Alaska and Alaska-Anchorage!!! I kid you not!

Does this smell of desperation? Is this tied to the potential loss of UMKC and Chicago State to the Summit? Or New Mexico State to the Sun Belt?

Alaska is the only state with no DI schools, so why not?

Why is this desperate? Alaska as a state has boomed over the past 40 years, and the universities have flowered. Alaska now has more people than North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. ND is able to support 2 D-1 schools.

Both schools are almost as big as Hawai'i's main campus, and Fairbanks has a similar endowment level to Hawai'i. Both schools are already D-1 in hockey. Anchorage should have no trouble at all selling out its games because it would be the only game in town for a metro area of 400,000.

These two schools make a lot more sense than for-profit schools like Grand Canyon or online schools like Liberty.

(02-22-2014 10:25 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Why is this desperate? Alaska as a state has boomed over the past 40 years, and the universities have flowered. Alaska now has more people than North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. ND is able to support 2 D-1 schools.

Both schools are almost as big as Hawai'i's main campus, and Fairbanks has a similar endowment level to Hawai'i. Both schools are already D-1 in hockey. Anchorage should have no trouble at all selling out its games because it would be the only game in town for a metro area of 400,000.

These two schools make a lot more sense than for-profit schools like Grand Canyon or online schools like Liberty.

Neither Alaska school offers spring sports, that's why they make no sense whatsoever.

If Alaska schools started a full sports program and were admitted to WAC, my guess is that the state government of Alaska would be willing to subsidize travel costs. I think (not sure) Hawaii is doing some travel subisidies.

Very logical. Two games on that swing (with Hawaii they got one). At least one of the games won't count against scholarship limits. Politically I wonder if either school can move without the other. They are each spread across a number of conferences they both are coming into the lower 48 regularly and so are their confernce opponents spread most across the NW.

Big challenge I see is they both have to add sports and scholarships. If the money is available to them to make the expenditure then that's a problem marked off the list. Alaska markets tourism extremely aggressively and I wouldn't be surprised if there is actually some pretty significant political support for them moving to raise brand awareness for tourism.

The "Seawolves", that's a cool name.

And "Nanooks"

(02-22-2014 12:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Very logical. Two games on that swing (with Hawaii they got one). At least one of the games won't count against scholarship limits. Politically I wonder if either school can move without the other. They are each spread across a number of conferences they both are coming into the lower 48 regularly and so are their confernce opponents spread most across the NW.

Big challenge I see is they both have to add sports and scholarships. If the money is available to them to make the expenditure then that's a problem marked off the list. Alaska markets tourism extremely aggressively and I wouldn't be surprised if there is actually some pretty significant political support for them moving to raise brand awareness for tourism.

The state has plenty of money. They could easily fund the idea if they believe its advantageous to the state.

I can't see UAF moving up, but after investing $100 million plus in a new state-of-the-art sports arena, I would consider UAA a viable WAC candidate. Plus there are about five daily direct flights to Anchorage from Seattle, making it easy to pair up UAA with the University of Seattle as a travel partner. There are also direct daily flights to Anchorage from Phoenix and Denver.

On the travel subsidy question, yes the University of Hawaii pays subsidies to both the MWC and BWC that cover the expense of all conference opponents traveling to Honolulu. The annual cost to UH is between $1 million and $2 million.

While it is hard to see UA-F making a D1 move, I think the only way UA-A gets into the WAC is with UA Fairbanks. It'll sure put a bit of strain on the GNAC D2 conference they currently play.

(02-22-2014 04:05 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I can't see UAF moving up, but after investing $100 million plus in a new state-of-the-art sports arena, I would consider UAA a viable WAC candidate. Plus there are about five daily direct flights to Anchorage from Seattle, making it easy to pair up UAA with the University of Seattle as a travel partner. There are also direct daily flights to Anchorage from Phoenix and Denver.

On the travel subsidy question, yes the University of Hawaii pays subsidies to both the MWC and BWC that cover the expense of all conference opponents traveling to Honolulu. The annual cost to UH is between $1 million and $2 million.

If the WAC loses more schools and needs replacements, then the Alaska schools shouldn't have to pay that much of a travel subsidy to the WAC. They will have leverage, plus they will have the expenses of moving up to D-I to take care of.

I don't see this as a bad idea. Ok..1 plane trip per team per year (go up there, play both UAF and UAA, go home). Is it really that much more of a deal than flying to another city?

(02-22-2014 04:05 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I can't see UAF moving up, but after investing $100 million plus in a new state-of-the-art sports arena, I would consider UAA a viable WAC candidate. Plus there are about five daily direct flights to Anchorage from Seattle, making it easy to pair up UAA with the University of Seattle as a travel partner. There are also direct daily flights to Anchorage from Phoenix and Denver.

On the travel subsidy question, yes the University of Hawaii pays subsidies to both the MWC and BWC that cover the expense of all conference opponents traveling to Honolulu. The annual cost to UH is between $1 million and $2 million.

From the doorstep of the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of the Rio Grande. that's a pretty big footprint the WAC is going after. I do believe UAA would work for them.

Both UAA and UAF (the latter brands themselves as "Alaska", much like UNR is "Nevada") need to add sports to make the Division I minimum of 14.

Anchorage has 13 sports already and could get by with just adding rifle, which officially is a men's sport per the NCAA even though competition is coed; Fairbanks already fields a rifle squad.

Fairbanks has a tougher hill to climb as the Nanooks currently only field 5 sports for each gender (one of the five that counts for men is Rifle). The Nanooks already have a women's swimming program, so adding a men's program gets them up to six on that side. Women's ice hockey would be the next natural extension, since there is already a men's program, but there are no women's ice hockey teams west of Missouri. It might be easier to go with women's gymnastics (Anchorage already has a squad). That still leaves two other sports-perhaps it might be worthwhile to construct an indoor tennis facility and start both a men's and women's program. If the Nanooks need a 6/8 split instead of 7/7, build an indoor sand volleyball court and start a women's sand volleyball program instead of men's tennis.

If both started men's volleyball, and one other WAC school did, the WAC could sponsor it as a conference:

Grand Canyon (from Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association)
Alaksa
Alaska-Anchorage
fourth WAC school
Pacific (from MPSF)
BYU (from MPSF)
Pepperdine (from MPSF)

Even if it is desperate, who cares the WAC will be down to 8 next year, and w/ ORU moving back to the Summit and the Summit saying they can expand to 10-14(UMKC?, Chicago St.? both former members) depending on what the school offers the WAC needs to load up on anyone/everyone soon. Also SLC already had a site visit to UTRGV(UTPA) during their last expansion and that could be ORU's replacement. WAC needs to get on expansion, they'll have the minimum 7 counting members for an AQ and have 3 more years of GCU not counting.

(02-22-2014 07:42 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  If the Nanooks need a 6/8 split instead of 7/7, build an indoor sand volleyball court and start a women's sand volleyball program instead of men's tennis.

Sand volleyball is still an "emerging sport" in the NCAA. Do those count toward the minimum number of varsity sports a D-I school is required to sponsor?

(02-22-2014 07:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-22-2014 07:42 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  If the Nanooks need a 6/8 split instead of 7/7, build an indoor sand volleyball court and start a women's sand volleyball program instead of men's tennis.

Sand volleyball is still an "emerging sport" in the NCAA. Do those count toward the minimum number of varsity sports a D-I school is required to sponsor?

Here's the details on the whole D-I women's sand volleyball thing as per the NCAA:

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/...nterps.pdf

I'm not going to root through it and find a precise answer right now, but it should be in there somewhere for anyone who wants it bad enough.

Captain Bearcat Wrote:These two schools make a lot more sense than for-profit schools like Grand Canyon or online schools like Liberty.

Dude, why did you throw Liberty under the bus? You do realize that Liberty has around 14k residential students on a 7200-acre campus loaded with athletic facilities better or on par with nearly all G5 schools. Yes, Liberty has been incredibly more successful that UC and most other schools in leveraging the online wave. But setting aside LU Online, Liberty is a strong candidate regardless of your opinion of today's digital education options.

As for Alaska-Anchorage, I think it makes a ton of sense. I fly up to Anchorage on business on Monday as part of several trips up there each year because it is a financially booming area. There tons of flights from Anchorage to Seattle, Denver, Houston and most major west coast cities. Anchorage may have the nicest airport in America. I suspect that if this WAC move comes to pass, Alaska-Fairbanks will use their political muscle to force the state to help underwrite costs for both schools to compete at the DI level. And if that occurs, the NCAA will have some interesting decisions about whether to allow Simon Fraser to join in the mix. They already have allowed Grand Canyon to break the for-profit barrier and perhaps a Canadians school at the DI level could be next to help save a once venerable conference on the verge of extinction.

(02-22-2014 07:58 PM)CameramanJ Wrote:  

(02-22-2014 07:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-22-2014 07:42 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  If the Nanooks need a 6/8 split instead of 7/7, build an indoor sand volleyball court and start a women's sand volleyball program instead of men's tennis.

Sand volleyball is still an "emerging sport" in the NCAA. Do those count toward the minimum number of varsity sports a D-I school is required to sponsor?

Here's the details on the whole D-I women's sand volleyball thing as per the NCAA:

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/...nterps.pdf

I'm not going to root through it and find a precise answer right now, but it should be in there somewhere for anyone who wants it bad enough.

A maximum of two emerging sports may be used; see page 347 of http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/usc/...manual.pdf