By Chad Courrier
Free Press Staff Writer
Fri, May 16 2008
—
With just baseball and softball tournaments and track meets this weekend, the North Central Conference is nearly extinct after 86 years of quality competition. The once-proud Division II conference will soon be a collection of memories, most of which are pretty good.
But there are a few things that won’t be missed.
Won’t miss leaving at noon to get to a basketball doubleheader at Omaha, Neb., then returning home and pulling into the driveway about 3:30 a.m. There aren’t enough Diet Cokes to keep that trip interesting, and the police officers in those small Iowa towns, where the four-lane has yet to be finished, will have to find someone else to pick on.
Won’t miss the DakotaDome, where the men’s basketball team hasn’t won since 2000. That remodeled grain bin did provide some good memories for the women’s basketball team in the national tournament this spring, but not going to Vermillion, S.D., is better than going there.
Won’t miss the football team leading some NCC team in the fourth quarter, then watching that rival rally to win at the end. Or stop the Mavericks’ final drive in the waning seconds. Won’t miss another head coach saying that he felt like his “guts were being torn out” after another tough, predictable loss to a stronger, faster, deeper team.
Won’t miss some of the dumpy basketball venues around the NCC, which might be what some media types say about a Saturday afternoon spent in the Blakeslee Stadium press hut. You get spoiled watching basketball games from courtside at Bresnan Arena.
But there are more things that will be missed.
Will miss the competition in NCC, knowing that in every game, in most sports, either team can win. Minnesota State had risen toward the top of the league in nearly every sport, but it also wasn’t far to the bottom. Most NCC games provided intense competition, played at a higher skill level than many fans believed.
Will miss programs that strive to win national championships, not just league titles. In the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, more than half of the programs don’t fund their teams at a level that allows them to compete nationally. The hope is that the four former NCC schools will inspire the 10 Northern Sun schools to increase funding, making the new league more relevant in all national tournaments, not just men’s basketball.
Will miss watching athletes who may some day play for money, even on TV. The NCC was able to get so many good athletes over the years, some of which you loved to hate from the stands. There were a lot of Division I and junior college transfers who settled in nicely at this level, and there were high schoolers who dreamed of playing for the local team, shunning marginal offers elsewhere to have four good seasons of competition. You hope the new conference, with its arbitrary scholarship limits, won’t deter outstanding athletes from joining these programs.
Come next week, the NCC will be done, its 86-year existence snuffed by the ambitious programs in North Dakota and South Dakota and lack of urgency shown by its remaining members. Have to see how this new league works out, but it’s safe to say that in some games, both teams won’t have a chance to win.
Gonna miss that.
Chad Courrier is a Free Press staff writer. To contact him, call (507) 344-6353 or e-mail at ccourrier@mankatofreepress.com.
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