FARGO — Rick Berg graduated from North Dakota State in 1981 when the school’s football program was playing outdoors at old Dacotah Field. The Bison were members of Division II, with the NCAA just eight years removed from restructuring two forks of membership (University and College divisions) to divisions I, II and III.
Those days are light years away from what Berg oversaw as the interim university president, with his 15-week tenure officially ending last Friday. In a matter of a couple of weeks, if not a few days, he lived Division I FBS football.
Berg, outgoing president David Cook and athletic director Matt Larsen signed an agreement with the Mountain West Conference on Sunday night Feb. 8, which was Cook’s last day on the job at NDSU. Berg was named to succeed Cook in mid-January, which was around the first time Berg found out about NDSU’s dalliance with FBS membership.
“They had been working on it for years,” Berg said. “At the time we had commitments to cover the initial expenses. It looked to me like it was going to be a big lift with the scholarships, adding people and the travel but clearly at that point the first 2 ½ years were covered. I felt good, but nervous about the financial lift.”
Berg could go down as a Bison football trivia question. Who were the three men who announced that NDSU were accepted into FBS and the Mountain West? Cook and Larson were the other two.
It perhaps surpasses former NDSU vice president of student affairs Prakash Mathew as the most productive interim of a major athletic position at the school. Matthew was appointed interim athletic director after Gene Taylor left for the University of Iowa in the summer of 2014.
Larsen did not start until mid-October, with Matthew in the meantime overseeing a football program that won its first six games including a rout of Iowa State and hosting ESPN’s “College GameDay” pregame show two weeks later.
Berg’s three months was part of the movement to a higher level that, publicly, came about rather quickly. His first thought, he said, reflected what a lot of other Bison supporters were thinking: it’s time.
“We have to move there,” Berg said. “I was ready to move a couple of years ago so when they gave us the invite, I didn’t realize that they had held that pretty tight. One of the fascinating things for me was how much work was put into that. You look at the training facility, the athletes and just the whole athletic program, they came and looked at it to make sure we could be competitive.”
The excitement rose exponentially for Berg when he first met Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez, with the conversation touching on a $155 million lawsuit regarding exit and poaching fees with five schools leaving the Mountain West for the Pac-12 Conference.
“She told me about these lawsuits and what’s going on and that was probably the time when I thought, this is really big time,” Berg said. “She’s really smart, she’s an attorney and then there was an agreement that if you left you would pay $155 million, those are huge numbers.”
The two leagues settled the dispute last week with the Mountain West reportedly getting around $77 million from the Pac-12. NDSU is not in line to receive any of it.
Asked if he believes the funding will be there for the Bison in future years, Berg pointed to the national exposure of FBS football.
“If you look at all the teams that have moved up, their enrollment went up, that’s just a fact,” he said.
“Next year, 10 of our 12 games will be on national television.
That is going to be huge for NDSU. Huge for the brand. This is a big league and I’m not only excited for athletics but I’m excited for the whole university.”
That includes aligning with Wyoming, UNLV, Nevada and Hawaii in the Mountain West that are Land Grant Institutions like NDSU. The only remaining Land Grant in the Missouri Valley Football Conference is South Dakota State. Berg said he asked NDSU’s researchers and provosts to connect with Mountain West schools.
“We’re all in this Mountain West conference, can we go after research together?” he said. “What challenges are you having?”
Berg said he got a lot of input from Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman, who shared information on Wyoming’s Cowboy Joe Club and how it compared to NDSU’s Team Makers booster club.
“How we can be more effective in raising money in the Mountain West,” Berg said. “He was just so open with everything. I think they look at us as a potential rival and I think they would be a good rival for us.”
New president Marshall Stewart assumed his role last week. He’ll be attending his first Mountain West meeting next week with the league’s Board of Directors, with Berg helping lay the groundwork between Cook and Stewart.
“I wanted to make sure we’re doing everything we can do as a new member from NDSU,” Berg said. “But at the same time, from my perspective, it was getting things set up for Marshall.
Jeff Kolpack, the son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he’s covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995. He has covered all 10 of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written four books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough,” “Covid Kids” and “They Caught Them Sleeping: How Dot Reinvented the Pretzel.” He is also the radio host of “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” April through August.