IT’S BOOM TIME Athletic facilities on the NDSU campus come into focus

By Jeff Kolpack The Forum Fargo

The site of cranes, heavy equipment, dirt piles, stacks of construction materials and orange signs on the North Dakota State campus the last few years have been as common as students wearing backpacks. No corner is safe from a detour.

One of the most visible to the thousands of cars driving south on North University Drive is the Nodak Insurance Football Performance Complex, with its main phase having a grand opening this weekend. The main event for the Bison football team is Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. Dakota Marker game against South Dakota State at Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome.

But make no mistake, the practice facility is a big piece of the glory days of building projects at NDSU.

Michael Ellingson, the director of facilities management at the university, said the last time the campus saw this magnitude of projects was probably in the 1960s.

The indoor football facility when Phase 2 is completed next spring is expected to exceed $50 million. Recently completed Sugihara Hall was $51.2 million. The agriculture-focused Peltier Complex that just broke ground is pegged at $85 million.

In all, Ellingson puts the ballpark figure of current projects just short of $200 million. The university’s “In Our Hands” campaign that raised $586 million contributed millions to the academic buildings. In the case of the football facility, all funds were privately raised.

“With the generosity that we as a campus have been able to get, we’re able to show results with it,” Ellingson said. “The indoor facility is going to show results not only for recruiting but for the athletes. All of the athletic programs can use that facility.”

Although never really finished, the addition of the indoor practice space, the renovation of the outdoor track and field complex, improvements to Dacotah Field for soccer and an indoor softball facility in its design stage means NDSU is at least in the late innings of its overall athletic facility master plan.

Former NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor was in charge when the Sanford Health Athletic Complex began its renovation quest for basketball, wrestling and golf and Bentson Bunker Fieldhouse got a facelift for volleyball. But current athletic director Matt Larsen has been at the top chair for major facility improvements for football, track and field, soccer and softball.

What’s left? Good question.

City leaders have long talked about a renovation or addition, or both, to the Fargodome. But that would be a city project and not a university issue.

The new indoor practice facility replaces the bubble over Dacotah Field that had to be put up late in the fall and taken down once the weather cleared in the spring. Nobody associated with the program is going to miss the portable nature of that facility, which had its issues the last few years.

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Entz was a first-year assistant coach when the Bison first got the bubble in 2014, something that former head coach Craig Bohl pushed for years only to see it come to fruition after he left for Wyoming.

“The bubble served its purpose and it was unbelievable for eight, nine years,” Entz said. “Believe me, we used the heck out of it. I think every sport did. But this is going to be on a whole different level when you compare it to the bubble. I think this has been done with a lot of class and we talk about it all the time at NDSU. One of the unique things about our university is we do it the right way.”

NDSU joins SDSU, North Dakota and Youngstown State in the Missouri Valley Football Conference as schools with permanent indoor practice structures. Illinois State started construction on an indoor bubble last month.

The University of South Dakota has the DakotaDome and Northern Iowa the UNI-Dome that both can use for practice. Last week, UNI announced plans for a $50 million upgrade over three different phases to the UNI-Dome, which opened in 1976. USD recently completed a renovation to the DakotaDome.

Entz, who turned 50 years old last Sunday, has been to a number of indoor practice facilities in his career and compares NDSU’s to the University of Iowa.

“It’s going to be in the same conversation as a lot of those facilities,” he said.

SDSU head coach John Stiegelmeier said this week building the indoor facility at SDSU was more important than the new Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium for games. The Jackrabbits opened the $32 million Sanford-Jackrabbit Athletic Complex in 2014 and the $65 million stadium was finished in 2016.

“I think there are so many things that it says,” Stiegelmeier said.

“It’s a must (in the Midwest) if you want to have a championship program but it not only says to your players and recruits but also your supporters: We’re committed to football. We’re committed to doing what we can for this program and in North Dakota State’s case give them what they need to win a national championship or make it easier to win a national championship.”

At SDSU, Stiegelmeier says walking into his indoor facility never gets old.

“Because it’s a 365-day piece,” Entz said of the value of indoor practice. “That’s where a lot of development goes on in the offseason.”

Gone since the bubble was built are the days when spring practice was sometimes interrupted with an April snowstorm. Gone is the thought of pushing the start of spring practice back as far as possible.

“When you live in the Upper Midwest, we all know Mother Nature is good for a spring snowstorm here in Fargo,” Entz said. “I can remember two years ago our fingers were crossed that the bubble wasn’t going to come down with a wet, heavy snow. Now we’ll have a facility that’s going to be there when we need it.”

Phase 2 that includes a weight room, locker room, equipment room, meeting rooms, recruiting lounge overlooking the practice field and sports medicine facilities is expected to be completed next spring. It’s currently under construction on the west side of the field facility.

“It will add not only to the recruiting but also to our current roster and the preparation and development that they have,” Entz said. “We have 400-andsome student-athletes to be able to spread us out over multiple facilities and we’ll all see the benefit of that.”

Some of those 400 athletes, football players, have been peeking through the windows in the last couple of weeks. They’re like homeowners waiting to get the keys to their new house.

“It looks sweet,” said senior linebacker James Kaczor. “I wish they would have done it like three years earlier but to have it even for just a little bit at the end of my career is pretty cool.”

Senior fullback Hunter Luepke did one better than Kaczor in the preview department. He walked into the indoor building and looked around.

“It’s spectacular,” he said. “That thing is massive. It’s really something special and I know everyone in the locker room is blessed to have that. It looks bigger than the average football field but it’s really sweet.”

Readers can reach Forum reporter Jeff Kolpack at jkolpack@forumcomm.com. Twitter@ KolpackInForum