Dakota State Universities to the Mid-Con???

[89rabbit]

Highlights from a Fargo Forum story on this topic:

http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index. ... ion=Sports (Sub site but it is free)

Mid-Con looks more reasonable

Jeff Kolpack, The Forum

Published Friday, December 02, 2005

Two reasons that the Mid-Continent Conference is more user-friendly: The commissioner actually returned a phone call from a sports scribe and the commissioner actually answered every question with sincerity.

Or as much as Tom Douple could anyway.

Douple, who took over for Ron Bertovich last summer, was not considered a pro-expansion guy. But then again, we?ll never know, because he refused to answer questions that came within two miles of the subject.

At least Douple got within a couple of hundred yards.

?We recently added two teams to our men?s and women?s swimming,? he said. ?That was a good move for our league. I think it will prove beneficial for that sport. We?re excited about that.?

Good move. Beneficial. Excited. Granted, it added South Dakota State and Eastern Illinois as affiliate members, meaning the schools are in the Mid-Con for swimming only. But at least the league seems to be in a better mood for expansion.

That?s a good omen for North Dakota State. So is having Douple, the former athletic director at Southern Utah, as the league?s boss. Douple and NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor worked closely on the formation of the Great West Football Conference. . . .

Taylor said he has not approached Douple about expansion. ?He?s new and we?re going to let him settle in,? Taylor said.

Douple is still the chairman of the Great West. The Mid-Con and the Great West have a working agreement that provides scheduling and Web page support.

One by one, the conference direction for NDSU is going away from the Big Sky and toward the Mid-Con. Getting the Big Sky to agree to a 12-team, two-division setup ? which is the only way NDSU will be admitted ? seems too complicated.

Getting the Mid-Con to move north to NDSU and SDSU is more realistic.

?Just like every other commissioner, league membership is a constant issue,? Douple said.

Asked if geography could be a detriment, he said ?Our league is one of the more spread-out leagues, although we?re not totally uncommon. Recent expansion of other conferences, if you look at it ? they?re getting bigger.?

The league has nine members: Centenary (Shreveport, La.), Chicago State, IUPUI (Indianapolis), Missouri-Kansas City, Oakland (Mich), Oral Roberts (Tulsa, Okla.), Southern Utah, Valparaiso (Ind.) and Western Illinois.

A commissioner doesn?t have the power to add a team. The school presidents do. But he can set an attitude that can be contagious and in this case, NDSU should hope the Mid-Con gets expansion fever.

It?s a better basketball league than the Big Sky and it fits NDSU?s recruiting territory better.