Gettin’ it done
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
No, that’s not it.
“ If you can’t beat ‘em ... Join ‘em.”
Eh, not quite it either.
“ If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
That’s the one.
Hark the adopted quasi-motto of the NDSU athletic department. Even though it remains in full force on the pursuit of an actual conference, the reality of one is just out of grasp — the department is looking elsewhere, at least temporarily.
Minor conferences, affiliations and “scheduling agreements” are popping up all around.
The result is the blossoming of a resemblance toward program stability and a hope for larger future implications.
Or, we just might get this done.
The state of the University’s athletic programs is at a buzz right now for fairly obvious reasons.
If this were poker, athletic director Gene Taylor would have a stack of chips he could really start to play with.
For a while, football had the lone conference, the Great West Football Conference.
Its birth was a direct result of a handful of schools that had no other ties, Division-I independents, and needed consistency in annual scheduling.
Now, wrestling is straddling the same rope in their new development of a regional and will lock down solid competition for every season.
Well, as long as the chips fall as planned.
The plan is for there to be a nine-team regional — the name of which is under discussion, but discussions have collectively agreed on Western Regional, with teams from Illinois to California.
Wrestling fans ought to become familiar with Northern and Eastern Illinois, Air Force, Wyoming, Fresno State, Northern Colorado Southern Utah Valley and SDSU. Two of which will be at the BSA over the weekend.
The regional, a fancy name for “not yet a conference,” will have a final year-end dual and approximately 25 spots in the national tournament.
Bret Maughan, assistant wrestling coach, has mainly been put in charge of coordinating the deal and says other Independents could potentially be slotted into the nine-school group in the future. That is partly the reason a seal of approval for conference status would be beneficial.
“ The only two major conferences around here are the Big Ten and the Big 12,” Maughan said. “And we most likely won’t be getting into those.”
However, because of the lengthy NCAA approval process to become an official conference (mostly so that revenue sports don’t create new ones on a whim) it will take several years before NDSU breaks the regional status.
It is still working on the region agreement, according to Maughan, and it is still at the “AD level,” which of course means Taylor.
His report is that all is well, issues should be ironed out and the regional will be a done deal.
All that the collaborative ADs need to figure out is travel budgets and various other minor details.
Basically, some schools don’t have enough chips in front of them to fly to so many places.
Good news is that if and when the regional develops into a conference, it wouldn’t have to tank like the eventual GWFC. Any school-wide move to a larger affiliation would still be without a wrestling conference.
The master plan for this transition continues to fall into place.
With a little initiative, the athletic department fixed it, joined ‘em and did it themselves.
That’s three adages in one.