would make it more attractive to some schools considering the move though. From my perspective, if DII cuts schollies by 6-10, if DI-AA cuts them by the same amount, it wouldn't bother me as long as they established meaningful standards for DI membership.

Sorry, I was being unfair. You weren't waffling - you stated your position. The list of arguments you supplied against it weren't really waffling because you didn't qualify your "yes" in any way. Keep up the good work.

S, how could I have missed that!?! This is what I consider an example of waffle-speak and is also a fair summary of what you said, "I'm afraid that UND moving to DI would be fiscal suicide, that finding a conference will be very difficult, and that the harsh probationary periods are here to stay. In conclusion, UND should go DI." IMO, the only bet surer that NDSU won't have to wait 13 years for a BB autobid is that scholarships will be cut in DII FB. But wait, you never got around to saying why UND's triumph in their fight to keep the NCC in DII was such brilliant strategy. BTW, Mass-Lowell is the other DII school dropping football and that represents one less vote against scholarship reductions. The three in DI-AA were all non-scholarship programs so that's good news for DI-AA too. Michigan Tech, on the other hand, was from one of DII's "power conferences" so that can't be good.

Hahaha! I don't assume that everything[ you type is about NDSU. If more of us would discard the "waffle speak", a guy might have a chance of picking up on what people are really saying. Sicatoka is not on record as being in support of DI as far as I know. I've heard him go both ways ("no" if its NDSU, "maybe" if its UND) - although he would never sully himself by stating something directly (last time he did that it was to say that he thought college athletics should be scrapped). I'm not sure that he has what it takes to state a position without qualifying to the point of making it meaningless. Always an optimist, I'll ask him now: The Sicatoka, if you had to make the call toda, would you say that UND shoud go DI? a) Yes b) No ----- What makes this interesting in my mind is that I can't see how a guy can say that having the NCC go DI would have been a bad idea at the same time as they want UND to move up. As for star2city, I'd hate to push him completely over the edge by responding in my typical acerbic manner. He's nearly apoleptic as it is. In my view, UND has been like France and NDSU has been like the USA in their approach to the DI question. In this analogy, star2city would be Saddam - except that he'd have used WMD on NDSU long ago.

Huh? I have no idea what your argument is. Actually I was saying that DI is going to clamp down on new DII and NAIA teams coming to DI - and it *will* happen as part of the football re-org. It shouldn't be so tough as to affect UND though - unless Di institutes even more draconian measures to punish teams who move up. This has nothing to do with forcing teams down from DI-A to DI-AA though. The only reason for UND fans being so fixated on that is that they are trying to convince themselves that NDSU won't get into the Big Sky because Idaho is going to get forced down. Personally, I don't think that it's very likely but if it doesn it makes DI-AA more attractive not less.

Sicatoka, even if you are right about #3, which would you rather be in: a diluted DI or a diluted DII? Never fear, the situation in DI is not the same as in DII because DI is being proactive about keeping bottom feeders out of DI. Iin fact, that's one of the reasons that Chapman gave for making the DI decision when he did - he was worried that DI was really going to slam the door in 2004 and the only place where NDSU could control its fate would be on the DI side.

Your point might be about money but it's not driving my conversation - I'm trying to clear up some misconceptions that seem rampant among UND fans (and some NDSU fans too). Giving you a bad time is a bonus. There is NO revenue drain in football by DI-AA teams - the BCS controls that money. You are missing many critical points: 1. You couldn't even fill up the sixty-four places in the BB tourney if you were going to limit it to schools like Ohio State. 2. There is absolutely no movement to make the NCAA's Big Dance a big-school-only affair - that would ruin what makes the tourney so interesting. 3. The NCAA is one school, one vote so the BCS schools can do nothing inside the NCAA unless they convince the 150 or so other schools that it's in their best interest. Strong-arming is not a possibility when there is no leverage. 4. If the BCS schools did decide that they were going to leave the NCAA completely, this would only serve to make DI a more rational choice for NDSU. 5. All the proposals you are quoting are from the Football Rules Oversight Committee - those are the guys doing the "big" re-org of the NCAA that people keep pointing too - why anybody would think that they're going to completely reorganize all divisions in all sports is beyond me. 6. I repeat this for emphasis - there can be no Big Dance without the Cinderellas. 7. The most likely course of action taken by DI will be to toughen the qualifications for new DI membership and to make DI-AA more attractive so teams don't keep joining DI-A. All they have to do to keep DII schools from moving up is say, "No more new schools for x years and here's a list of the more stringent guidelines they'll have to face." 8. Classifications are not the same as Divisions. There are no classifications in DII. In DI, there is A, AA, and AAA. If they do away with the classifications, then the 150 other schools are NEVER going to allow rules to be put into place that will force them down to DII.

Huh? How would Ohio State being bled by NDSU going DI? That doesn't make any sense. It's not like NDSU is pulling an NSIC and moving up, complaining about the cost, and then voting to tell Ohio State et al to curtail their program to suit us. Maybe you're talking about basketball? You do know that it's a DI football re-org that is being worked on, right? You're basing long-term decisions on a combination of improbabilities and wishful thinking while ignoring unpleasant certainties.

At least there was a rationale for affirmative action. With DII, it's like a guy buying a car then wanting the bank to lower the price because it is too expensive and then telling everybody else in town with a nice car that they should relace their engines with Chevette power plants. I wasn't necessarily thinking about football only, NDSU set the standard as an athletic department as a whole. Yeah, NDSU's success has resulted in a lot of whining and jealousy (not that UND fans would ever be that petty) but it has also resulted in some good progress by the other schools in the NCC so that now the conference is one of the best in DII - and having NDSU, SDSU, UNC, and Morningside leave might actually make it seem better to UND fans since less competition at the conference level means more postseason opportunities at the national level. It's a measure of both NDSU's tradition and DII's poor condition that a semi-final appearance in 2000 (something that is a true rarity for other NCC teams), is considered a sign of weakness. If you can look at NDSU's last two recruiting classes and the new coaching staff and still not see an avalanche of whoop ass coming UND's way, then... oh, who am I kidding, the future should always remain a complete surprise to UND's administration, media, and fans. "What? NDSU is actually going DI? I thought it was just a lie to get UND to follow suit. And what's this? DII cut scholarships again? Wow! I sure didn't see that coming."

Man, I love bugging UND fans - sorry if I'm annoying you... oh, who am I kidding? I gotta disagree - NDSU is no way, shape, or form moving up to DI to "dilute" it. You can say that it doesn't matter what NDSU actually does and that it is only the perception of other DI schools that matters, but you'd be wrong. NDSU isn't moving up to DI without any intention of fully funding football and basketball. We're moving up with the full intention of adding football national championship banners to NDSU's formidable collection. Nor is NDSU going to be crying about how much scholarships cost. This puts NDSU in a totally different category than the schools that have come, are coming, and will be coming into DII. DI-AA is what DII used to be, that much we can agree on. That NDSU will be in a second division in football is also true - even if DI-A and DI-AA combine, the BCS teams will have their bowl games and everybody else will play in the playoffs. And that would be outstanding for NDSU as far as I'm concerned. Which brings me to Sicatoka's other speculations about the NCAA. How laughable is it to want NDSU to act like scholarship reductions can be avoided even though it's a 99.9% certainty and that far less likely decisions about revamping DI are a good possibility? Now that's irony. You'd think that if your school was making a decision about its longterm future that you'd want them to act on what will happen rather than on what almost certainly will not. Making it even more funny is that I'm guessing he brought up the list of possible enhancements to DI-AA participation (their words, not mine) because he thinks that should mean that schools like NDSU should avoid DI when it makes DI more attractive, not less. On a more petty note, the NCC was NOT a powerful DII conference, it was a weak one and that's why it stayed in DII. For example, only Northern Iowa, NDSU and SDSU had had any national success. NDSU pretty much dragged the rest of the conference, kicking, screaming, and whining all the way to where it is now. Or maybe I'm just rattling your cage again.

I'm just wondering when enough is enough. ~500 million on flood protection, 100+ million (plus attendant costs to the city improving infrastructure of several million more) on the Ralph, nearly 100 million on the Alerus, 11 million dollar publicly-financed hotel, 20+ million (if the GFH gets what they want) on an indoor waterpark, now a new arena (7 million), dome over Memorial, $1 million on new turf at Memorial, and property tax breaks to a number of other private service industry projects. We're talking a nearly $1 billion with no non-service jobs created. Seating: 13500-22000 Alerus, 11400-19000 Ralph, 5000 Hyslop, 6000 old Ralph, 4000 the proposed Ralphette, 2400 Chester Fritz, etc. That's more seats than people. Even if you tear down the existing 11000 seats in the Hyslop and old Ralph.

We can disagree but not on whether further scholarship reductions are going to happen. They're going to happen and I can give you three reasons why: budget shortfalls, influx of smaller schools, and the defection of DII's best football programs. When 70+% of DII schools have under 5000 students and don't fund 36 scholarships, it's unclear to me why anybody would think that scholarship limits are going to remain the same. And in NDSU's case, remaining the same isn't even acceptable - you are probably not aware of that point. 45 scholarships is what NDSU wanted for DII and that's never going to happen. What we can disagree on is whether UND should move up or not. My feeling: UND should stay in DII and walk their talk. One final thing: you tend to read behind the lines: Roger Thomas said "he might do something if this and that" doesn't mean squat to me - to you it means UND is already to go DI. Holy cow! The day Roger Thomas makes an unqualified comment about anything is the day that I'll pay attention to what he says. I'd prefer not to guess what people are thinking. They know best, why don't they come out and state it? Same thing with the Big Sky - they ARE looking to expand and that's what that meeting decided. You say they were actually saying that NDSU will never get into the Big Sky. In fact, they did not. They want to see if Idaho will move down and it's becoming clear now that they won't. They've solved their attendance problem by scheduling games on neutrul sites with Pac 10 teams and having it designated a home game - kinda of like NWMSU did this year.