fightingsioux4life

I was waiting for this red herring to be brought up. FYI, I am a Champions Club member (Coaches Club) and a season ticket holder to men's hockey and football. So please don't go there with the "you aren't practicing what you preach" garbage. FCOA will require a whole new fundraising effort from people that are not giving at all right now. I am willing to fork over more to help make it happen, but this is a whole new category of expenditure and needs to be treated that way.

Oh, I agree with you, trimming some sports will have to be part of the equation. I am more than willing to do that. I just don't want us to keep all sports and then make across-the-board budget cuts to all the non-hockey sports (you know hockey won't feel the blade at all). I would rather have fewer, but successful programs than more, but mediocre to average programs.

UND made a half-arsed effort at addressing the issue, while NDSU is tackling the issue head-on and making no bones about the fact that they want to be the best they can be at whatever sports they sponsor. As for UND "re-adjusting their strategy", I guess I am not going to assume that until I see concrete steps towards achieving that objective.

When Faison is quoted in the Heraldo that UND is planning on funding all 18 men's hockey scholarships and an equal number of women's scholarships and then hints at possible "cuts" in the future, that doesn't sound good to me. What I meant was that I don't care if most of the other FCS schools decide not to do this, I still want UND to do it so that we become a leader and trend setter in mid-major collegiate athletics instead of being in wanna-be, catch-up mode all the time. And like it or not, what happens with NDSU has an impact on UND and vice-versa. We either accept that and rise to the challenge or we sink into permanent mediocrity. I know which path I want to take.

BINGO! That is exactly my point.

Maybe it is time to consider trimming some sports to make the other programs stronger? I am all for that, despite how many baseball alums will complain about their sport being cut.

I think funding something like this will require a permanent fund-raising campaign similar to what the Champions Club does for scholarships now. FCOA will soon become a fact of life in collegiate athletics across the board. The schools that adapt and adjust will be successful in the new order. The schools that "wait and see" and play "follow the leader" will sink into permanent mediocrity. That is the cold, hard truth.

More alibis and excuses. Do you REALLY think we can't raise the money for this? Cripes, the Alumni Association raised over $300 million to establish an endowment. If they can do that, then they sure as heck can do this. But it all starts at the top and that has to start with the President and then the Athletic Director. NDSU has that leadership and we do not. Period. End of story. All the positive things you pointed out will be cancelled out if we don't rise to the occasion on FCOA. For once, JUST ONCE, I would like this institution to be ahead of the curve instead of always playing catch-up and second-fiddle to the freaking Bison. But I suppose the Vikings have a better chance if winning the Super Bowl this year. And I don't care what other schools do on this. I care about what UND does on this. And I would like to be a trend-setter in collegiate athletics for once. But I suppose that won't happen until we get a new President in office. And I really hope that person understands what athletics can do for a university, because I don't think Kelley gets it.

The following quote from the article in today's Grand Forks Herald clearly illustrates why NDSU is winning titles and getting all kinds of national exposure, while UND wallows in the quicksand of mediocrity and openly talks about budget cuts. http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/local-sports/3826138-ndsu-pay-cost-attendance-all-scholarship-athletes This is the attitude and mentality of a school and athletic department that understands what it takes to be successful on a championship level and has the leadership and guts to make it happen. The decision has been made and the alumni are already stepping up to meet the challenge: I believe the bolded statement above to be true of UND's alumni base as well. But we are missing one important ingredient: LEADERSHIP. The first comments from Faison about FCOA focused on protecting Men's Hockey and possible budget cuts in the future. It would be nice if Faison would make the kind of bold statement that Larsen has made at NDSU, but with a lame-duck and toothless President who is counting the days until he can retire, don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen. Here are the e-mail addresses to Kelley and Faison: robert.kelley@und.edu;BRIAN.FAISON@und.edu It is time to get off our collective arses and do what it takes to turn UND into the premier mid-major athletic program in the entire NCAA. That means going all-out on FCOA. Our alumni can and will step up to make it happen. Otherwise, we might as well go non-scholarship in all non-hockey sports or move back down to Division II in all non-hockey sports.

Hey, as a frequent contributor of "rants" to this forum, yours was pretty good! And I agree with it 100%.

DING, DING, DING....we have a winner.

No UND/North Dakota No Nodaks No Sundogs No Fighting Hawks That leaves North Stars (or Stars) and Roughriders. Roughriders seems like the best option considering what we have to work with. I encourage everyone to support Roughriders so we can move on and focus on winning some championship gold around here (in case you haven't noticed, we don't do that much anymore).

Another person who gets it: http://www.grandforksherald.com/letters/3823794-letter-no-nickname-option-shouldnt-be-allowed That is how I see this issue as well. And I can relate to the closing comment: In other words, don't sing it. Bring it.

I wonder if Al Carlson is behind this?

How about this: 1) Have a vote with all 5 remaining options. If one of the options gets a majority (50+1), then the voting is over. 2) However, if no option gets a majority, then there will be a run-off between the first and second place finishers. That should produce an overall winner.

And this is the biggest problem UND athletics has right now because it's the hardest to fix.

I do think it will be Roughriders in the end. Kelley will want to pacify his critics and not cause another uproar by picking Sun Dogs. As we have seen, he doesn't handle public pressure very well.

Well, UNC seems to have an AD wide problem here. Maybe there should be a Campus Death Penalty for situations like this. Who knows what else is happening?

Would the NCAA's "Death Penalty" be appropriate here? Of course, if they wouldn't use it on Penn State FB, why would they use it here? Either use it where it is appropriate or get rid of it.

Okay, then how about the time and energy that Kelley and Faison have to devote to this? That takes a toll on those two, don't kid yourself.

The bolded section above is what is wrong with UND today. All that matters is hockey and if everything else goes to Hades in a hand basket, then so be it. As for the other programs not making money, that is the case with 95+ percent of collegiate athletic programs. Most schools have only one revenue sport. For us, it's hockey. For NDSU, it's football. For Duke, it's basketball. But it's also possible to be good in more than one sport (see Florida in football and men's basketball). A myopic focus on one sport is not healthy for an athletic program. Also, it's not my job or your job to find more resources. It's Kelley and Faison's job, with help from the UND Alumni Association. They are making good money to run this campus and athletic department, respectively. And FCOA is coming, we just don't know when. I would like to have some sort of game plan in place that doesn't involve slash and burn athletic department budgets. In short, I am sick of hearing how poor and destitute we are as an athletic department. I will say this again: If we don't have the resources to put competitive and championship contending teams on the field/court, then we shouldn't have moved up in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if we moved up just because FU did. That is never a reason to make a move such as this. But now that we have made the move, there is no going back. Finally, no one has said the nickname issue is the cause of all our problems. What I meant was the resources that go to the nickname fight could be better used to build our non-hockey Division I programs. Of course, some people don't really care about that, which explains some of the divisions on this forum and elsewhere.

Well Ira, I agree with all of this 1000% But you realize you will now get raked over the hot coals for pointing out inconvenient truths. Which truths, some will ask? These truths: That NDSU has overshadowed us to the point where a lot of people outside the Grand Forks City Limits don't even know we exist anymore.That our coaches salaries (outside of hockey, of course) are bargain basement laughingstocks.That too many of our fans and stakeholders think everything is just hunky-dory because we have REA and Men's Hockey and that nothing else really matters.That underachieving and even downright lousy coaches get way too much rope to hang their respective programs with. I am talking about Mussman and Jones in case anyone was wondering.That our AD has already stated in public, in the Grand Forks Heraldo, that there may be some cuts to the budget in order to fund FCOA for Men's Hockey and an equal number of women's scholarships. This is beyond unacceptable and if we go this route, we might as well drop down to NAIA.All of these things will not get fixed and will in fact get worse if the nickname debacle continues to drag on and on. Too many precious financial and human resources are being devoted to this issue and not enough to the issues I have laid out above. We can fight this losing battle or we can strive for, and achieve, excellence in all our programs. We cannot do both.

Me either, a few years ago I called him Phil Load of Crap when he was getting beat over and over again. That said, I never like to see someone get injured like that. Get well soon Phil.

Yes, Teddy looks confident and sure of himself. Last year, he didn't have a reliable running game and the O-Line was okay sometimes and other times terrible. If those two things improve this year, look for Bridgewater to have a breakout sophomore campaign.

In all fairness, the "vikes" in bigskyvikes refers to the Minnesota Vikings. I might not agree with him on much, but I believe him when he says that.