UJ athletic department hosts NSIC representatives

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.