fightingsioux4life

I think what Sandusky did would have been exposed much sooner in a place like Ann Arbor, Michigan or Columbus, Ohio. Just too much media coverage and reporters snooping around 24/7 looking for a story. Happy Valley, OTOH, is a smaller and more tight-knit place. It's a heck of a lot easier to cover up a major scandal in a place like that. Paterno was basically Dictator-For-Life there and was running the place for years. As we've seen with what happened to Gino and Wooger, that isn't the case in Grand Forks or Minneapolis. This was a one-of-a-kind situation that just doesn't happen much in big-time sports anymore. Coaches are much more expendable than they used to be.

Which was my point, but thanks for making it again.

Sorry Johnboy, but you brought it up and now you'll have to deal with the consequences. If anyone is to blame for "thread drift" in this case, it is you. This is a classic example of "Imperial Cass County Superiority Complex". I explained this in the Wal-Mart thread in the Community forum: Fargo really believes they are just like Minneapolis. The fact is, compared to "real" metro areas, they are merely the size of a suburb (like Bloomington, MN). My take on this is very simple: Fargo is a bigger version of Grand Forks, Sioux Falls is a bigger version of Fargo and Omaha is a bigger version of Sioux Falls. In other words, the only differences between the various cities I have listed are based on quantity, not quality. Some have more of the same stuff than others, but they are all very Midwestern in their cultural attitudes and beliefs. Which is why so many young people leave for places like Minneapolis, Denver and Chicago. Back to the topic of the thread: We have several years to decide what name we should adopt, so I think we should all just chill out and focus on our first season of Big Sky membership.

I know one place you should not patronize....Ruby Tuesday's. Me and my wife went there the day before Thanksgiving last year. The servers didn't know what was on the menu, they had about a dozen cooks in the kitchen and it still took forever to get our food and the place wasn't even full.

Apples and Oranges. Paterno was at Penn State much, much longer than anyone you listed. Football at Penn State is worshipped way more than hockey is at North Dakota or Minnesota; Happy Valley is more insulated from the outside world than Grand Forks or Minneapolis is. And that's a big reason why Sandusky was able to get away with all that crap for as long as he did.

How many of those kids will have Penn State on their list without Paterno in charge of the program? He was the heart and soul of their program and now he's gone.

I agree with you, but it's easy to say that from a distance. Imagine if we were Idaho and NDSU was Boise State. Would you "embrace" being left behind by NDSU? The right thing to do is not always the easy thing. I think if they did drop down to FCS, they would win more games and that would make the move easier to swallow. Losing is just no fun.

I guess I want UND to subject NDSU to this type of marketing. Fire up all the UND alums that live in Fargo; that will serve the duel purpose of annoying the heck out of Bison fans and building our own programs up in the media (both traditional and social). When UND won the Division II Football title in 2001, there wasn't enough fist pumping from our fan base like there was when NDSU won the FCS title last year. Same with the 1997-98-99 women's basketball titles vs. NDSU's women's basketball titles. And I really don't want to hear the usual comebacks to those examples (hockey is all that matters in GF and football doesn't mean anything; Fargo is a bigger media market so they get everything and we get nothing), because if we keep thinking like that, our move up to Division I will not be successful beyond having a winning record every year, having a good won-loss record at home and upsetting a few big-time schools every couple of years. The contract with Midco Sports and the solidifying of the coaching staffs of all our teams are good steps in this direction. But we'll have to have the resolve and determination to see it through to the end.

You didn't read what I wrote all that carefully: I said they make it seem like they are on someone's radar and that can help win recruiting battles and make the whole campus feel like it's going places. Building a successful athletic department is more than bricks and mortar and dollars and cents. It's how you project yourself to current and potential stakeholders.

This attitude is precisely why NDSU has done a much better job of marketing their programs than we have over my lifetime. They always have made it seem like the whole world is watching NDSU and Fargo, ND. The whole world isn't watching them, of course, but this type of marketing and promotion helps draw top-notch recruits, private donors for scholarships and students. In today's hyper-media driven world, how people perceive you is just as important as what you actually are. A vibrant, outgoing media personality like Dan Hammer will help us in this area. So will the investments Midco is making into their sports division. Bottom line: If you come across as backwater, bush league and "local yokel", then that is what you will become.

Compared to the Great West, the BSC is big-time.

So UND hockey should have the "feel" of minor league baseball or Mississippi high school football? I don't think that is the type of "charm" that a world-class program like ours should use to promote itself.

The 2007 settlement does not allow us to remain nameless.

I guess I am just trying to be positive about it. Hammer did some hockey games back in the 1980's and has remained familiar with it since. Getting a big name from another market might not work out like you are thinking it would; that person wouldn't know Jack Squat about the program or what it has accomplished over the years. I say give "The Hammer" a chance before we break out the torches and pitchforks.

Dan Hammer is a big upgrade over Pat "Story Hour" Sweeney.

Yeah baby, it's Hammer Time again!

Hey, you beat me to it! This would be a major upgrade in quality of coverage! Man, things just keep getting better and better for UND sports!

I think I renamed them the Politburo and the Secretary-General during the early years of the fight against the NCAA. But I like your version as well.

I would never want the growth rates of the oil patch (it's impossible to find and afford housing, the roads are jammed with big, heavy trucks that destroy the roads) or of Fargo-Moorhead, Sioux Falls, Omaha, ect. What I get sick and tired of are the obviously flawed census estimates showing that Grand Forks is somehow losing people left and right, while all these new homes and apartments are being built. This gives the world the impression that nobody wants to live here anymore. That can impact what businesses choose to locate here, what type of transportation funding we can get, ect. My only point was (and still is) is that businesses and developers are not going to spend millions of dollars to build in an area that is declining in population and/or quality of life. They obviously have done their marketing research and that research tells them there is a market here that hasn't been served. Most people in Grand Forks (or anywhere else in North Dakota) don't want to live in the urban sprawl that Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo-Dilworth-Horace-Harwood-Casselton has become. The problem is the arrogant attitude of some Fargoans, which rubs the rest of the state the wrong way; this rubbing our noses in the population gains of the Cass-Clay County MSA. The headline in the Fargo Forum in 2010 after the Census numbers came in was "Boom goes the Metro". It might as well have said "Boom goes the Ego". Fargo tries so hard to be “just like Minneapolis” (I think I should just call it Minneapolis, Jr. from now on) when they should just count their blessings and do their best to manage their growth so that it doesn’t poison the quality of life that North Dakotans value so much. This also will make it harder to get downstream residents to support the F-M Diversion Project, which I support and which is needed.

Yeah, but they will NEVER leave their beloved MVFC. They talk like it's the SEC of FCS conferences.

If this happens, it would really tick off the Bison faithful. Their precious Summit League/MVFC arrangement would not look so great anymore.

It didn't, I generally take things with a grain of salt. It just would have helped if you had put a smiley face after it.

I call them as I see them.

Everyone that is left without a viable conference home should just go and join the squeaky-clean, academics first-second-and-third Pioneer League.

Somebody is moving into those apartment buildings and townhomes. Otherwise, they wouldn't be building them. Me and my wife just purchased a townhome on the south side and we were fortunate to snatch it up before someone else did. Houses are being sold almost as soon as they get listed. Bottom line: Grand Forks has recovered from the 1997 flood and is moving forward. Not as fast as The Center of the Known Universe (Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo-Dilworth and whichever other towns they want to add to it), but it is moving forward.