tony

Oh, I'm tolerant of bad guesses but being an order of magnitude off is more than a bad guess - especially when UND's Task Force had data from NDSU, SDSU, Northern Colorado, and UC Davis to use as a benchmark. Hehe, for now, I'll just enjoy the irony of it all. I mean, Joe "Carpetbagger" Chapman was publicly castigated for daring to spend $30k on a Carr Report. Just about everything NDSU said about DI was vociferously challenged but, yet, for all the talk about NDSU pulling the wool over peoples' eyes and whatnot, NDSU came up with a $3 million per year figure way back in 2002. Not too shabby

Geez, wasn't it ten months ago that UND's crack DI Task Force held a news conference and announced that going DI would cost $1 million a year?

Factoids: 6 - Number of programs that finished in the top 25 last year 5 - Number of State U's in the conference (IL, IN, MO, ND, SD). 4 - Number of programs that finished in the top 10 last year. 3 - Number of former NCC members in the conference. 2 - Number of programs with FCS championship trophies already. 1 - Where I'd rank this conference's strength nationally (A10 is up there too)

I wouldn't be surprised if UC Davis ends up playing DI-A football before UND finishes its transition. UC Davis was saying in the '90s that if they moved up, they'd be going DI-A. They haven't said much about it lately, but I kinda think that building a stadium expandable up to 30,000+ is a clue as to their intentions. My only hope is that the rule changes that allow more DI-A v DI-AA games will make DI-A less attractive.

In the long term, NDSU has to satisfy Title IX by the proportionality clause - and in the same article, NDSU stated it plans on doing exactly that by being at 59-41 by 2008. Like nodakvindy stated - proportionality is the only proven defense to a Title IX lawsuit - nobody has won a suit by any other route. In the short term, NDSU is in a unique situation - they still don't know what sports they may need to add to get into a conference, they have an equestrian program waiting in the wings, they are in the midst of a transition, and the plan they have in place is probably almost identical to what a successful Title IX lawsuit would mandate (er, on second thought, NDSU would probably have to accelerate the process by one year). As for the morality of it all, let's put it in perspective: UND had to cut wrestling and add women's hockey to get compliant on proportionality. I think it's pretty safe to say that for the 10-20 years before that, UND was not Title IX compliant on the proportionality test. It would have been better form for UND folks to compare the current situation at UND to the old situation at UND, but I guess UND folks can't pass up an opportunity to compare themselves favorably to NDSU - and I gotta say, that really rubs NDSU stakeholders the wrong way. Anyway, it's a wee bit early for UND athletic department to be congratulating themselves on their fine Title IX work when they haven't accomplished any of it yet. It's a nice plan, but it will take a lot of money. For example, NDSU's budget will be at or over $10 million by 2008. That's a quite a bit more than the $2 million increase that UND is budgeting for.

Hehehe! I stand behind that statement completely. However, with Roger Thomas gone, President Kupchella going (go already, you big tease!) and Buning in, things have changed a whole lot for the better. When President Kupchella leaves and gets replaced, maybe I'll have to recant that position - especially if Taylor is still moping to the press about the scheduling deal from 2003-04. As fans, I think UND folks are excellent - some of you spend way too much time gossipping and making your points by attributing them to somebody else (so you can smack without really smacking - "I didn't say it, I'm just repeating what somebody else said. That's really off topic though.

Damn it, SiouxMD - I'm always angry! Anyway, here it is without the fireworks. If Potts has a problem with Chapman, he better be willing to back it up with specifics tomorrow. I'm not impressed with how Potts has handled himself or this situation, but I'll listen to his complaints. However, now that he has made such a huge deal about this, he dang well better have something substantial... not just a gripe because Chapman opposed his pet project to spend NDSU money to recruit foreign students - that's well within the realm of Chapman's rights and responsibilities.

I'm sick of anonymous sources, UND legislative and media hallelujah choir, and guys like Potts who don't even have the man-berries to pronounce Chapman's name much less give a coherent list of grievances. Without specifics FROM POTTS (not a bunch of turf-protecting hacks from UND), all we are left with is a grown man throwing a tantrum because he has a problem with Chapman himself rather than anything Chapman has done.

The sad fact is that most of opposition from UND folks over Chapman is motivated by jealousy and antipathy towards NDSU.

GOOD LORD! HUGE MISTAKE ON MY PART! Since the report kept referring to UND having a $10 million budget, I assumed that they were using that figure to compare to the average DI-AA budget, but I think they were using the $6.9 million figure as their benchmark. That's not nearly as dubious as I thought. While NDSU's method for making an estimate is much better (they had the coaches prepare DI budgets), UND's method is OK as far as it goes - but it does include a bunch of low-scholarship football schools in the pool, ignores the huge effect that hockey has on UND's athletic budget, and also assumes that UND is willing to go from being the biggest fish left in DII to a small fry in DI and only a middling-sized fish in DI-AA. While no excuse for my screw up, the $1 million per year estimate is very low and UND should be a little more up front about the true cost of going DI as well as what their actual budget is. Among all those newspaper stories about this issue, every one listed $1 million as the cost except the one in which Buning, to his credit, was gave a good-faith estimate of $2-3 million (which is the true cost of going DI and having a fully-funded football team). BTW, UND's athletic budget *is* 6.9 million including hockey - not $10 million or $17 million. Football takes up 1.6 million of that; BB needs $800k, and all other sports (including hockey) take up $4 million. That's directly from the report's supporting documents. You really have to dig to find the one-time expenses. You have to compare Exhibit 19C to 19D... er, ok, so maybe that's not that much digging. The one-time charges are for: 1. $2 million in for "Contract Services", 90% on the men's side. That's a huge number - it's $1 million more than the average DI-A program pays. 2. $600k on "Sports Camps" - no idea. Double what the average DI-A program pays - and it's all a one-time deal. 3. $500k in a one-time bump to men's coaching salaries. All I can think of is that maybe UND had to pay the salary of two hockey coaches for 2005. Still, that seems extreme. That's really kind of interesting. At first I thought contract services might have something to do with coach's contracts, but I'm kind of thinking it has something to one-time facility rentals. Maybe it has to do with hosting part of the NCAA hockey tournament.

Teehehe! (figure I better giggle like a school girl). Oh well, I'm sure you want to do what is best for UND. However, in the long run, the task force would serve themselves and the UND-loving public better if they had fessed up to the true cost of going DI instead of trying to pass off that unsupportable $1 million per year figure. Admittedly, I was trying to bait somebody into saying, "Hey, stupid head, the report says it's going to cost $1 million. So there." Then I could really do some seriously mocking. Alackaday, either you can't figure out what the report is saying -or- you can figure it out and don't want to admit it. The task force told the media on several occasions that going DI would cost $1 million per year. NDSU, four years ago, said moving to DI would cost $2.3 million. I guess DI got cheaper? To arrive at the $1 million figure, the task force compared UND's budget to the average budget for a DI-AA school and decided that the difference would be what UND needs to go DI. BTW, HAHAHAHAHA! However, UND's budget for the year they picked as a benchmark just happened to include over $3 million in one-time expenses. That's like me going for a home loan and saying I have a yearly income of $99,000 when I really make $67,000 but happened to get an inheritance of $32k during the year. Anyway, if that is the methodology task force settled upon for determining the cost of going DI, the only good-faith estimate they could have given to the media was $4 million per year.

Can any of you answer these questions based on the task force's report? 1. What's the best guess as to how much expenses will increase per year if UND goes DI? 2. What sources of revenue will cover the increased expense (assuming the report didn't conclude that DI costs less money than DII)?

Your point being? It's pretty easy to figure out the answers to your questions - go to news.google.com and type those search phrases in. Be sure to put them in quotes though as Google is measuring search phrases. If they weren't North Dakota State University would be counting all the stories containing the phrase "University of North Dakota." Hehe, I can't help but notice that these stats only became lies when it became uncomfortably clear that there are a lot of people searching for information on my poor old Aggie Mater. The answer to your questions is that both those phrases are unlikely to return any news stories... but you would use "North Dakota State Bird" or "North Dakota's State Bird" as your search phrase if that's the topic you wanted to get the latest news on. You sure wouldn't search using "North Dakota State" which was my original point.

Hehe, cratter, you really think people in the area looking for the latest breaking news on North Dakota State Symbols or whatever are typing in 'North Dakota State' into a the Google news search? You said: "UND wins throughout the region except for the Fargo area, of which it is (not so surprisingly) close." You based that conclusion the assumption that people searching for news on NDSU would type 'North Dakota State University' rather than 'North Dakota State' into Google's search engine - even though most stories on NDSU athletics do not contain the phrase 'North Dakota State University' any more than stories on Ohio State contain the phrase 'Ohio State University.' I suppose it is possible that all those people in Bismarck and Minot were actually searching for breaking news about North Dakota State College of Science, North Dakota State Parks, North Dakota State Symbols, North Dakota State Library, etc, but that doesn't change the fact that NDSU not only was searched for seven times more than 'University of North Dakota' in Fargo but also that it has surprising penetration in India and mainland China. Based on that, it'll be interesting to see if 'NDSU' surpasses 'University of North Dakota' as a search term down the road - because it kind of looks that way. A lucky deal for North Dakota State University that 'NDSU' is so unique - helps with branding, I'd think. That said, folks interested in UND hockey, for instance, are probably not searching for a single phrase - they are probably typing in two separate search phrases: Sioux and hockey or something like that.

Hehehehe! What a cool toy! It's nice to see both universities being searched for. However, I can't help pointing out that "North Dakota State" is what gets written in articles on the sports page, not "North Dakota State University." For example, my news alert for google is set up to use "North Dakota State." A truer comparison but definitely not perfect UND kind of has a problem. "Sioux" gets you all the stories on the real Sioux and a ton of stories on Sioux Falls, Sioux City, etc. "UND" is German conjunction. Can't drop the "University of" or you get all the stories on North Dakota. I think it would be hard to get proper search results. Pirates v Ninjas* * This would seemingly prove once and for all the pirates rule over ninjas, but it could be that ninjas are so sneaky that they don't show up no matter how hard you search for them.

Yeah, I sure thought the deadline was 9/1 for notifying the NCAA... until today. Looks like it got voted on in October and adopted on Dec. 26th, 2005 - so that's why the 2005-06 manual didn't have it. Previously I was more interested in correcting the deadline for notifying the NCC - I thought it had been moved up from Sept 1 to March 1, but according to the Herald today, that deadline was actually moved up to Dec. 31! To leave the NCC and play a DI season in 2008-2009, UND would want to notify the NCC by the end of this year - 6 months before it notifies that NCAA?

Meh. I kinda think Mr. Fullerton tailors his comments for his audience. The only thing this article did was put to rest the rumor that Fullerton told UND that they were going to get an invitation to the Big Sky (as if Fullerton had the power to make it happen anyway). I like Fullerton - he keeps the lines of communication open and is a big cheerleader for NDSU getting into the Sky - but he doesn't get to make decisions like that. Bison Dan, never say never. It seems like you are letting your dislike for UND cloud your reasoning. Lots of DII schools have gotten invitations to DI conferences, and in the long run, SDSU and NDSU getting into a DI conference will greatly increase the odds of schools like UND, SCSU, et al getting into a DI conference.

I kinda thought attendance was low for SDSU v Georgia Southern because the Bunny faithful thought that Georgia Southern was going to hang 60+ on them again.

All, I can say (and I mean this sincerely) is, "Good luck." Even if you want to go DI and are disappointed by the survey results and the probable "no" coming from President Kupchella, this WILL turn out for the best for UND. Going DI isn't a short-term deal and, if UND goes DI, waiting a couple more years isn't going to hurt. OTOH, if UND never goes DI, that will mean that NDSU's gamble on DI turned into a scary cautionary tale. Anyway, attitudes can change quickly. NDSU's survey wasn't really a ringing endorsement for going DI, but I bet if they redid the survey today, you'd get a whole different set of answers. Right now there is a whole lot up in the air at UND. First, President Kupchella isn't going to be around much longer so if you started DI now, you'd have to change Presidents in the middle of the process. Second, there's the whole nickname battle yet to be resolved. Finally (and if I were an alumni of UND, this would be a big deal), I'd want to see UND's athletic budget stablize. Back in 2002, UND's athletic expenses were $5.8 million per year and NDSU was at $5.1 million. If that $10 million figure posted earlier is accurate, then UND has had to spend $4 million extra a year just to stay in D2. That number has to stablize or be explained away (maybe the numbers were arrived at in a different way?). Anyway, you sure can't go DI for a mere $1.5 million a year when expenses are escalating that rapidly. Heck, I'm not even sure that a Big Sky invitation is enough to counteract all the uncertainty. Of course, UND would have to consider it, but if Star2city is right, the Big Sky might agree to waiting a year or two while all this other stuff shakes out. (Alert: dead horse about to beaten) While the Herald did nothing to inform UND's stakeholders on the ramifications of going DI and of staying DII, I'm confident that given a year, they could get that job done properly.

Hey, nodakvindy, I wouldn't expect that the Herald report on what UND's decision is going to be - that's exactly what newspapers shouldn't do (print rumors). One of the jobs of newspapers is to aid informed debate on matters that affect their readers, that's all. I kinda think the Herald failed to do that when NDSU was deciding on DI and they failed again with UND. They just did it in different ways.

Hehehe, I'm kind of a trouble-maker, but I really do think that the Grand Forks Herald failed as journalists with their coverage of NDSU's and UND's decision-making process. Lack of staff is no excuse. If they have the manpower for extensive coverage of Springfest, there is no excuse for complete silence of the DI issue, especially seeing has how they could not stop yapping about NDSU's move ("Folly! Hubris! Heck, it's worse than either, it's Fyoobris!"). Where are the staltwart defenders of the public good who put pen to paper to expound on these mighty themes? "For the record: Costs outweigh D-I benefits" "Bisons' D-I move doesn't make sense" "EDITORIAL: Division I Say no!" "EDITORIAL: [DI is a] 'Sucker's game' OTOH, if UND does have a conference lined up and does go DI, that is great news for NDSU and SDSU so good luck with that! http://www.in-forum.com/specials/d1decision/

Has there been any discussion about UND going DI in pages of the Grand Forks Herald? If so, what is their position and reasoning? If not, what gives? I mean, they had plenty to say when NDSU was deciding... they must have run six anti-DI editorials. You'd think this would be a story that UND folks would have interest in having debated in public, but it seems like Hallstrom is the only one doing any work. Hehe, is the Herald still waiting to hear what their opinion is?

Uh, I don't think that fee increase has anything to do with athletics or DI. NDSU students would have had to vote to raise fees to support athletics and that hasn't happened as far as I know. There was some talk about raising the ConnectND fee to cover cost overruns, but I thought that got shot down. If NDSU's fee for ConnectND gets raised, I'd imagine that UND's will be getting bumped too. At NDSU, I think the Activity Fee ($10/credit/semester) is the only one that gets used for athletics. A little more than 1/3 of that money raised by that fee is budgeted for athletics. I don't think that fee got raised. NDSU student fees

Maybe you should be asking yourselves, "Why would the Sioux want to honor UND by letting them use the Sioux name?" I'm thinking that approach has a lot better chance of leading to a lasting solution.