tony

Turtle Mountain = Chippewa, not Sioux.

Don't get me wrong - Paulsen could definitely have contacted Holmberg, but it's really unlikely that he is the anonymous board member quoted in the Forum story. I can't imagine why Paulsen would want to bluff like that, but who knows? It took the consultant all of five minutes to figure out that some board members spend more time sniping at each other than doing any good. Any story that has three anonymous sources is BAD NEWS - especially when it looks like they chose anonymity in order to gossip and speculate without consequence. And, yeah, peers and equity funding are complete garbage and if ConnectND wasn't a flop, it would be a relic of the past. Maybe the new system based on work load would be better than my poor solution, but until NDSU and UND are taken out of the position where their supporters feel forced to undercut the other, this sorry type of thing is bound to keep happening.

It is complete BS, like it or not, until the anonymous board member comes forward and explains how they got things so completely wrong and why (or maybe they have them right and board members are lying left and right). BTW, Rep. Holmberg wasn't too happy with NDSU not having to count Ag research dollars toward their equity funding... why don't you try following that money trail for a while? Seriously, if you want to see UND and NDSU cooperate rather than engage in this destructive zero-sum game we have going on, link funding at NDSU to UND's funding. Like it or not, NDSU and UND have a lot more in common than UND and whatever other peers they picked for UND. Make it a per student deal, agree on how to count students, and then give NDSU, say, x% of what UND gets per student (personally, I think it should be 100% but UND might have some expenses that NDSU does not). And make all this discussion part of the public record. I'm sick to death of anonymous sources and grandstanding legislators. And, yeah, keep the Medical school funding separate (as long as money earmarked for the medical school isn't transferred to other parts of UND).

Who is going after Potts and what is your proof? As for Paulsen, he made no comment. If there were private meetings among board members, anybody who participated in them should be removed along with the anonymous source. I don't see the double standard there. Apparently you believe Paulsen was involved in secret meetings - again with your only proof being what? Even the anonymous board member didn't say anything about that, not that her/his allegations about that would be any more accurate that the clearly false ones already made (e.g. the votes being there to oust Potts). The only people who have criticized Potts so far are Kunkel, Clayburgh, and the Governor's Chief of Staff.

Hey, some you guys were eager to speculate that all the allegations made by an anonymous board member were true. Well, it sure looks like they weren't. Three members (Christianson, Kosteleckey, Smith) said that they had no idea there was any plan to get rid of Potts and were pretty effusive with their praise for him. That means that for this anonymous board member and Holmberg to be right, either Kunkel, Clayburg, Paulsen, and Andrews have all met in violation of open meeting laws and decided to oust Potts -or- it means that some of the board members are lying to the press. Let me see, who is more credible: Those three board members who made their statements on the record or the one who only whispered from the shadows? It seems pretty clear that this "anonymous board member" got their facts wrong, possibly deliberately. They should explain themselves on the record. Then if it does turn out that board members have been meeting privately, those should be forced out too. That's what an advocate of clean government would want. The anonymous sources and Holmberg specifically targetted Chapman and implied that board members were breaking state law. If Holmberg can weaken the SBoHE and get some of the power back to the Legislature, the committee he chairs will wield enormous influence over issues like funding - something he seems eager to dabble in since it was he who ran to the press with the consultance's preliminary funding report (the one that would have, if ran through, made NDSU students pay for all Ag research in the state). If that's clean government, I'd hate to see dirty government.

Follow the money to where? What money stands to be gained by Potts getting forced out and by whom? That's complete BS. Why not ask yourself this: Why would a board member (or is it two?) and Rep. Holmberg try to stir something up between Chapman and Potts? And this forced resignation - why does nobody on the board admit to having a clue that there is any such plan? Either Holmberg and his source are mistaken (at best) or at least three or more board members interviewed by the Forum flat out lied. If the anonymous board member(s) were wrong or lying and that the Forum, Herald, and Tribune got suckered into printing gossip - gossip with a fairly obvious objective (going after Chapman) and it's gossip that Chapman can't even defend himself against. BTW, why on earth should a board member be making anonymous comments in the first place, especially inaccurate ones? IMO, The SBoHE is dysfunctional and at least two members should be cleared out immediately, but the Chancellor should stay. All indications are that he will be stay and that this whole thing was a bunch of malarkey peddled by Holmberg and his board member accomplice(s) in order to gain some political advantage. Edit: I'm with redwing77 on this. However, Rep. Holmberg does not want to get control of the SBoHE (unless he and Governor Hoeven are in cahoots, he'd have no chance). I think he wants to put Higher Education back under the thumb of the Legislature.

Hehehe, well, if something is too delicate to be subject to open meeting laws, it can't be OK to comment on it anonymously. However, I really doubt it applies to this case... they still would have to conduct a normal meeting, but they'd close it to the public.

What's not to like? It's pretty clear that Rep. Holmberg wants people to think that Chapman is having Potts removed. He's the one who contacted the Forum, for example. Apparently, we've got board members conducting public business in private, and doing it without the knowledge of the board President, the student advisor, the faculty advisor and at least two two board members. We've also got board members and "people familiar with the board" making anonymous comments, most of them spectacularly inane. Good grief, it's time to get the Attorney General involved. Find out if these conversations between Holmberg, the Fargo Forum reporter, and the anonymous board member(s) are subject to open records laws. After that, find out if there were any off-the-record meetings and, if so, find out what was discussed. After that, clean out the Board. BTW, Rep. Holmberg should really get his story straight before he runs to the press next time - the guy is a bag full of contradictions. Forgot to answer the questions. One, I've never heard of this supposed animosity between Potts and Chapman. Assuming it really exists to the extent people are saying, it still doesn't have anything to do with Chapman and Wyoming (didn't they come to him?)

That's more like it.

star2city is partially right, SDSU didn't wait the extra year, only NDSU did. However, his other comment that SDSU gave notice a month before the school year could be misinterpreted. Obviously, SDSU didn't leave the NCC one month after deciding to go DI because they played a full NCC schedule that year (it'd be quite a trick to leave the NCC and make up a whole new schedule in one month). NDSU gave two year's notice which I guess makes NDSU kind of a good guy for once? After declaring an exploratory year, a school isn't going to be on their old conference's schedule for the following year. Sure, there's a chance that the school might decide to stay in DII, but no conference is going to set their schedules up assuming that. A school deciding at the end of their exploratory year that DII is the place to be is almost certainly going to end up as an independent the following year.

I think that it's the other way around. NCC schools planning on leaving the conference originally were required to give 12 months notice, but when SDSU started looking at DI, the NCC bumped it up to 18 months. That means the deadline has already passed for UND to make a penalty-free break with the NCC for this year . Of course, I could be completely wrong. Maybe the NCC turned around and rescinded the rule after SDSU left.

Heck, you don't have to hear it from anybody (besides 9 times out of 10 what you hear is wrong). Here is the NCAA's 2005-06 DI Manual: http://www.ncaa.org/library/membership/div...6_d1_manual.pdf Go to page 358 - the part that interests you is in section 20.5 Change of Division Membership If I'm not misinterpreting things, to make 2006-07 UND's exploratory year, UND would have to notify the NCAA by September 1, 2006 (best to get your app in a little earlier). UND cannot retroactively declare that 2005-06 was their exploratory year.

Can't a person be both? They're talking about a Big 10 hockey conference. I don't see why it's crazy and/or humorous to imagine that UND could be part of that.

Why only send out these releases with the one-class average? Seems a bit misleading. Here are the four-class averages for student-athletes: UMD - 60% Mankato 60% UNO - 53% SCSU - 50% UND - 61% USD - 60% Augie - 63% UMC - 58% (since they got ripped for being low) 71% is a nice if it signals a trend though - keep it up.

Hey, All I did was make a suggestion - a completely innocuous one. I thought it was probably a bad idea to keep saying that DI-AA football is no better than DII until you know for sure that UND is staying in DII. Why? First, it doesn't make DI-AA sound that attractive which in turn could make it harder to raise the money needed to double UND's football budget. Second, suppose UND does go DI and has a couple 6-5 seasons or even a losing season or two. Before you say that's improbable, remember that NDSU and UND both have had losing seasons within the last five years in DII. Besides, UC Davis, SDSU, UNC, and NDSU all were right around 6-5 this year - and NDSU was predicted to finish 6-5. UC Davis had to beat Stanford to break .500. NDSU, UNC, and SDSU have all got blown out and shut out at least once in the last two years. SDSU might not have been a contender very often in the NCC and UNC might have been up and down but I don't remember them being on the losing end of scores like 0-44, 0-38, 0-31, 12-42, 0-52, or 7-63 within the last decade. While I think UND would be competitive in every game against DI-AA opponents, that might not translate into winning seasons. Anyway, if UND goes DI-AA and has a losing season or two (something that gets a little more likely if you jump right into an established conference), attendance and fund-raising will suffer more if you do not accept beforehand that the road to competitiveness in DI-AA might not be easy or short. And, for the record, I have always disagreed with NDSU fans who slam DII football and the NCC. Personally, I think its a slap in the face to all the kids who worked their guts out to bring back championships for NDSU and UND. It's kind of like slamming hockey (and, btw, "How do you get a UND fan to talk about hockey? Try talking about football ). Anyway, it's totally unnecessary and not very neighborly. Then again, I think maybe the folks most vocal about DI-AA being the same or worse than DII are the ones most committed to keeping UND in DII (e.g. Roger Thomas and President Kupchella).

DI-AA schools can only offer 63 equivancies spread among 85 players (so for a fully funded program that would work out to be an average of 3/4 a full ride per scholarship player). No coach at a program where winning is expected is just going to hand out schollies for PR purposes. I heard Bohl went to every ND high school this year, maybe that gave him a chance to see something in some of these guys that other folks didn't.

Whooa! You guys have (apparently) lost the battle for two recruits, one of whom has academic reasons for choosing NDSU, and some of you are acting like all is lost and going DI is the only answer? I think UND's problem, if there is one, is more about uncertainty. If UND had stuck to its guns about staying in DII, kids would know they were going to be playoff eligible or not. Right now they're not sure if they'll ever be playoff eligible at any point in their career at UND while at NDSU, they know they will be playoff eligible by their sophomore season. That's a big change from the last three years when UND won some pretty high profile recruiting battles of their own (e.g. Weston Dressler) in part because NDSU was still deep in their provisional period. By next year, UND will have eliminated the uncertainty about playoff eligibility, but suppose UND does go DI, I think recruiting North Dakota and Minnesota kids is going to get harder before it gets easier. During its provisional period, NDSU could offer full rides (or nearly full rides) as well as the DI label - things that UND couldn't offer. UND isn't going to have those advantages over NDSU. OTOH, while the playoff thing hurt with local kids, the farther away you got, the less students cared - all they saw was a kickass stadium, big crowds, and an opportunity to play DI ball. Besides, UND isn't playing NDSU anymore so it's not like this recruiting battle was about anything more than bragging rights. If UND starts losing recruiting battles with St. Cloud, Mankato, Duluth, Winona, Mary, etc. then that's a problem. You probably don't want advice from me, but if I were a UND guy, I'd probably lay off the comments about DI-AA being no better, or only slightly better, than DII until you find out that UND is in DII to stay. I can't see how anybody would get excited about ponying up to help double the football budget if that's the attitude. Not only that, suppose UND does go DI and has three consecutive 6-win seasons like UC Davis or averages 3 wins a season like UNC has the last two years (and those schools weren't exactly creampuff DII schools). Now further imagine the reaction of fans and alumni, if their administrations and fans had been telling everybody that going DI-AA was going to be no different than playing in the NCC? Kind of seems that folks are setting themselves up for a difficult situation.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound bitter. I think most Bison fans would agree that NDSU would not have scheduled UND if UND had been the one to move up. However, NDSU would not have left UND dangling for nine months - no way! For example, I wasn't impressed by Taylor's response to Buning's comments to the Herald, but his response was immediate and forthright, if not flattering to him or NDSU. IMO, NDSU should immediately offer a game to UND because that's how I think NDSU can best serve the state. The only stipulation I'd have is that the contract have a severe penalty for backing out as well as an early expiration date (NDSU can't afford to wait until March for a response). Hopefully Taylor and Buning are working on something right now.

You know what, bincitysioux, I think if you put to a jury of folks, they'd agree that in light of all the evidence, UND really tried to screw NDSU. I also think your logic is flawed - it may be a theory that UND was trying to screw over NDSU by delaying the decision so long, but it is a theory supported by the facts which makes it a heck of a lot more believable than the official reason given by UND (especially since that official reason changed from day to day). Now, you can argue that NDSU would have done the same thing. However, they did not. In fact, anticipating this argument, I included the quote from President Kupchella because I think it symbolizes what is wrong with the rivalry. However, I would bet my retirement savings that NDSU would NOT have acted in the same way as UND did.. If they weren't going to schedule UND in similar circumstances, they would have said so in May and not have waited nine months.

SiouxMD, I can tell you exactly why NDSU fans got ticked off by UND not scheduling NDSU in 2004. In May 2003, NDSU's AD made up a contract that gave UND two home games and ran from 2004-2008. Virg Foss asks Thomas what was up. "UND needs an appopriate number of home games," says Roger. He didn't mention anything at all about playoff implications. Call me a skeptic but even if the playoff implications angle slipped his mind for four months, why did it take UND until February 10, 2004 to reject an offer NDSU made back in May, 2003 and why did the boycott extend to all sports but baseball? It should be blazingly obvious to everybody that UND's motivation was to screw NDSU over as hard as possible. Besides, the playoff implications for scheduling a DI team were made less harsh in that nine month period *and* the playoff field was expanded by eight teams. Personally, I didn't like NDSU's response to Buning's offer; however, I completely understand it. NDSU got burned once. When Buning made his offer to the press, it sounded like the same old UND to Taylor. I think they misread the guy. However, now that UND is off the schedule, I think that waiting a couple more years to renew the rivalry wouldn't be such a bad idea. BTW, what's up with this? Maybe at UND, the natural thought is that rivalry trumps integrity?

Your claim that Chapman objected to UND-Fargo on the basis that UND was duplicating programs is flawed. In fact, UND is still duplicating those programs. He only objected when UND decided to establish a campus in Fargo. Moreover, Chapman did not shut down UND-Fargo, the Chancellor did. Duplicating programs is not the same thing as establishing a campus - I don't really think that is a point worth debating. President Kupchella consistently objects to the actions of others on the basis that they are bad public policy. However, if his objections don't have any affect, he goes ahead and does the same things to which he just got done objecting. What excuse can he possibly use to implementing policy that he truly believes is a bad for the state? "Oh, I thought it was a bad idea when NDSU (or Valley City or Dickinson) did it, but since they did it, I guess UND will too. Yeah, it's bad for the state but I feel compelled to do this thing becaause [insert excuse here]." I don't think there is any string of words you can put between the brackets that will make President Kupchella look like anything but a posturing double-talker. It's hard to debate without seeming angry, but there you have it. Believe me I get a kick of arguing stuff like this.

Hehehe, Roger Thomas said a lot of things, mostly contradictory (i.e. he double-talked). Anyway, I figure that decision to go DI is UND's to make so I won't chip in with my thoughts. Believe me, it's a big jump, and I know it'll be harder for NDSU to succeed in DI with UND out there competing for recruits and resources - just as it would be if UND went first and NDSU followed. That said, I'll be there to welcome you guys to tailgating at Bison-UND games when NDSU hosts one again. Heck, I'd love to see if star2city looks a apopleptic as he sounds... if so, maybe a beer would calm him down Good luck with the decision. If NDSU's administration does anything to try to screw you over (for example, sitting on contracts for 10 months and then ripping it up at the last minute), they'll hear from me about it.

star2city, the problem NDSU folks have with UND's administration is that we think that UND's administration is comprised of a bunch of double-talkers. None of President Kupchella's objections to going DI had to do with not having a conference lined up. You guys seized on that because you read the Carr Report. If you look through the following source material, you won't see conferences mentioned. It's all about the expense, the cesspool that DI was supposed to be (except hockey), the unattractiveness of DI-AA competition, etc... 02/21/2002 President Kupchella: "UND Sees No Compelling Reason For DI" 02/27/2002 Grand Forks Herald: "Costs Outweigh DI Benefits" 05/28/2002 Grand Forks Herald: "Bison's DI Move Makes No Sense" 09/06/2002 Grand Forks Herald: "Division I: Say No!" 12/28/2002 Grand Forks Herald: "DI: Sucker's Game" 07/03/2004 AD Roger Thomas Star Tribune interview: "We'll see how the transition period goes for NDSU. Maybe we'll see that Division I in all sports would make sense for us, too, although I doubt it." 11/27/2004 President Kupchella: "is division Iaa really a higher level of competition?" 11/27/2004 President Kupchella: "I want you to know that I hate the idea that NDSU even appears to be making a move ahead of us in any way whatsoever" 11/27/2004 President Kupchella: "I recognize that we may have to make this move even though, ultimately it may make no otherwise logical or financial sense to do so." When bills were introduced to the legislature trying to hamper or prevent NDSU from going DI (and, yeah, I'm sure UND wasn't consulted even though the "*except hockey" clause miraculously appeared in the bills), it wasn't lack of a conference that was cited. It was that mean old NDSU was preventing North Dakota athletes from playing DII sports. It was that it was way too expensive. It was NOT that NDSU should find a conference first. You can yell as loud as you want and sputter until your face is beet red, but it will not change the facts. UND going DI would be a complete 180. Hopefully if they can do the about face on that, they can also take another page from Chapman's book and start saying what they mean and doing what they say.

Heck, star2city, I knew Bakken was a clown, it just never occurred to me that he amused anybody.

You simply cannot talk about recruiting with a potential recruit or their relatives. It is against NCAA regs. I suggest that you guys talk to your compliance guy before digging yourselves deeper.