Frontier extends hand to DSU

By Dustin Monke, the Dickinson Press

If the Dakota Athletic Conference begins crumbling around Dickinson State in the next few years, the Blue Hawks may have a safe haven.

Frontier Conference Commissioner Kent Paulson said Wednesday his league has told DSU it would be willing to offer the Blue Hawk athletic programs a home if the DAC is forced to disband.

“We just wanted to be there to offer any kind of assistance that we may be of and let them know that sometimes creative minds get solutions to come out of things,” Paulson said.

DAC school’s Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines have applied to join the NCAA. An announcement on whether or not they will be accepted as Division II transition schools is expected soon — possibly as early as today. If the two South Dakota schools exit the DAC, it would leave the conference with only five schools and no automatic bid to the NAIA playoffs.

While the Frontier Conference has not extended DSU a formal invitation, Paulson said he spoke with DSU athletic director Roger Ternes about future possibilities in April at the NAIA National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“I wanted to make sure that at the end of the day, we’d be more than willing to listen and be of any help we could be,” Paulson said.

While DSU and the Frontier appear to be a good match in some ways — the Blue Hawks’ already play several Frontier schools in their nonconference schedules and many DSU athletes are from Montana, which is the core of the league — they are nowhere near perfect for each other.

Not considering the travel issues that would arise — at roughly 300 miles away, Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont., is the closest Frontier school to Dickinson — the conference offers affiliation for just eight of DSU’s 13 varsity sports. Paulson said the Frontier is adding men’s and women’s track and field for the upcoming academic year.

That still leaves three historically successful DSU sports — baseball, softball and wrestling — without conference affiliation.

Lewis-Clark State has the Frontier’s only baseball program while Great Falls and Eastern Oregon are the only two schools with softball.

If it were to join the Frontier, DSU’s wrestling team would fit into the NAIA West Group alongside strong programs from the Frontier’s Montana State-Northern and University of Great Falls (Mont.).

While Ternes said Frontier officials “have been very gracious and welcoming,” he reiterated DSU’s stance on its viewpoint of the league.

“We just don’t see that as a good fit,” said Ternes, who is leaving DSU on July 16 to become the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Blue Hawks track and field coach Pete Stanton said the coming school year could sway that opinion.

If the South Dakota schools are accepted into Division II and DSU decides it wants to remain a member of the NAIA even though the DAC’s future becomes even more uncertain, Stanton said exploring its options with the Frontier may be DSU’s best bet.

“If you’re going to make a commitment to stay in the NAIA and our conference isn’t going to expand, you have to look there,” said Stanton, a native of Baker, Mont.