MADISON, S.D. — Dakota State University is looking for a new home.
With the announcement on Dec. 28, 2023, that the North Star Athletic Association will disband following the 2024-25 school year, Dakota State University in Madison became one of the latest in a steady stream of institutions swept up in a shifting collegiate athletics landscape that extends all the way up to NCAA Division I.
According to Richard Hanson, who serves at Dakota State as an Assistant to the President for Special Projects, an announcement that the NSAA would disband wasn’t altogether surprising.
Full-time NSAA member Presentation College in Aberdeen and affiliate member (for football) Iowa Wesleyan both closed their doors in 2023. Other full-time NSAA members Waldorf College (Iowa), Viterbo University (Wisc.) and Dickinson State (N.D.) all announced moves to other conferences between September and December of 2023. The departures left the conference with four members beyond 2025: Dakota State, Valley City State (N.D.), Mayville State (N.D.) and Belmont (Neb.).
However, even with the writing on the wall, that didn’t mean Dakota State was immediately prepared to have to find a new home after a decade in the North Star.
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“We could feel some things going on. … (But) it certainly shakes you up a little bit,” Hanson said. “... We’re trying to respond calmly but with purpose.”
Starting this past fall, Dakota State organized an athletics transition task force, for which Hanson serves as the chairperson. The task force started by taking an internal inventory of where the athletic department stands and what it needs to be successful, and then the task force started to explore options.
Among those options are finding another NAIA conference, transitioning up to NCAA Division II or perhaps even creating a new conference altogether.
“We’ve laid them both (NAIA and NCAA Division II) out as options,” Hanson said.
However, staying in the NAIA could prove to be tricky. Practically all Dakota State’s NAIA peers in the region reside in the Great Plains Athletic Conference, which includes South Dakota institutions Dakota Wesleyan and Mount Marty. But the GPAC has a membership exclusive to private, church-affiliated institutions, whereas Dakota State is public and state-run.
The NSAA previously explored a merger with the Frontier Conference, which includes schools in Montana, Idaho and Oregon, but such a move would present significant challenges to DSU due to the travel involved. Of note, Dickinson State (N.D.) announced in December that it will return to the Frontier, of which it was a member before joining the NSAA.
As such, a Division II transition presents an enticing option for the future of Trojan athletics. DSU is less than two years removed from announcing it raised $45 million toward investment in athletics facilities, including the Dan Beacom Track and Soccer Complex, which was completed last year. Under construction is the Athletics Events Center, which includes upgrades to the football stadium, esports facilities, locker rooms and office spaces, among other improvements.
“Dakota State, as an institution, is definitely on the rise,” Hanson said, noting the growth of computer science and cybersecurity programs, as well as the graduate school and research. “We think athletics should also be rising, and we think a way to do that, if we can make it work, is an NCAA Division II linkage."
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“You tend to be known by the company you keep,” he continued, though underscoring that nothing has been decided. “We like the idea of recruiting a Division II athlete, providing an academic program for them and things like that.”
Hanson also mentioned that the university has heard rumblings of reviving the Dakota Athletic Conference, an NAIA conference of South Dakota and North Dakota schools that has been defunct since 2012. Such a development would require moves by several institutions, as the former conference is broken up across multiple leagues in the NAIA and NCAA D-II.
“That’s kind of attractive and interesting,” Hanson said. “But it barely rises above the level of a rumor.”
With any decision Dakota State makes, Hanson noted the importance of gauging the Madison community support for any potential move, too, given the university’s setting in a community of more than 6,000 residents.
With the NSAA set to dissolve in approximately 16 months, there’s a countdown creating some stress for Dakota State officials to make a move in a timely manner. But Hanson maintains that university decision-makers are honed in on making the best decision possible, first and foremost.
“We feel some pressure, but our timeline is contingent upon being ready,” Hanson said. “We know we have to have a solution; we just don’t know what that solution is yet. And yes, that does produce some anxiety.”
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