Category: Sports

What drives Derion? DSU senior All-American Williams plays to honor the person who inspired him

Sometime today, before he even thinks about putting on his uniform, Derion Williams will go into the training room at the Badlands Activities Center and get his wrists taped.

He will casually walk back to the Dickinson State football team’s locker room and find a marker. On the white tape, the 22-year-old will write the same words he has before every game since his senior year of high school.

L-Ray. 21-26. RIP. Believe. Bless. Never Quit.

It’s Williams’ way to remember, to never forget and to remind himself why he’s playing the game.

It’s how the Blue Hawk senior honors London Ray, who died on July 26, 2006, in a motorcycle accident in Las Vegas. Ray was Williams’ brother, best friend, mentor and father figure.

“Every game that I’ve played in, before that, I pray and I thank him and God for giving me this opportunity,” Williams said.

At 12 years old, Williams had an instant connection with Ray, then 16, when he entered the Ray family’s home.

Williams and his biological brother, Dequevies Williams, were two of hundreds of foster children from lesser means the Rays have accepted into their home throughout the years. London Ray was the only biological son of Roy and Radiance Ray.

“As soon as I went into the house, we made a connection because he loved football and I loved football,” Williams said. “He taught me everything that I know about football.”

When Ray moved out of his parents’ house to be on his own, Williams followed.

Williams moved in with Ray before his junior year of high school, even though it meant going to his third high school in three years.

Williams didn’t care though. He just wanted to be with his brother.

One year later and a week after his wedding, Ray’s life was tragically cut short. His death happened a little more than a month before Williams was to start his senior year of high school and football.

“That really crushed me,” Williams said. “I wasn’t going to play football after that. My foster family, they told me that that’s not what he’d want from me. I knew that’s not what he wanted from me.”

Williams began his wristtape ritual before the first game of his senior year at Sierra Vista High School in Las Vegas.

Now it’s habit.

Four years after nearly walking away from football, Williams is in his fourth season as a starting cornerback for the Blue Hawks, is a first team NAIA All-America selection, DSU’s all-time leader in kick returns (68) and kick return yards (1,320), and has established himself as one of more electrifying players ever to wear a Blue Hawk uniform.

“Everybody wants players to play hard and give an effort with it,” DSU head coach Hank Biesiot said. “But from day one, he’s a kid that busted his skinny, little tail all over the place. That’s a refreshing thing. That motor is a thing that makes some guys unique, and a lot of the better players have that for whatever reason. He gives an effort and isn’t always picture perfect, but he gives an all-out effort.”

Williams is a picture of determination.

He wants to win. He wants to make every play. But he doesn’t want to be selfish about it. That’s not the type of person he is.

Williams’ 58-yard, game-winning touchdown reception off a tipped ball to help the Blue Hawks to a 25-21 last-minute victory over Concordia College on Sept. 4 may go down as one of the most memorable plays in DSU football history. Williams was just happy he helped give Biesiot his first career win over the Cobbers.

“I’m very excited to say I was part of that team that year that helped coach Biesiot achieve one of those goals,” Williams said.

DSU football has given Williams a foundation upon which to be successful.

As a cornerback, teams haven’t thrown his way much the past two years, though he only has three career interceptions. Teams test Williams once or twice a game, Biesiot said. On kick returns — Williams’ favorite part of the game — fans, players and coaches hold their breath, waiting for him to break another big one. Williams has three career kick returns for a touchdown, which is tied for the school record, and had a 70-yard game-winning punt return for a touchdown to beat Valley City State his sophomore season. Last year, he returned a kick 90 yards for a touchdown to put DSU ahead of South Dakota Mines in the fourth quarter.

“When a kickoff is coming my way, I always think touchdown first,” Williams said.

Williams said he studies special teams and understands its importance, an attitude that makes Biesiot smile.

“He takes a very positive attitude on special teams,” Biesiot said. “We all talk about it and everybody preaches it. He lives it.”

On game day, Williams is as brash and loud as anyone else on DSU’s sidelines.

Off the field, he’s a quiet, deliberate speaker who rarely raises his voice.

“Once the game starts, he likes to be a leader and lead by example,” said Rashad Williams, a DSU running back from Las Vegas who was a sophomore in high school when he first met Derion Williams. “I’ve seen him growing in the past few years. He definitely became a better player and a better leader.”

Williams’ story is one he doesn’t like to tell. He doesn’t talk much about his beginnings in the impoverished parts of Las Vegas. He’s too humble for that and he surely doesn’t want anyone’s pity.

The way Williams looks at it, he is fortunate to be where he is today.

“That’s why you’ll see me with the confidence (on the field),” Williams said. “I have an attitude to where I don’t quit, or I don’t think anything is impossible. I made it from the ghetto, the hood, whatever you want to call it, to where I am today, to college.”

Williams is a solid student, one year away from graduating college with a bachelor’s degree in business administration major and a minor in management.

One day, he’d like to start his own business. He also wouldn’t mind staying in North Dakota.

“It’s grown on me,” Williams said.

First though, he has to finish a little business on the field.

About an hour after he finishes his memorial to Ray, he’ll put on his pads, say a prayer and step onto Fisher Field at the Badlands Activities Center to help DSU begin its quest for a third consecutive Dakota Athletic Conference championship against Dakota State.

“I’m very fortunate for what I have achieved here at Dickinson State,” Williams said.

Cash is king in all levels of college sports

Who has the best interests of the student-athletes in mind when it comes to college athletics?

If recent history tells us anything, it’s certainly not university administrators.

From the NCAA Division I level on down to the NAIA, cash has proven itself to be king.

Whatever path serves to make a school more money is the one that institution will undoubtedly veer toward, regardless of whether or not it is the correct path. In June, we watched as TV rights — and the millions of dollars that flow into universities from them — changed the landscape of college athletics.

Decades-long rivalries imploded, schools went off the beaten path and one of college athletics’ greatest conferences nearly imploded all for the sake of a few extra million bucks in the pockets of those who sit in the ivory box seats.

We watched Colorado and Utah leave geographically and competitively advantageous leagues for the Pac-10, a historically great conference that hasn’t been all that great lately. But who cares, because the Pac-10 is soon going to hook itself one heck of a TV deal, and who doesn’t want to be a part of that?

We watched Nebraska turn up its nose at longtime rivals in the Big 12 and join the Big Ten. Why? Because of the Big Ten Network, the dollars that come with it, as well as the perceived advantages that come with competing in a conference that hasn’t had a national champion in football since 2002.

Unfortunately, the money train doesn’t stop at Division I.

Even in the little NAIA, where the biggest TV deal comes in the form of a 30-second spot on the local news, things are beginning to fall apart because of the almighty dollar.

Recently, many schools who have had strong histories and success in the NAIA are jumping ship for the so-called greener grasses of NCAA Division II.

At the Division II level, expenses increase and, as from what we’ve seen just down the interstate in the past five years, the rewards diminish.

University administrators nationwide who have made the jump say one of the major reasons they do so is because there is a better knowledge of the NCAA brand name than the NAIA.

Translation: We make more money this way.

It’s believed that — much like those former Division II schools that went Division I — once school move under the NCAA flag, booster donations are sure to increase and a higher quality of student-athlete and additional non-athlete students will take notice, driving up enrollment in the process.

While it’s true that being in Division II brings better competition, there is also the matter of knowing one’s place in the world.

Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines are two schools who just don’t seem to know their place — and they’re not alone.

Sometime this month, possibly as early as this week, it’s expected that the NCAA will approve the two South Dakota schools, both members of the Dakota Athletic Conference, to begin making the transition out of the NAIA and into Division II.

I hate to be harsh to either athletic program, because they’ve both had their share of success.

Recently, Black Hills State has been strong in all of its revenue sports, plus it has a strong history of winning programs and a booster club that doesn’t mind giving them the cash to make it happen.

However, in the decade it has been a member of the DAC, South Dakota Mines has never won a regular-season conference championship.

It doesn’t matter where Mines goes in Division II, or even that it has a plan in place to raise millions of dollars for its athletic program. If it can’t win a title in the DAC, it doesn’t stand a chance in Division II.

For an example, I only need to three words: University of Mary.

The Bismarck school appears to be doing just as well financially at the Division II level as it did at the NAIA.

It even inked a bigger radio deal and a weekly television show with the move. (Sound familiar?)

But, it appears its days of winning national championships and being at the top of its conference in every sport are over, or at least dormant.

I don’t know if Black Hills State wants that, but it’s probably not going to make a big difference to South Dakota Mines.

Monke is the Sports Editor of The Dickinson Press. E-mail him at dmonke@thedickinsonpress.com and read his blog at http://www.areavoices.com/monke.

 

AT A CROSSROAD: DSU begins weighing its options, looking toward its athletic future

Dickinson State athletics may soon come to a fork in the road.

It is likely that over the next year, the university will face a decision about what direction to take its athletic programs.

Minot State’s acceptance into NCAA Division II, coupled with Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines exploring the same move, has DSU officials worried the time is fast approaching when it will need to decide whether to stay on the road it has traveled for more than 50 years and remain a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) or head down a path that would lead it toward NCAA membership.

“All of this comes down to choices,” DSU athletic director Roger Ternes said. “Where do you think you best fit?”

Since January, DSU has held meetings to discuss its options in the event Black Hills and Mines submit applications and are accepted for membership by the NCAA. The deadline for D-II application is June 1. The NCAA Membership Committee reviews the applications in early July at its annual convention and shortly thereafter announces which schools it has selected to begin a two-year membership process.

Minot State was one of eight teams chosen last year and Dakota Athletic Conference commissioner Lavern Jessen said the league has plans in place to move forward without the Beavers.

Jessen said if Black Hills and Mines leave, the DAC’s future is uncertain.

“Whether or not we’re going to see a Dakota Athletic Conference down the road, one of the key things is what Black Hills and South Dakota Mines do,” Jessen said. “If they decide they’re moving on, we have a very serious problem.”

The exodus of the two South Dakota schools would leave DSU on what amounts to an island with its closest NAIA competition 200 miles away and in a conference with five teams and no automatic postseason bid.

Essentially, it would be a death sentence to the school’s proud and successful athletic programs.

“In that situation, with that framework, we think we have three options,” Ternes said. Three options

If DSU’s worst-case scenario plays out, Ternes believes there will still be opportunities for the school to remain in the NAIA.

Two options involve looking elsewhere for conference affiliation.

DSU’s best bets would be the Frontier Conference to its west and the Great Plains Athletic Conference to the south. There are several pros and cons for each conference, Ternes said.

For example, DSU is nearly 300 miles away from its nearest competition in each conference and more than 600 miles from several others, meaning its travel budget would undoubtedly have to increase.

DSU is more familiar with the Frontier since its basketball teams schedule its schools during the nonconference portion of its season. DSU coaches also recruit in many of the same areas as the Frontier.

Still, outside of basketball and occasional football games, DSU rarely faces the Frontier. That stems from the conference only offering affiliation for eight of DSU’s 13 sports: football, volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country and men’s and women’s golf. If DSU would be put in a position where the Frontier is its best option for conference affiliation, such traditionally strong sports such as baseball, softball, men’s and women’s track and field and wrestling would be left without a conference.

While the GPAC offers conference affiliation for every DSU sport, the conference would have to change its constitution for the Blue Hawks to join.

Currently, the GPAC is set up as a league for only faithbased institutions. It will also have 12 schools in the 2011-12 school year as the University of Sioux Falls (S.D.) has also been accepted into the D-II ranks.

DSU is also several hundred miles from every GPAC school, meaning that if the DAC were to dissolve and the GPAC was interested in expansion, it members might be more enticed to pursue other DAC schools that would be without a home — Jamestown College, Mayville State, Valley City State and Dakota State — instead of DSU.

“We have to look at the pros and cons of all of those (options) and weigh those if we’re going to remain an NAIA institution,” Ternes said.

Should DSU choose to move to the NCAA level, Ternes said the school would only do so if it was able to gain entry into a conference.

Ternes said, in that hypothetical situation, the best option would be to form a new D-II league made up of the regional schools who would either be without conference affiliation or may be searching for a conference that better suits their athletic budgets and geography.

“Are we better off getting in a league that includes those institutions? Then we’re on the same playing field,” Ternes said. “It gets us back playing those schools we’ve played traditionally for 50 years.”

Budget concerns

Though DSU’s athletic history, facilities and ability to raise money may make being accepted into D-II relatively easy, Ternes said the biggest deterrent at this point is money.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA), the average D-II athletic department with football costs an average of 50 percent more to operate than in the NAIA.

However, the EADA also shows that DSU’s total athletic budget for 2008 was on par with several regional D-II schools that have football, including Chadron State, Minnesota-Crookston and Northern State.

Nonetheless, Ternes said school officials have watched the transition periods of several former NAIA institutions to NCAA closely and are in agreement that maintaining competitive programs at the D-II level boils down to one component — money.

“The issue with the NCAA, or at least one of them, is there’s considerably increased cost of operation. You have to certainly take that into consideration,” Ternes said.

“I think you wouldn’t be exaggerating — from all the information we’ve had and various studies — that it would be at a minimum of around $1 million annually in increase in operation. Keep in mind, that doesn’t include scholarships and those type of things, it’s operation. I don’t know of any institution that’s our size that has a spare million lying around that they want to divert toward athletics.”

One of the major changes of joining the NCAA is staff. DSU would have to create three full-time positions — compliance coordinator, sports information director and women’s sports administrator — not required under the NAIA banner. Other positions, like additional assistant coaches and training staff, would also likely need to be added.

Finding money to do that would become difficult, Ternes said, since DSU’s enrollment would likely take a hit because changes to student-athlete aid would force teams to cut back on the number of members.

While scholarships limits of NCAA schools are relatively similar to the NAIA, student aid is figured differently. NCAA schools must count any aid given to a student-athlete toward its athletic aid budget.

That, Ternes said, would devastate DSU’s numbers.

“This year, we have around 460 student-athletes,” Ternes said. “… We would probably, under an NCAA umbrella, reduce that number of students in athletics by about 150.”

The scariest part of moving to Division II, however, is the possibility of reduced success.

Since the DAC was formed in 2000, DSU has won four NAIA national championships — three in men’s track and field and one in volleyball — and has had numerous high finishes in men’s track and field, softball and wrestling. The Blue Hawks have also reached the national tournament in every sport in that time period.

It is unlikely DSU would be able to maintain that level of success in D-II.

Jessen points to an NAIA study of the 128 of its former members that joined D-II in the past 15 years. The study showed that 51 percent of the institutions have never made a postseason appearance in one of the eight most commonly sponsored sports, or sports that drive revenue.

“Some of them have had success, but for the most part, they go into Division II and are basically never heard from again,” Jessen said.

Most DSU coaches say they don’t even need to look at a study to see the effects of moving from the NAIA to D-II.

Watching the University of Mary, DSU’s former conference rival and one of the NAIA’s premier institutions in its day, play — for the most part — a middling role in DII’s powerful Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is all the proof they need.

“I think there’s a lot of teams in Division II that many schools in our area could compete with,” DSU football coach Hank Biesiot said. “It’s just that they’re not in our area.”

As university officials prepare and plan for different scenarios and wait patiently for the South Dakota schools to make a decision, DSU President Dr. Richard McCallum holds onto hope that no further moves will need to be made.

“We’re very much committed to the NAIA and the DAC conference,” McCallum said. “I’m very optimistic about the future of the DAC conference. That’s where our commitment and our energy is focused.”

Still, Ternes said it does not hurt to be prepared for any scenario.

“We’re just going to find out what niche is best for us,” Ternes said. “In the next couple years, we’re going to work hard on that and keep our options open.”

Heading in hot: Stroh hopes unbelievable September carries over into NFR

Shaun Stroh is a soft-spoken cowboy whose tones don’t differentiate much whether he’s ecstatic or irritated.

He’s an aw-shucks, church-going man with a loving wife who keeps him in line — even when he’s on the road and she’s thousands of miles away — and five kids who keep him hopping when he’s at home.

So, forgive the Dickinson saddle bronc rider if he brushes off his performance in September — perhaps the most astounding month any cowboy in any event on the professional rodeo circuit had this year — as nothing more than luck and timing.

Before Labor Day weekend, Stroh didn’t think qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo was a possibility.

On Thursday night, he’ll strap in at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for his fourth career turn at rodeo’s Super Bowl hoping there’s still a little fire left in his hot streak.

“I was just truly blessed I guess would be the best way to put it,” Stroh said. “There’s too many things that had to go right in a certain order. It just doesn’t happen. Ever.”

Well it did happen, and to one of the more unassuming bronc riders on the circuit.

In early September, with less than a month remaining in the 2009 regular season, Stroh was 22nd in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s saddle bronc riding standings and his year looked to be wrapping up.

Before the end of month, he had won $48,356 on eight rides and moved to eighth in the standings with $82,159, effectively qualifying him for the NFR.

“It was pretty amazing,” said Dusty Hausauer, a professional saddle bronc rider from Dickinson and one of Stroh’s traveling partners.

Stroh’s astounding run began on Sept. 7 with an 88-point ride in at the prestigious Ellensburg (Wash.) Rodeo. That earned him $3,856. Four days later in Lewiston, Idaho, Stroh scored another 88 on Surprise Party, the 2008 bucking horse of the year. That pocketed him $4,075 and the chase for the NFR was back on.

Stroh squeaked into the final eight in Puyallup, Wash., only to win the semifinals, the finals and $15,138.

Still, he remained on the NFR bubble.

Stroh stayed hot and won money in the next four rodeos he entered: Salt Lake City ($127), Pendleton, Ore. ($4,520), Bowman ($1,062) and Albuquerque, N.M. ($1,956).

Yet he needed another big payday to secure his spot and hold off a tight chase that saw bronc riders between the Nos. 11 and 23 spots heading into September all vying for the final five of the NFR’s 15 qualifying spots.

“The numbers were so tight, money-wise, between so many guys that everybody had to go all the way to the end because nobody was really safe,” Stroh said.

So Stroh and several others positioned themselves for a final showdown the final weekend of September at the lucrative River City Roundup in Omaha Neb.

Stroh wavered a little, but not enough to slow him down.

He tied for second in the second round ($3,784) and tied for fifth in the average ($1,056), putting him into the semifinals and the shot at bigger payouts.

He won the semifinals ($6,160) and took third in the finals ($6,626), giving him a season-high $17,622 in earnings for the weekend.

“He really capitalized on the chances he had. He some good chances and he made ’em work,” Hausauer said. “It was phenomenal to watch. Just everywhere he went, if he had a chance, he won some money and that’s what you’ve got to do. That’s what separates him from a lot of guys is when he had the chance, he took advantage of it.”

Stroh wrapped up the month with a little panache too.

A bronc had mangled Stroh’s saddle following his win in the semifinals and forced him to borrow a saddle of Alberta cowboy Dustin Flaundra, ironically another bronc rider on the NFR bubble at the time.

Re-rides forced Stroh to get on three different broncs in the finals before he finally held on for an 83 on his third attempt.

The weekend put Stroh over the top while others weren’t so fortunate.

Hausauer, who was ranked as high as sixth during the regular season, dropped to 16th — one place out of the NFR — despite numerous attempts to qualify in the final days of the season.

Regardless of his finish, Hausauer said watching Stroh find his groove pushed him to keep working despite some tough luck.

“I had some trouble there at the end,” Hausauer said. “To watch him, that actually helped me out toward the end too. When somebody in the truck is doing that good, you don’t ever get down, and it was good to watch and it helped me out quite a bit too.”

Likewise, Stroh said he might not have kept fighting for the NFR had Hausauer not been at his side encouraging him to enter some of the lateseason events.

“I was down to four or five weeks and I was so far out, money-wise, that I didn’t really have a shot unless things went as good as they did, which doesn’t happen,” Stroh said. “Having Dusty as close as he was, that was the main reason I was still going. There was just two of us in the rig and he was going good so I was just going to stick with it until he was done. The coin kind of flipped and he started going the other way.”

Stroh’s finish was miles away from the rest of his summer. Early in the season, he knew things could be a little rough.

“When you show up and your buddies are laughing at you because you’re there, you know you didn’t get a very good one (bronc),” Stroh said.

He contemplated a layoff after injuring his leg when a horse blew up on him in the chute in mid-June at a rodeo in Livermore, Calif.

“I should have come home. I stayed out there and kept going and darn sure didn’t win anything,” Stroh said.

That all changed in September.

All signs point to money winnings leader Jesse Kruse of Great Falls, Mont., as the favorite to win the saddle bronc world title.

Stroh, because of his lateseason run, is more of a Cinderella. And he’s been to the NFR enough to know when the chute opens for the first time, the regular season doesn’t really matter.

“You don’t really change your game plan at all from day to day or month to month,” Stroh said. “You may be a little more excited getting on some of them when you know you’ve got a good horse drawn. But it still comes down to the basics — one horse at a time, one jump at a time.”

Bud Grant Greets Fans

Nick Guse hasn’t been a Minnesota Vikings fan his entire life. He said it’s been about seven years.

But the 41-year-old Fargo man said he wasn’t going to pass up a chance at meeting legendary former Vikings coach Bud Grant and have him autograph a miniature Vikings helmet.

“That’ll finish the helmet,” said Guse after Grant signed the replica that was already sealed with the names of several former Vikings players who played during the 18 seasons Grant coached the team.

“It’s always fun to finish something up,” Guse said.

The 78-year-old retired coach, who led the Vikings to four trips to the Super Bowl in the 1960s and 1970s, signed autographs and met several fans at the Link Recreational boat liquidation sale Saturday at the Fargo Civic Center Centennial Hall.

Always willing to stay in touch with fans, Grant has been working hard advocating the construction of a new Vikings stadium in Blaine, Minn.

“Our fans are putting up with an inferior stadium,” Grant said. “If we are going to compete in this generation, it’s a necessity.”

When asked what the latest stadium news was, Grant responded candidly.

“I don’t know, I haven’t listened to the radio in the last hour,” he said.

The Vikings keep an office for Grant at their Winter Park Training Facility in Eden Prairie, Minn.

Although he believes the team has taken the right steps lately, Grant is still very neutral when asked about new head coach Brad Childress. But he’s quick to offer owner Zygi Wilf some words of advice.

“He’s working hard on the stadium and he’s working hard to sign free agents,” Grant said of Wilf. “But you’re limited. You’ve got to work within certain parameters that don’t apply to business. They can’t run a football team like they run a business.”

Two fans, Ruse Crume and his daughter Lily, received an autograph from Grant and came back later and spoke face-to-face with the former coach for about five minutes.

“It was fun to see him and get a chance to chat with him,” said Crume, who bought his daughter a football to have Grant sign.

Aside from signing autographs, Grant also sold prints of nature paintings he had originally sketched.

He joked that he isn’t much of a painter and collaborates with friends who bring out color in his sketches through shadows and perspective.

“Otherwise, it’d look like a hatchet job,” Grant said.