jdub27

You don't have a clue what explanations I've been give or what my reactions to them have been, but thanks for the call out anyway. I'll clue you in: In no shape or form has it been 100% acceptance/agreement, which is why I have offered opinions and suggestions that I think can help to make things better, even if it is small things. Does it make a difference? Maybe, maybe not, but at least I can say I'm putting effort in instead of just complaining about it. And as with everything in life, there are some things that either take time or will be very hard to change, whether you want to accept it or not. But actually hearing about those things straight from those who's job it is to make things work and what steps they are trying to make it happen makes a big difference one perceives things. So again, while you continue to pontificate on here that you "refuse to accept" how things are and how they need to change, you actually mean it so much that you won't take the time to contact the AD yourself with comments or suggestions with a simple e-mail. What conviction...

I'm hoping you finally took the time to contact him yourself since your silence was defeaning the other day when you skipped answering my question.

Total athletic "revenues"

This doesn't count all school/state funds (which is a separate shell game), only direct, allocated student fees, shown as a percentage of total athletic "revenues": UND - 12.6% NDSU - 5.3% SDSU - 10.4% USD - 15.3% NDSU has been pushing for a few years to increase their student fees and keep getting shot down by the student government. The last time was due to incredibly poor planning by the athletic department during their presentation, assuming they were going to get a rubber stamp. It ended with the students actually giving up some seats and reducing fees slightly, which made sense for both parties, students had few seats, which they weren't using all of most game anyway and the athletic department got more seats to sell and the money they were looking for in the first place. The athletic department can now also sell unused student tickets the few days before game day.

Prelim schedule, likely 1-2 more updates (additions/subtractions) Non-Conf vs. Crown College (D3) @Gonzaga @Valparaiso @Milwaukee @Minnesota vs. North Central (D3) @FGCU @Georgia Southern - FGCU tournament @Campbell - FGCU tournament @Montana @Eastern Washington vs. Seattle vs. Northland College (D3) @Nebraska Conference @Denver vs. IPWF (Sunday) vs. Omaha (Wednesday) @ORU @SDSU @NDSU (Saturday) vs. Denver (Thursday) vs. WIU (Saturday) @IPFU vs. ORU (Thursday) vs. USD (Saturday) @WIU vs. SDSU (Wednesday) vs. NDSU (Saturday) @Omaha @USD Non-conference away games seem to be slightly higher profile this season Overall, home schedule is similar to last year. 5 non-conference homes games with two being D1 games. Woof. Seattle fell through, Campbell is a tournament game. My mistake on the second one, thought something seemed off about it. Some of the adjustments that were alluded to must have been to the Summit/Big Sky challenge as UND should hosting one and traveling to another. If UND hosts one like they are supposed to, that would have put them at 3 home D1 games. Assuming that will be made up in the next year or two. NDSU and USD home games on Saturdays this year, that will be good for attendance.

While I'd agree they are high, they are actually fairly low comparatively speaking in the landscape of sub-P5 schools. That being said, I wish that they would be even lower, though the students at the time did vote to help fund the athletics move.

You mean you emailed him with questions, concerns and comments and he responded with some answers??

You say alot of things, so not a surprise you've commented on them, but here's the reality: You've made two passing comments about High Point, one stating they had grown and are looking to invest in athletics and another commenting on how small their endowment was. Neither comment got a response, let alone someone giving you "flack" about anything related to High Point.

Quincy Vaughn Nothing ruled out at this point.

If a low to mid-level D1 team can come in and knock out two away games on one trip then it absolutely can make sense for certain teams. In return, they are either going to get two D1 home games in future years or getting paid two guarantees and with only one set of travel costs (outside of a bus and an extra night or two of hotel). Not saying its a no-brainer across the board, pointing out that it's the kind of out of the box thinking that could help both schools get the home games they struggle with.

So have you personally reached out to the AD to express your concerns and offer your views as a concerned fan who "refuse to accept" things as they are or not?

Don't know the answer. Surprised UND and NDSU haven't worked together to get a few teams up here and hope they can in the future. I agree that money games are better for exposure and experience, but at some point, you still need a handful of home games even if they are less desirable. Need some sort of games to entice season ticket holders and the hometown crowd, the players need to have game experience in their own gym and you can't be on the road constantly, they are still student-athletes at some point. Don't like the quality of what's coming in to the BESC but again, understand it to a point. I'll go ahead and call BS on that but I'm not sure what that has to do with you personally reaching out to the AD. I specifically asked if you have taken your own advice and e-mailed the AD with your concerns? So, have you or is the "refuse to accept" thing just something you say? Where have I ever said everything is "fine the way it is"? Hint: I haven't but I know that gets into the way of your martyr complex. What I have done is taken time and effort to talk to the people who can make a difference, give my opinion on things I think that can improve and offer any advice that might be helpful that I can think of. Really not that hard to do it in a respectful manner and get good feedback. HPC II is the top priority between the Athletic Department/Champions Club with help from the Alumni Association. Not a single person will dispute its importance. They are spending a ton of time and effort on trying to get it done.

No it isn't, it's about the reality of getting teams to get to Grand Forks. Again, they had to make some short term sacrifices this year that will end up improving the schedule in future years. Both the AD and Coach are on record what their expectations of future scheduling are and they are doing their best to get it done. Just curious if you've bothered contacting the AD to share your thoughts and feelings and actually have some dialogue on hot button issues that continue to bug you. Or are you just satisfied continuously proclaiming to no one in particular that you "refuse to accept it" yet refuse to actually take action yourself outside of anonymous posts. I have and have very much appreciated the openness of Chaves (and even Faison before that on certain items). I continue to come away impressed with the information that has been shared it definitely gives a little bit better understanding and perspective all while being very open to hearing outside ideas on where fans think they can do better.

Re-injured right before coming back. Will depend on how fast he heals. If its sooner than later, he'll play. If its going to be a few more weeks, they'll have some decisions to make.

My take was they took some hits on this year's schedule, however it will be made up for over the next couple years. So, don't expect much this year but the future is brighter.

From the students I talked with, the cops were talking to kids jumping on the beds of tailgates (safety issue), those that appeared to have blatantly "over-served" themselves and anyone managing to cross basic common sense lines. Boiled down to don't act like an idiot and you were fine.

This isn't even close to accurate. Dakota Commercial owns very few properties themselves, and definitely don't own the buildings Bed, Bath and Beyond are in nor the old Golden Corral building. They are by far the largest commercial leasing agent/property manager in town, which is why their sign is in front of a lot of those vacant buildings. They get paid if those buildings have tenants, so this notion that they don't want to rent is a bit ridiculous. Depending on the building, they either have guidelines set by the owner on what kind of terms they are able to negotiate, or like in the case of BB&B, they aren't even involved in the negotiations, they just manage the property for the owners.

And that's your opinion, which is made from a distance. I suggest talking to those who it impacts every day and get their thoughts and feelings on it. The fact that you refuse to believe that there is actually a problem because someone can't put an exact, quantifiable number on it is a bit of an odd take.

I mean, you're basically asking for something that is impossible to calculate and then more or less stating there is no tangible effect because someone can't give you a hard number. The fact that people directly involved (athletic department, student-athletes, etc) state that it is an issue should be proof enough. They are the ones that deal with it.

If you're asking for something concrete, that doesn't exist. Countless hours and who knows how much money has been wasted on what continues to be an on-going issue that some of the "biggest supporters" of the University can't accept. Impossible to quantify the net effect, but the last decade plus, while UND has been twiddling their thumbs trying to figure out who to be and what that should look like, other schools in the area have continued to push and enhance their brand. If you can't see that, than you haven't been paying attention. Then you have that group of people who swears they will never donate any money to UND because of the nickname change. Is that a real faction and does it carry any weight? Yes, but no clue on the impact. But with the amount of threats that were made and continue to show up on social media, maybe there is money and/or tickets being missed out on. While it isn't measurable, it is pretty hard to dispute that there has been an absurd amount of time and resources wasted on something that still causes issues, things that could have been applied on improving UND (fair argument on what good it would have done, but I digress). Time is finite, every hour spent on the nickname issues is an hour not spent on something else.

Talk to anyone who's worked in the athletic department in the last decade and ask what type of general effect the logo has had. Hell, start right at the top and ask the athletic director, who has only been here 2 years, if he thinks the logo and nickname continue to remain an issue. I'm sure he really looks forward to conversations where his goal is to talk about new facilities and how to improve the student athlete experience and instead he ends up talking about a retired nickname or logo and how they should just bring it back or that the new name is garbage or that UND is pushing too hard to market their new identity. Or talk to a student athlete and ask them how they feel about playing in front of their home crowd, yet hear boos when the nickname on their jersey is mentioned or especially the reactions that show up on social media any time a hawk logo is shown or the nickname is mentioned. The majority of these student-athletes don't have a tie to UND prior to coming here. They don't understand the absurd identity crisis that a subsection of fans go through yet they keep hearing things like "Sioux Forever" and have people telling them the logo they are wearing will never be accepted. I'm sure that goes over well.

Again, it's a little more complicated than just pulling it into a parking spot. What is the clearance on the entrance and then the roof on the first floor? Based on the picture below, would the stacks be able to make it into the ramp and if they can, how close to the roof/second level floor are they? What kind of mess does that make? Again, these were all things that were looked into last year. No one wanted to cancel the event.

My guess is they weren't going to burn one of Schuster's 4 games when it was already decided. Save them in case you really need them, like what UND could have been able to with Studsrud his true freshman year when he had to play the last 4 games out of necessity.

Thanks for the info. I assume those are released with the rest of the unused tickets Thursday of game week. If people are going to complain about the REA releasing tickets that haven't been claimed that close to game time, then they are complaining just to complain.

Running an industrial fryer of that size is a little more complicated than just "putting it in the parking garage", particularly in an indoor or covered setting and when you're talking about finding room for thousands of people. They looked at moving it last year and determined there wasn't an option that would work on short notice. Last year was the first time in the history of the event and no one was happy about it. They made sure to have a much stronger contingency plan in place so they wouldn't have to cancel for a second year in a row.