On Campus: Fighting Hawks Still Fighting

The North Dakota baseball program, which the university announced two weeks ago would be eliminated after this season, is being given the chance to save itself.

The university has provided coach Jeff Dodson with fundraising marks the program must reach to continue. The Fighting Hawks will have to raise a little over $500,000 by August 30 to continue in the 2017 season. A similar amount will have to be raised by Feb. 15, 2017, to secure the 2018 season.

Eventually, the program would need to establish an endowment to give it more long term stability. Dodson said the university has said it would take a little more than $13 million to endow the baseball program.

First, however, North Dakota has to act quickly to secure its short-term future.

“Once we get approval of the plan from the president, we’re going to move forward with our fundraising campaign,” Dodson said. “If we can get everybody on board and get the info to people, to our network with alumni, we have a lot of people willing to step up. We’ll know more in a couple weeks.”

North Dakota has already received one remarkable pledge. Carson Shanks, a sophomore on the Fighting Hawks basketball team, told Dodson this week that he planned on donating his cost of attendance stipend to the baseball team’s fundraising.

According to the Grand Forks Herald, Shanks said he talked to his father about ways he could help the baseball team and came up with his plan to donate his stipend, worth about $3,400.

“I love the Minnesota Twins and watching baseball,” Shanks told the newspaper. “Again, I just couldn’t imagine having my sport taken away in such a quick manner. I know if I were in that situation I would greatly appreciate any sort of help.”

Dodson does appreciate the support. He said he couldn’t wait to call Shanks after receiving a text from the basketball player about his plan.

“The gesture was incredible,” Dodson said. “That’s a pretty strong statement for a kid to do that. One thing about college athletics that gets overlooked a lot of times is what kind of leaders develop out of situations like this.”

Dodson faces a tall task as he tries to secure the rest of the funding necessary to preserve the program. While he fights to raise money to save the program, he must continue to coach this year’s team and navigate a series of challenges for a program in limbo.

For instance, North Dakota informed the Western Athletic Conference of its intention to shutter the program when the initial decision was made. Now it is attempting to find out the latest possible date it can reverse that decision and be included in the conference schedule.

Dodson is also fielding calls from other coaches, inquiring about his players. They will be free agents should the program be eliminated, able to transfer to any Division I school without sitting out a year. He said he has told his players they have to make the best decision for themselves.

“I’ve had 150 schools call about our players,” he said. “That’s a testament to the kind of kids and players they are. Whichever way they decide to go, we’re 100 percent behind them.”

For now, however, they are all trying to finish this season on a high note. North Dakota fell into a seven-game losing streak following the announcement the program would be eliminated. It snapped the skid Tuesday with a 10-9 victory against Division II Minnesota-Crookston. The Fighting Hawks are now 7-24 and 3-12 in WAC play. North Dakota is three games behind Northern Colorado for the final spot in the conference tournament and welcome the Bears to Kraft Memorial Field this weekend for a critical series.

Dodson said snapping the losing streak lifted a burden on the club. Now they must turn that into some positive momentum.

“We’re still in the playoff picture,” he said. “The biggest thing we have to do now is focus on the second half of the season.”

Off the field, Dodson is facing the hardest test of his coaching career. But he is committed to saving the program.

“This challenge is very daunting to say the least, and it is, by far, as a coach the hardest thing we’ve ever been faced with,” Dodson said. “It’s tough to be given a time frame like this and have to scramble a plan together to make it work. The only thing we can do is try to find a solution to the problem.”

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News and Notes

Atlantic Coast Conference: Virginia righthander Connor Jones continued his impressive junior season last Friday at Miami, helping the Cavaliers upset the then top-ranked Hurricanes. He held Miami to four runs (one earned) in seven innings, while working around a rain delay to improve to 8-1, 2.08. Of his 10 starts this season, all but two have been quality starts and he leads the ACC in both wins and innings pitched (69 1/3). Coach Brian O’Connor said Jones has done a good job of being consistent all year. “He hasn’t let innings get out of control,” O’Connor said. “He doesn’t let up a big inning.”

Big 12 Conference: Righthander Mitchell Traver was slated to be Texas Christian’s Opening Day starter this season until he suffered a muscle strain the week before the season began. He has been sidelined since then, but is expected to return to action next Sunday at Penn State. Traver will start the game and throw 15-30 pitches, coach Jim Schlossnagle said. If all goes well, TCU will continue to build Traver’s workload, and he could be ready for a full workload by the time the Big 12 Tournament begins in late May. Traver’s return could be a late-season boost for No. 7 TCU, which has dealt with some inconsistent starting pitching this year and just saw Friday starter Luken Baker go down with an injury of his own last Friday. Baker is considered week-to-week after an MRI revealed a muscle strain in his arm. “Traver is getting close,” Schlossnagle said. “Just from a morale standpoint, getting another big arm in there to give us some innings, we’re excited about it.”

Big Ten Conference: Michigan and Michigan State bring identical 28-10 records into their rivalry series this weekend and, in both cases, it has been a long time since they had a .737 winning percentage this late in the season. It is the best start for the 16th-ranked Wolverines since 1987, when they won both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles. For the Spartans, it is their best start since going 31-7 in 1971, when they won the conference championship. The series is split between the two campuses, with games Friday and Sunday at Michigan, and Michigan State hosting Saturday’s game.

Pac-12 Conference: UCLA coach John Savage won the 500th game of his career last Friday, when UCLA defeated Oregon, 13-1. The 2013 Coach of the Year is 501-373-2 in 15 years between UCLA and UC Irvine. Earlier this season, Savage won his 400th game with the Bruins, and is already the third winningest coach in program history. … Oregon State has won 11 straight games against Stanford, a streak that dates back to 2012. The Cardinal will get a chance to break that skid this weekend, as they travel to Corvallis to take on the 18th-ranked Beavers.

Southeastern Conference: The bid process to host the SEC Tournament continues, with the field winnowed to Hoover, Ala., Jacksonville, Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans. Triple-A New Orleans, which would host the tournament in Zephyr Field, announced conference officials will hold a site visit Saturday. The team is offering a special discount for the game, “in an effort to show the SEC what an overwhelming success the Tournament would be at Zephyr Field.” The tournament has been held in Hoover for the last 18 years, but the conference’s contract with the Birmingham, Ala., suburb ends after this year.

Other conferences: In a rematch of last year’s Northeast Conference Tournament championship game, Bryant will host Sacred Heart this weekend. Sacred Heart won that game, 5-4, but enter the weekend 1.5 games behind Bryant in the conference standings. The Bulldogs (30-7) are on a 10-game winning streak and are 16-2 in April, the best record in the country this month. … UNC Wilmington saw its 12-game winning streak snapped Tuesday with a 10-9 loss at North Carolina. At the time, it was the longest in the country, and is the third-longest in school history. “That 12-game winning streak is gone,” coach Mark Scalf said. “We’ll turn around tomorrow and try to get another one started.” UNCW did just that, defeating High Point, 11-6, on Wednesday. Overall this season, the Seahawks are 28-10 and, at 8-2, are in first place in the Colonial Athletic Association.