Sports Spotlight on DSU Athletic Changes | Video

Scott Westerberg | 8/15/2012

It`s a new school year at Dickinson State and with it comes a big change in the athletic department. The DAC-10 lost its first member in 2005, and now the conference is all but a memory. Once the dominoes started to fall, Dickinson State knew it would soon have a big decision to make.

"We immediately began to examine our options. We looked at the potential options we had, NAIA Independent, other conferences in the NAIA and NCAA Division Two," said Athletic Director Tim Daniel.

In the end, DSU come to the conclusion that staying in the NAIA was the best move, and soon the Blue Hawks had a new conference.

"We`re very familiar with the Frontier Conference. Football, we`ve played every school within the Montana Frontier schools except Montana Western. All the other school`s we`ve competed in football non-conference. Basketball we`ve played all the Montana Frontier schools, so we`re very familiar with that," Daniel said.

"It`s excellent quality of football. There`s some very strong teams out there. That`s one thing you like the competition. You also like the schedule of having five, six home games a year which is nice for us, the community, the university," said Dickinson State Football Coach Hank Biesoit.

The loss of the DAC has been a tough pill to swallow for some affiliated with Dickinson State, especially since the Blue Hawks will no longer have an in-state conference rival.

"I think a lot of alumni, guys I coached, players I played with a lot of them have a hard time not playing Mary, not playing Minot, not playing Black Hills and yet flying out to Southern Oregon and driving to Butte. That`s a hard thing for a lot of guys," said Dickinson State Track & Field Coach Pete Stanton.

"You need to say, this is our new rival. We wish it was Minot, but it`s not, but now we have a whole new rival and trust me, we`ve got plenty of rivals in Montana that are really good teams," said Dickinson State Basketball Coach Ty Orton.

But just because the Hawks are the new kids on the block, they have no intention of easing into the Frontier.

"We want to compete now. Hank wants to compete now. Pete wants to compete now. We all want to compete now. We want to make a statement that Dickinson State is going into this conference and we`re not going to be the people that you just walk through," Orton said.

There will be some noticeable changes in men`s and women`s basketball. Instead of playing conference games on Friday and Saturday, the Frontier Conference plays Thursday and Saturday.

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