UNDvince97-01

They will be fine raising the funds for the next 2 years. I'm more concerned about their long term plan...

It was a rhetorical question. Agree again with you about UND being in town...

And again, I'm not arguing with you...

Huh? If you are trying to argue with yourself, have at it. You are proving my point as to why they don't want to have them competing against each other. Why would they?

I would ask the athletic director. He has some really good insight in that link.

All B1G Hockey bashing aside, you really can't understand from a business perspective why they wouldn't want to maximize their potential? Their "sucky" B1G football squad averages 50k in paid attendance. EDIT: Furthermore, I would say they are giving UND and their own hockey squad a ton of credit by saying they don't want the hockey game to affect their football attendance and vice versa.

Huh?...

You are correct, there was a presumed lack of interest back then by Douple. However, the state coffers were full and ND was rich back then too and we weren't looking at budget cuts. UND announced their WAC membership in February of 2013. Which means the last discussion regarding Summit League Baseball affiliate membership took place over 3 years ago at minimum. So much has changed since that time. The Summit League is down to 6 teams for Baseball and now in danger of losing their AQ bid if someone else leaves. The state of Illinois is in shambles and WIU is in trouble financially. UND also has since been asked to cut their athletics dept budget. It's an apples to oranges comparisons between now and then. Things change in a hurry. Ask ndsu and sdsu about the Big Sky. Douple (and Viverito for that matter) and Faison should be banging down each other's doors to secure their futures. You are correct about the strained relationship that was like an open book in the media. You are also correct about the cover-ups and lies. However, the Summit affiliate membership wasn't revisited and looked at this time around when cuts were imminent over the last 6 months or so. How do you not look at that again? It's incumbent upon Faison as the leader of the Athletics Dept to look into it at minimum. Swallow your pride, pick up the phone and make the call. See if it's an option. Douple makes my skin crawl too, but at least look into it. Be proactive. Exhaust all options.

Don't even discuss or reply to Siouan's gibberish. It's what he wants.

I wonder if Summit League affiliate membership was ever even explored to save money on the baseball budget? Could probably save 10's of thousands on travel costs each year. Win/Win for both sides too. I'm highly confident it wasn't though. Again, that whole vision and leadership thing.

So let's recap... Sept 15, 2015: (Email) "We'd like to proactively secure the financial future of UND Baseball. We will do the heavy lifting and raise the money ourselves. Your thoughts, Mr Faison?" (Crickets...no reply.) April 12, 2016: UND announces they are cutting Baseball at a press conference. Faison says there's no looking back. It's over and done with. April 15, 2016: "I just read the first paragraph of the email and skimmed over the rest of it. It wouldn't have mattered anyway." April 21, 2016: "You guys can raise your own money to try save your program (like you wanted to do in September when it "didnt matter anyway"), but we are not subsidizing baseball anymore. You need to have 1 million raised for the next 2 seasons by 2017 and have a plan for the years thereafter." "Leadership"

It's my understanding that some of the credits he is taking this semester will also transfer over to UND as well.

UND endowments have been returning closer to 8% recently I believe. But your point stands on a 'normal, average' return.

Sorry, but you put it on a tee and I absolutely cannot help myself....my apologies in advance...

Like I said, there's a debate to be had on that side too. No anger here.

Head coaching change? Mussman was hired in December of 2007 and coached through the 2013 season. Haeg was recruited during the 2011 recruiting class cycle.

You will have to forgive me for being sentimental on this, but they should leave the alumni house and the original exterior of Gamble alone. Inside is a different story. There's a ton of character value to the big white pillars and Gamble's facade. I would hate to lose that. Of course, there's an argument to be had the other way.

As a fellow Gamble Hall grad, I could not agree more. Showcase it as a centerpiece of campus (Which I know is difficult because of its current location and surroundings). Would there be enough room to the east across the street to add on a 3-level addition of some sort and connect it with an overhead hamster tube? I can't recall off the top of my head.

Ummmmm......yeah????..... Kolpack and McFeely are 2 of their most important university employees. Who needs a PR department when you have two local mouthpieces in your very own propaganda department?

Slight clarification. He didnt say he hired Mussman. He said he extended him. Carry on.

Hey cmon....word has it he was attractive and he said his name was Fred Garvin. How can you say no to that?

You understand why the discussion is being had right now, correct? This isn't being discussed on here, on social media and in the local media outlets because he blew everyone away with exemplary communication skills that were relative to the sports being cut. Talk about salt in the wound for the players and staff. UND Baseball was proactively trying to secure its future with private fundraising, which they were going to do on their own. And our great leader didn't even respond. He then doubled-down with his deplorable, embarrassing, unprofessional quote in the paper that put EVERYTHING into perspective on how this guy operates. This is not a one -time occurrence. More like his M.O. - hence my problem with him as a leader. Regarding your experience with him: give yourself some credit, you apparently get attention that many others do not. I agree with you 100% on the mens basketball "leadership". Another huge fault is his hyper-delegation of responsibilities and decision-making to people who are, let's say, not great at their jobs. And ultimately all those decisions fall at his feet as the AD. If there were anonymous reviews and ratings of Faison and his leadership team by the coaching staffs on campus, the only person I believe would get lower ratings than Faison is his chief delegate, Daniella "the bully" Irle, who likes to make threats to her coaches about Title IX compliance and policy. I'm not sure what Tom Buning has to do with any of this. He was unsuccessful as our AD, hence his termination. I'm not sure how him doing pushups makes him a great communicator. I'm also not sure how Buning's pushups and communication skills have anything to do with Brian Faison's ineptitude and laziness as our AD, which was just illustrated plain as day in the media. Funny that you mention Buning though, because I was told he was working the UND crowd in Tampa as though he was still working for UND. Faison wasnt able to start up the NCHC or hold his current national chair position for hockey because he is the national hockey savant from New Mexico. He 'got us' into the Big Sky because they wanted us in the BSC. He did hire Bubba for football, but that whole debacle on how it went down and how long it took to get there is well-documented. We got the HPC done on our own. I promise nobody donated to that project because of his personality or fundraising skills. Certain things he's gotten done have been circumstantial....because he happened to be the AD at UND, at that time. Clearly we disagree on him as a leader, which is fine. I will leave it at that.

Ask Daniella Irle and Sue Jeno... I'm sure they will have ALL your answers.

Will you please stop making so much sense of a simple job task by a person in a leadership position?... It's MUCH more complicated than that. Cue Peter Gibbons: "It's not that I'm lazy......It's that I just don't care"

Regardless of where anyone stands on the cuts and on Baseball being cut specifically, if nothing else all of this confirms what many have been thinking and saying for a few years now. We have a leadership problem in athletics. It starts with the AD and ends with the SWA. And she should also be out in the media answering these questions since she is more than culpable. I'm actually embarrassed for UND after reading the Herald article and Faison's quotes. That's OUR guy at OUR school. What a joke.