Summit to examine Thursday-Saturday-Monday schedule setup

By Jeff Kolpack

January 07, 2009 at 11:00 PM

It was the third day of March last year and 2,000 fans populated the Bison Sports Arena. It was by far the busiest Monday of the season for North Dakota State, but they were there for another reason besides a women's basketball game.

It was Amy Ruley's last ride as the Bison head coach.

The crowd was the exception to NDSU's Monday rule, which in just over a year of Summit League play has been this: There are plenty of tickets available.

It is one reason why the league is looking at changing the Thursday-Saturday-Monday setup. The men play Thursday, the men and women play a doubleheader on Saturday and the women play Monday.

"There are a lot of positives on one side and lot of negatives on the other side," said Summit commissioner Tom Douple.

In other words: Don't look for a quick change.

For more, see tomorrow's Forum.

By Jeff Kolpack

Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough" and "Covid Kids." He is the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.