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School comes out of Big Sky rejection in very good shape
Mike McFeely, The Forum
Published Thursday, March 08, 2007
The most amazing thing happened Wednesday at the press conference announcing North Dakota State’s union with the Gateway Football Conference. Joe Chapman, Gene Taylor and Craig Bohl stood in unison, turned toward Ogden, Utah, and raised their middle fingers.
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But it would’ve made a great photo opportunity.
It also would’ve been perfectly appropriate, if the NDSU president, athletic director and football coach felt like doling out a little what-do-you-think-of-us-now smack talk.
Ogden is the home of the Big Sky Conference, the geographically arrogant arrangement of schools that two years ago turned up its nose at NDSU and South Dakota State so it could add the major media market of Denver to its lineup.
North Dakota State football coach Craig Bohl, NDSU President Joe Chapman and athletic director Gene Taylor share a laugh at the announcement of the Bison joining the Gateway Football Conference on Wednesday. Photo by David Samson / The Forum
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One problem. The University of Northern Colorado is located in Greeley, which doesn’t look or smell anything like Denver and doesn’t get covered by the big TV stations or newspapers unless, say, a backup punter for the Bears stabs the starter in the leg.
You couldn’t blame the Bison honchos if they had their noses turned up this time, sniffing the air for a pleasing scent, since NDSU is coming out of its four-year conference odyssey smelling like a rose.
Big Sky? They don’t need no stinking Big Sky.
NDSU did better.
The Gateway is stronger than the Big Sky in football. And the basketball league in which the Bison will compete, Mid-Continent Conference, is better than the Big Sky. More transient, yes, but stronger.
“I’d say it worked out pretty good for us,” Taylor said.
Who could’ve seen this coming a couple of years ago – Dec. 13, 2004, to be exact – when Taylor stood before the media assemblage looking like he’d been beaten with a pillow case filled with quarters? The Big Sky shooed away NDSU like a pesky groupie, embracing instead the pitiful athletic program that Northern Colorado has become.
All of NDSU’s eggs were in one basket. The Big Sky dropped the eggs on the sidewalk and sold the basket on eBay for $1.29.
Chapman, the man who sold the populace on visions of the Big Sky, yukked about it Wednesday. The good thing about having vision, he said, is that visions can change. For that change in dreams, Chapman can thank Western Kentucky, the school that fled the Gateway to create an opening.
“Good things happen to those who wait,” said Bison football coach Craig Bohl, until recently a strong advocate of joining the Big Sky.
Bohl’s attraction to the Big Sky was the thought of having Montana and Montana State coming to Fargo on a regular basis. The loss of those potential rivals is the one drawback of not getting in the Big Sky. Bison football fans will have to settle for Youngstown State and Northern Iowa instead.
Settle? Hardly. Youngstown’s won four I-AA titles, Northern Iowa’s been to the semifinals six times.
The geographic footprint of the Gateway might be less glamorous than the Big Sky, the Corn Belt compared to the Rocky Mountains, but the football’s better.
NDSU came out of this just fine, with help from the Big Sky. For that, the Bison probably feel like giving their old friends out west a salute.
A heartfelt, one-fingered salute.
10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
1. The Gateway is a football-only league. Most of the other schools belong to the Missouri Valley Conference for all other sports.
2. Gateway members include Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois and Youngstown State (Ohio).
3. The league office is in St. Louis.
4. The commissioner of the Gateway, Patty Viverito, is a senior associate commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference. Viverito has been Gateway commissioner since 1982.
5. Former NDSU head coach Darrell Mudra coached in the Gateway – for Northern Iowa.
6. Northern Iowa was a member of the North Central Conference until leaving for Division I.
7. Former Fargo South quarterback Chris Berg completed the fifth-longest pass play in Gateway history – a 96-yarder in 1995 for Northern Iowa.
8. The oldest running Gateway rivalry is Illinois State vs. Western Illinois. The teams have played 87 times.
9. The original Gateway Conference was founded as a women’s athletics organization in 1982. The football division was born in 1985 and assumed its own name in 1992.
10. NDSU is 0-1 vs. Gateway schools, losing to Southern Illinois 9-0 in 2005
