Matt Larsen has been on the job ten months and he is now starting to arrange his staff the way he wants it. Monday NDSU announced the hiring of Todd Phelps as the school’s first deputy athletic director. Phelps comes from Oregon State, where he spent the past year as the building manager and capital project leader for all facilities.
Phelps worked with Larsen at Stony Brook for several years, his main responsibilities will be NDSU’s capital projects and athletic facilities. He’ll oversee the final steps of the SHAC and be the guy in charge on a day to day basis. That leaves Larsen open to go out and finish fundraising for other projects. Phelps will also oversee volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball. Larsen will oversee football, men’s basketball and softball. Colleen Heimstead will be in charge of track and field and cross country, while Jack Maughan oversees wrestling and Troy Goergen will be in charge of soccer and men’s and women’s golf.
Here’s our TV story from Monday and then my extended interview with Phelps from Dizzo’s Den as well.
Workouts are underway for the basketball teams, the men’s team in preparation for its trip to the Bahamas in early August, they’ll get ten practices before that in July. The women are down another player as the Bison Media Blog has learned that McKenna Happke has left the team. Happke posted on her Instagram account that she’s leaving NDSU and enrolling at St. Cloud State and will play basketball there. Happke played in just two games in her true freshman year for a total of six minutes and no points. She’s the second member of the Class of 2014 no longer with the team as Olivia Baker signed but never played for the Bison. NDSU now is down to ten players on the roster counting the three incoming players (Kennedy Childers, Brianna Jones and Megan Gamble). With the departure of Kayla Becken from concussions, this leaves Maren Walseth in a tough spot for players.
We’re at the time of year when college basketball teams start to reveal their schedules for the upcoming year, the Summit League put out its women’s schedule for 2015-16 with a couple of tweaks, there are games still on Sundays this year, but the Wednesday games are no more. There are a couple of gauntlets on the conference side; starting with the Jacks at home, then a trip to Denver, then back home for a good USD team. Then in the second half of the season, the Bison have to play three straight roadies (at USD, ORU, SDSU). Here’s what we know of the schedule so far:
11/27 – at San Diego State
11/29 – vs. Delaware (in San Diego)
12/12 – at UND
12/30 – at Omaha (Summit Opener)
1/3 – vs SDSU (Sunday)
1/7 – at Denver
1/9 – Oral Roberts
1/14 – USD
1/16 – at IUPUI
1/21 – Western Illinois
1/23 – Fort Wayne
1/30 – at USD
2/4 – at Oral Roberts
2/6 – at SDSU
2/12 – IUPUI
2/14 – Omaha
2/20 – Denver
2/25 – at Western Illinois
2/27 – at Fort Wayne