Tag: football

North Dakotans should be proud of the Bison

North Dakota State seniors celebrate their win over Towson during the 2014 NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision title game Saturday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. *Photo by Carrie Snyder / Forum News Service)

About 10 years ago, North Dakota State decided to move its athletic programs to the NCAA Division I level.

No one knew what to expect at the time. Coming off a few years of Division II mediocrity in most sports, including football, fan sentiment was tempered. Some people predicted it would be a disaster. More were upset that long-time rivalries were ending so NDSU could play teams like Southern Utah and Cal Poly.

A decade later, there is no debate. The decision has been nothing short of brilliant.

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Former players reflect on ‘legendary’ Biesiot

Press Photo by Royal McGregor In this Sept. 1, 2012 photo, Dickinson State head football coach Hank Biesiot, left, speaks with players during a Frontier Conference game against Rocky Mountain. After 38 years as the head coach of the Blue Hawks, Biesiot resigned on Thursday.

To them, he’s a “legendary” coach, a man who helped teach the meaning of humility and camaraderie, or someone who simply gave them a chance when no one else would.

To all of them, however, he’s coach Hank Biesiot.
“They just don’t make ‘em like him anymore,” said Randy Gordon, a longtime head football coach for Dickinson Trinity and a member of the first Dickinson State team Biesiot coached in 1976.

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10-loss season means change

Dickinson State head coach Hank Biesiot stands on the sidelines during the season finale and the final Frontier Conference game at Carroll College on Saturday at the Biesiot Activities Center.

We’re a generation or more removed from the last time the Dickinson State football team had a season this bad.

Before Saturday, the Blue Hawks had never lost 10 games in a season.

It marked only the second time since World War II that a DSU football team has finished a season with one win. When the Blue Hawks were still the Savages in 1966 under head coach Orlo Sundree, they went 1-7. Sundree would only last one more season and DSU would go through two other coaches before promoting Hank Biesiot to the head position in 1976.

More than three decades of success followed. Few team records still stand that weren’t set in the Biesiot coaching era.

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Moody living in the moment: DHS graduate relishing title game experiences

North Dakota State sophomore receiver Nate Moody takes on Southern Illinois defensive back Anthony Thompson on Oct. 27 at the Fargodome.

Nate Moody believes that sometime in his future, he will look back and realize how special today actually is.

This morning, Moody will snap on his helmet for the biggest game of his career and try to help No. 1-ranked North Dakota State win its second consecutive Division I Football Championship Subdivision title when it meets No. 5 Sam Houston State at 11 a.m. today at FC Dallas Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

The 2011 Dickinson High School graduate said being back in Frisco and playing for another title is a surreal accomplishment he never expected when he joined NDSU as a preferred walk-on.

“I don’t really have words to put to it,” Moody said. “It was a great experience last year, it’s going to be another great experience. Hopefully I just realize, someday, what this actually is. Even last year isn’t all that realistic to me and even to a lot of other people. We’re still playing football.”
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The controversy heard ’round the nation

Jamie Kuntz says he just wants to be a college football player. However, a decision he made on Sept. 1 not only derailed those plans, it made the 2012 Dickinson High School graduate the center of national debate and scrutiny that has forever changed his life. Over a span of two weeks in September, Kuntz went from a no-name freshman linebacker at North Dakota State College of Science to the subject of a national news story after he was removed from the team for lying to his coaches about an incident at a game, which led to him coming out as a homosexual in the national media.

Kuntz’s saga is The Dickinson Press’ No. 2 sports story of the year.

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