Should Jamestown be accepted into the NSIC?

[Stanger86]

We all get it, SMSU rises up with their addition, so you guys can feel better about your program. You want to take your veiled shots, I’ll be direct… SMSU needs Jamestown so they can win. This is a fun game to make wild assumptions. Since you’ve not made any other case for them, I’ll assume you want to add Jamestown so SMSU can be one more rung up the standings. Or maybe we can all wait for the other schools to leave so Jamestown can be competitive, as alluded to in the hockey post/shot?

I feel just fine with the state of SMSU athletics. I don't view other NSIC programs as superior or inferior as some choose to do. I hope for the best for all NSIC programs, not just football. When Winona State went on their national title runs, I was rooting for them once SMSU was out of the picture. I hope for the best for volleyball programs that make it to the national stage. I was happy for Augustana when they won their national title in baseball.

[vikingfaithful]

With a lot of scholarships which they won't have at the NCAA level. You know that.

Crying won't do you no good. Jimmies are in. Nobody else been beatin' on the door to join.

[wscsuperfan]

https://www.inforum.com/sports/mcfee...n-before-dec-1

After visit, NSIC on track to make University of Jamestown decision before Dec. 1
by Mike McFeely, InForum

MOORHEAD - Give the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and the University of Jamestown this: If the league extending an invitation to the school is a "done deal," as seems to be the popular belief in the world of regional small-college athletics, both parties are doing a bang-up job of playing innocent.

They are like Sargent Schultz. They know nothing.

Representatives of the NSIC spent two days at the Jamestown campus this week doing a site visit, what league commissioner Erin Lind calls the discovery phase of the Jimmies' application to join the conference.

Jamestown, currently a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, wants to join the NSIC and move up to NCAA Division II. It applied for membership in May. The NSIC is a perfect geographic fit for the Jimmies and it would give them a more stable, more comfortable home than their current membership in the Great Plains Athletic Conference.

The GPAC, by the way, booted Jamestown earlier this month in a vindictive, bush-league move. For a league made up of religiously affiliated schools, it wasn't very Christian of them.

Anyway, if some believe the NSIC and Jamestown are just going through the paces before the North Dakota school becomes the league's 16th member, neither Lind nor Jimmies athletic director Austin Hieb cracked under extreme questioning Friday.

"We felt like things went really well," is all Hieb would say.

Yawn.

"We are studying factual information, not using conjecture, and we will use that factual information to make a thoughtful, strategic decision," Lind said.

Double yawn.

And congratulations on obviously getting an A+ in Commissioner Speak 101 at Southwest Minnesota State back in the day.

If you talk to enough people in Minnesota and North Dakota about this situation, the gamut of beliefs run from believing strongly Jamestown will get an invitation to believing the NSIC has already made up its mind and has worked with the school to get it ready for admittance.

There's nobody yet who's indicated the NSIC is going to stiff-arm Jamestown. And honestly, why would the conference do that? It sits at 15 teams right now, would benefit from getting to 16 and Jamestown sits perfectly in the league's geographic footprint.

It's kind of a no-brainer.

Lind wouldn't tip the league's hand either way, but said the NSIC contingent did its due diligence while in Jamestown. There were visits with the school president's cabinet, coaches and student-athletes. There were tours of facilities, the campus and the Jamestown community.

"Because of my role, I've been able to study their application in detail for months. I've been able to do that since they applied in May and I've been able to get super-granular," Lind said. "Because presidents and athletic directors of our members have many other things to do, they maybe haven't been able to study things as closely as I have. So this was a good opportunity for others in the league to get to know UJ and get to learn more about them."

Lind said everything is on track for the NSIC presidents and chancellors to "take action," that's the words she used multiple times, on Jamestown's application sent to league members and further discussion in the coming weeks. Then there will likely be a vote around Thanksgiving on whether to invite the Jimmies to the conference.

Jamestown needs a 2/3 vote, 10 of 15 institutions, to get into the league. It would begin play in the fall of 2025.

The closest Lind came to offering a look inside the thinking of the league came when she said this: "In my position, I have the opportunity to talk with leaders of all the other Division II conferences in the country. And in our talks, I hear often about their struggles," Lind said. "And when I hear about the struggles of smaller conferences, it's about scheduling and resources and all the issues that might arise because you're a smaller conference."

"I don't think that's a place our league wants to go."

Done deal? Maybe not. But if you had to bet a sack of money on whether Jamestown was going to get into the NSIC, the affirmative might be the stronger play.

[wscsuperfan]

https://www.jamestownsun.com/sports/...epresentatives

UJ athletic department hosts NSIC representatives
by Max O'Neill, Jamestown Sun

JAMESTOWN — Representatives from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference visited the University of Jamestown Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 25-26.

The tour visit included 13 representatives from some of the conference’s 15 member schools and conference staff visiting the campus and the community and touring the facilities. The visit was to see what the school can offer to the conference.

“We feel it went well,” said Polly Peterson, UJ president. “We really enjoyed getting to know them. I think they were impressed with our facilities. I think it went well, as good as we could’ve made it. … If you want to say relationships can evolve over a day and a half, they were great people. They were great people, we really enjoyed getting to know them. They were a fun group. There’s a waiting period now, that makes it hard to sit back and wait but we feel good about the visit.”

Peterson said the conference will write a report about the visit at some point over the week of Oct. 30.

She said the university will be informed of whether or not it is accepted into the NSIC by Thanksgiving. According to the conference’s bylaws, UJ will need two-thirds of the conference’s schools to vote the university into the NSIC.

Jimmies Athletic Director Austin Hieb admitted he was nervous but felt the people who came to look at the school had a good experience.

“I think you’re always worried about it because you don’t know the answer,” Hieb said. “I feel like everybody enjoyed themselves. It was a really good group of people. I think we showed well. I think they enjoyed their time here but ... at the end of the day it’s a waiting game so you never feel too good about it.”

During the first night of the visit, Hieb, Peterson and various community members had dinner with NSIC representatives in Jamestown. Peterson said that gave the representatives a good impression of Jamestown as a community.

If the university is accepted into the NSIC, it will begin competing at the NCAA Division II level in the 2025-26 academic year. Peterson said the university is waiting on the NCAA to decide whether or not it has to sit out the postseason for a period of time or if UJ can immediately be eligible for postseason play.

Despite the Nelson Family Bubble being recently inflated, Peterson said it was not complete with the visit in mind.

Despite only submitting an application to join the conference in late August, Peterson said the thought process of moving up to NCAA Division II has been in the works for many years. Peterson said the school purposefully put in the work to renovate Charlotte and Gordon Hansen Stadium in 2021 and built Harold Newman Arena in 2017 with an eye toward potentially moving up.

“If you want to go way back we’ve been preparing for a time when we would be ready and when Upper Iowa left we said this is the time, we’ve done what we needed to do," Peterson said. "We’ve invested in our programs and our facility and our coaching staff and our transportation."

Peterson said this is the third time the university has been invited to move up to the NCAA Division II level with previous instances in 2003 when the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University moved from the NCAA Division II to NCAA Division I level and when Minot State University moved up from the NAIA to the NSIC in 2011.

[Purple Mav Man]

They just won a national championship in volleyball...oh yeah, the only kids at MSU you care about are in the football program.

Reading apparently isn’t your strong suit. It’s been mentioned about a million times this is about more than football. But, again, you are hung up on that.

[Purple Mav Man]

I feel just fine with the state of SMSU athletics. I don't view other NSIC programs as superior or inferior as some choose to do. I hope for the best for all NSIC programs, not just football. When Winona State went on their national title runs, I was rooting for them once SMSU was out of the picture. I hope for the best for volleyball programs that make it to the national stage. I was happy for Augustana when they won their national title in baseball.

Neat story. But you’re lying. You’ve taken shot after shot at MSU in this thread alone.

[Purple Mav Man]

Crying won't do you no good. Jimmies are in. Nobody else been beatin' on the door to join.

Unfortunately that’s all it takes.

[Purple Mav Man]

I guess it's a lot farther back than I realized, but an example: That doesn’t read like an overall program ready to come in and compete, even with their commitments. And when I say compete, I don’t mean compete for titles by any means, people like to overreact to that statement. I mean not be a Crookston and actually field a competitive team.

That was me that said that. And you are in a way, proving my point for me.

Their (Jamestown’s) overall program, does not appear to be one that will come into the NSIC and be competitive. I was clarifying that competitive didn’t mean competing for championships. I was saying they don’t even appear to be anything better than Crookston. Context.

[laker]

Crying won't do you no good. Jimmies are in. Nobody else been beatin' on the door to join.

"Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good"

[Purple Mav Man]

"Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good"

Perfect :)

Exactly why the thread was titled ‘should’ rather than ‘will’. We all know they will be.

[WPHB]

Can I say that regardless of whether or not Jamestown is admitted, the writing in the stories that have been published is amusing. I am not a journalist and not even a good writer, but I find the commentary, stylistic grammar choices, and outright lack of objectivity hilarious. Every time I see a "Yawn," "sticking in the dagger," or "Weak," or "not very Christian" comment I chuckle with the thought that someone actually edited those stories and let that through.

[vikingfaithful]

Perfect :)

Exactly why the thread was titled ‘should’ rather than ‘will’. We all know they will be.

I never thought anyone on this forum would catch that line from a very bluesy song by Led Zepplin, As a teen in the 70's, love their music. Laker was the only person I thought would understand that .

[laker]

I never thought anyone on this forum would catch that line from a very bluesy song by Led Zepplin, As a teen in the 70's, love their music. Laker was the only person I thought would understand that .

Drove my Ford to the ford but the ford was dry. And the good old boys were drinking chocolate milk, singing this will be the day to watch Jai-alai.

[vikingfaithful]

Drove my Ford to the ford but the ford was dry. And the good old boys were drinking chocolate milk, singing this will be the day to watch Jai-alai.

American pie a classic, laker's rendition. Drinking chocolate milk and a jai-alai match indeed. They used to show that on TV from Florida back in the day.

[NSU4LIFE]

Can I say that regardless of whether or not Jamestown is admitted, the writing in the stories that have been published is amusing. I am not a journalist and not even a good writer, but I find the commentary, stylistic grammar choices, and outright lack of objectivity hilarious. Every time I see a "Yawn," "sticking in the dagger," or "Weak," or "not very Christian" comment I chuckle with the thought that someone actually edited those stories and let that through.

I'd assume it was McFeely and if so, he is who he is, I guess.