(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet Crookston, Minnesota Painter Ross Hier.

But first, joining me now is Matt Fetsch, the Executive Director of the North Dakota High School Activities Association.

Matt, thanks for joining us today.

- Yeah, appreciate being here.

- As we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- Well, I'm from North Dakota, lifelong Citizen, grew up, graduated from Munich High School, attended college at Mayville State, and have been involved in education and educationally-based athletics and activities for my entire, I guess, 19-year professional career now.

- Well, we're gonna talk about a number of things during the interview here, but let's start off with the plan to switch to a three-class system for North Dakota boys and girls high school sports, which specifically would impact maybe the Class-B schools.

Can you talk about the proposal?

- Sure, yeah, my Board of Directors, I work for an 11-person Board of Directors and handful of years ago, they created a procedure not just for basketball but for any sport or activity on what would need to be done to add a classification to what is currently used.

And as part of that, there was a group that, a focus group they called it, that was created to kind of put a proposal together to get in front of my Board of Directors and follow the procedure put in place.

That group got together well over a year ago, had a ton of meetings across the state, heard from all stakeholders, and back in November, got a formal plan to my Board of Directors for them to look at and as part of that procedure, the Board along with staff made a few tweaks to it and tried to put the best foot forward for a final vote, which took place in February of this past year.

- Yeah, let's, we're gonna talk about a number of things there.

You said it's an 11-member board.

How many staff do you have?

- Our office, we have eight full-time staff, so pretty small staff relatively compared to a lot of states and lot of other organizations.

But that Board of Directors meets, they have regularly-scheduled meetings five times a year and special meetings as needed.

And as you can imagine, a handful more than usual this year with the addition of the basketball classification.

- Yeah, well, and your headquarters is in.

- We're in Valley City, so about an hour straight west of Fargo, right on I-94.

And somewhere where we've been located since the late forties and like most states, it usually came down to wherever the executive director lived.

When you moved the office, in our case, Valley City, the city said, "We'll give you a free building if you have your headquarters here."

And the Board at the time said, "Sounds like a pretty good deal."

And that's how our headquarters ended up there.

- Well, it's my understanding that the switch from a two class to a three-class system has been talked about probably for a long time.

Why the switch now?

- Yeah, I think you go back to 1963, we actually did have three divisions of basketball at that time and at the time, the membership, as schools started to consolidate, they felt it was time to, we have fewer and fewer teams.

At the time, I believe there were 311 boys basketball teams in the state.

And the schools really just said, "It's ridiculous to have three divisions with only 311 teams."

So they voted almost unanimously to go to two divisions, which is the system we've been under now for roughly 60 years.

And yeah, I would venture to guess over those 60 years, three classes has, or going back to three classes has probably been discussed throughout that entire period and just picked up a little bit more recently.

I can't point finger at one certain thing, just a combination of things, but it seems like even five years ago or maybe even three, if you brought up three-class basketball, about half of people involved with schools just said no right away.

They didn't even wanna listen to a proposal or what it meant.

They were just opposed to it because they identified with Class B most cases and like things the way they were.

And just in the last few years, and I dunno if you would attribute it to COVID or the COVID carryover, but that 50% just gradually decreased over time to whatever the past year or so, it seemed like you'd maybe get 10% that just said no off the bat and just seemed like more people were willing to listen and be open-minded.

And that to me was the biggest change here recently compared to previous proposals or ideas.

- Yeah, you mentioned some tweaks.

Tell us about, yeah, so what are the three tiers and what were the tweaks that you had to do for the proposal?

- Sure, the proposal itself, basically, the Class A as we currently have, will virtually be known as Division AA moving forward.

There were five teams with the lowest enrollments in that division that will be in the middle division, which is called Division A now.

And then along with those schools, roughly the top 24 or so, Class-B schools in terms of enrollments are in that middle division as well.

And that leaves 70 some teams in the B division.

And it's something that's as far as tweaks go, pretty minor.

I think the concept of the original proposal, the biggest issue I guess if you will, that was discussed throughout.

It was a multiplier that was included for the non-public schools and schools that had a lot of open-enrolled students.

And there were some questions to the legality of it that was modified to better fit non-public and public schools, particularly in those larger communities.

And that was the biggest tweak and probably the other tweak, that major impact, something that'll be new next year, the creation of state qualifier games for the A and B division next year.

So the traditional region tournament will play out.

And the biggest change really logistically, particularly at the Class-B level is used to be eight regions.

You win your region, you move on to state.

In the new three-class plan with three divisions, it would be four regions.

So that's a big change, not only in the B division but also that A, middle division.

So next year, you win your region, you move on to state just like normal, so that gives you four teams.

And then there was state qualifier games added, so a couple days after the region tournaments, second-place team from one region will play the third-place team from another region and there'll be four of those games in each division, that'll determine the final four qualifiers.

So in reality, you may end up with up to three teams from one region that advance to the eight-team state tournament.

In other instances, you may only have one team that moves on.

So that's probably the biggest change structurally to the tournament side of things, which weather-wise could be a few obstacles with that, a pretty tight timeline and turnaround.

But something that initially, the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive where casual fans, school personnel think that that will be a great addition and something they're really looking forward to.

- Well, now you said schools seem to buy-in, but obviously, most schools must be on board or it wouldn't have gotten past.

But can you talk about what was, was there much pushback at all on this?

- Yeah, there's a lot.

I mean, tradition and change.

We say in North Dakota, there's two things people don't like.

They don't like things the way they are right now and they don't like change.

So inevitably, you're gonna have one of those two things, especially here.

And yeah, there was some resistance and I don't think as the plan evolved and the process evolved, the opposition wasn't necessarily to three divisions.

That became pretty generally overwhelmingly accepted.

When you're talking 80-some percent of your schools supporting something, that's almost unheard of when you have 170-member schools.

So the support was overwhelmingly there.

When it came down to it in February, the Board's biggest discussion and debate was timeline, where I think there was a little more split there on, is it something that should be implemented right away for next year or something that take time to place, had to get scheduling figured out, et cetera, and do it the following year in '24, '25.

So that was the major debate.

The Board unanimously approved three classes and adding on a division, like I said, the debate and I believe it was an eight-two vote to implement it next year in the '23, '24 season versus waiting a year.

And I really think, if not for COVID, I'm not sure that would've happened because during the COVID year, we were one of two states that went through, we had every championship that we normally would have, we had a few changes to formats, attendance restrictions, and so on.

But the thing we learned is we can pivot on a dime when we have to.

And I think that was kind of the mentality here when it was approved for next year, it put athletic directors in kind of a tough position with scheduling and so on.

They were normally done by February the previous year.

And then on our end, finding tournament sites for next year, which is still few things trying to be worked on based on availability, but just tighten the timeline a little bit.

But inevitably, it'll happen, we'll have three divisions, we'll have sites to have the tournaments.

Things are just gonna look a little bit different than maybe most people are accustomed to.

- Yeah, can can you talk about the kind of magic Class-B basketball has, sort of its history and its lore?

- Yeah, it's something you hear about, especially this time of year in March all over and stories and like I said, I saw a letter to the editor that talked about almost like a family union where that used to be the, it seemed like the UND, NDSU football game in the fall and the State B Boys Basketball Tournament in the spring were those times you saw a lot of people twice a year and yeah, the memories there and you look back just in my, this is my 13th year in the office and you just look boys and girls just championship games and the number of magical moments just in the last few years and it always gets compared to something in the past.

And the documentary, "The One Shining Moment," I remember watching it when I was in college and there was a lot of the B history I wasn't aware of.

I was always a fan during my lifetime, but something that really hit home even the richer history there moving into the past.

- Yeah.

One aspect we kind of hear is complaints from Class-B communities that private Class-B schools in the larger cities, obviously, in Fargo, Bismarck, Dickinson have advantages over these remote schools because they can recruit from the cities they're in.

Can you talk about that and is that play, how does that fit in?

What role does it play?

- Yeah, I don't know that was directly part of the proposal, but that's something talked about for years and years and it's not recruiting, it's just the population base in some, and it's not just private schools.

We probably heard more comment on the, I call 'em suburban schools or those Class-B schools located right near Class-A communities and just a perception seemed to develop that, that there were advantages there and our demographics have changed in our state a lot in the last generation with smaller and smaller rural schools, fewer rural schools.

And I think that may be played into it a little bit more than anything else, but something that really, if you look back at the history of the B back to 1933 is nothing new.

You had Minot Model, Minot, St. Leo's.

Even Devil's Lake had a private school at one time in Class B. St. Mary's was in Class B.

If you look back at previous championship games, the non-public representation has always been there.

Like I said, it's just been a little more societal shift here more recently that maybe sped it along a little bit.

- So, what do high school sports offer kids and how many sports are there in the state?

- In our state, we sponsor 22 athletic and fine-arts activities.

It's something where we say, we're kind of the last bastion of educationally-based athletics and activities where we're the, we feel that what we offer is the last classroom of the day and it's something that's an extension of the school day and over the years, so many of the coaches were, it was rare they weren't a teacher in that school.

And that's changed a little bit over the years as it gets harder and harder to find coaches.

But something that we're pretty passionate about along with 49 other states that do the same thing we do.

So something that we feel we're a little bit unique compared to the youth sports or other activities models out there that are just focused on the sports itself.

We hope that it creates something that helps 'em a little more throughout life.

- Yeah, well with that, can you talk about the benefits kids get from playing high school sports?

- Yeah, I think it's unmeasurable just the, you look back and just as a competitor myself and student athlete, I definitely remember games we lost and I was fortunate to play on some good teams, but all those lessons you learned by handling adversity throughout all the years and I think that's something that serves individuals later in life.

It's not a perfect storm if you will, and things don't always go as planned and just something that those life lessons carry over and the hope is it creates better citizens later in life and that's really what we're here for.

- Yeah, what about coaches and parents?

Can you talk about the time they put in for these high school sports?

- Oh, incredible.

You look at just coaches in particular, what they're paid and you figure it out hourly and it probably gets down to the cents 'cause they're putting in so much extra time.

Parents are more invested than they've ever been in our history.

It's starting with the youth sports, every Saturday and Sunday they're at a tournament somewhere from seems like November through March, and parents like I said, are very invested in any sport or activity by the time they get to the high school level.

And it's something that creates some unique challenges as well with it.

But just a sign of the times and it's no doubt the investment level is high enough where it makes what we do very important to very many people and that's why you wanna make sure it's done right and everything has the best foot going forward.

- Yeah, what some people don't think about and probably others talk a lot about is what about referees and volunteers?

How do you go about finding these type people to help work those games?

'Cause the games don't go on without somebody refereeing the games.

- Yeah, I think nationally, we hear a lot about the official shortage in every sport and activity.

We've been pretty fortunate in our state in that, the best recruiters are the officials themselves.

It seems like they can identify someone, they're officiating, whether they're at the high school level and you'll hear, they might make a good official someday and try and recruit them at a young age.

And we've been around since 1908 as an athletic association, activities association and there's probably never been a time in those hundred plus years where you've had too many officials.

There's always been basically enough to cover the games.

The unique thing now, you talked about investment and everyone being involved and it's been unique here the last 10 years or so.

After a generation, we've had new high schools created as some of these Class-A communities continue to grow, new teams created, and we didn't have that for a long time and what that means is we have more games than we've ever had as well as these teams start growing not just at the varsity level, but they all have JV 1, JV 2 teams or sophomore, sophomore 1, just a ton of sub-varsity games and they're typically sometimes harder to fill with the times they're played.

So the reality is the schools as well are, they're some of the best recruiters where if they don't have the officials, they don't have the games and they do a real good job going out to find those individuals to make sure those games are played.

- Yeah, I think you quoted 311 schools earlier.

How many schools are in the state now?

- Right now, we have 170 member schools, roughly 110 basketball teams.

So, a little over a third of what we had 60 years ago in that, like I said, the population shifts, communities becoming smaller, and the advent of the cooperative sponsorship or co-ops where we have multiple, some cases, up to five schools co-oping to form one team and field a team and something that is unique to the fabric in North Dakota.

Again, you visit with someone in another state and they don't even know what you're talking about when you talk about co-ops, but something unique here and some great memories and friendships made along with everything that comes with the new co-op.

- Do you have a favorite sports memory when you were growing up?

- Boy, it's hard to pinpoint one.

I go back to, like I said, I graduated from Munich.

I was in fifth grade during the 1992 State Tournament and I remember Munich playing Watford City.

It was a rematch of the previous year state tournament.

Both of them had a good chunk of their teams back and back then before the tournament was seated, it was all predetermined by regions.

They happened to match up in the quarter final round in the afternoon session and they still say it's maybe the biggest crowd ever in the Minot State Dome on a Thursday afternoon with so many people that wanted to see that game.

And it's, again, that sticks out to me and I'm a little biased 'cause of where I graduated, but it, like I said, it's hard to pick just one, but definitely one that comes to the top of my head just being where I grew up.

- Talk about football for a minute.

How is it divided in North Dakota into classes and of course, with the nine and 11-men teams?

- Sure, North Dakota, we've had a four-division set up since 1997 and for the most part, it was set by a number of teams over those years, 16 in the top, the next 16 here.

And that's evolved over the years and several years ago, basically, it was split into Class A and Class B and within the Class A, there's two divisions of 11-man football defined as AA and A and in Class B, the 11 man and nine man.

And it basically just takes the Class A, divides it in half with number of teams and the Class B half with number of teams and there's other parameters in there that allow schools to maybe opt down to a division where they fit a little bit better.

And also with teams moving up and again, since 1997, it's something that's been tweaked almost annually as things evolved and I would venture to guess in three divisions of basketball, that's something that will happen moving forward for as long as I'm around as well as tweaks being made to try and make things a little bit better.

- Okay, so wrestling, other sports, are they impacted at all?

- No, this only impacts basketball.

The bylaws we have define if any division, sorry, if any sport or activity has two divisions that they are split into A and B, here's the enrollment cutoff, pretty straightforward.

So this does not impact other, however, I would venture to guess down the road, it wouldn't surprise me if other sports, volleyball's the one we hear the most about right now with down the road, it may make sense for them to do something similar.

But in reality, other than that, you're looking at mainly individual sports, not necessarily team sports.

And we do have a lot of team sports that do only have one division just based on the sheer number of teams.

- Yeah, Matt, what's the best part of your job?

- The people, like I said, I look back, this is my 13th year in the office and I often think, especially at tournament time, running into some folks that, if it weren't for having the opportunity to have this position, I would've never met this person.

And they turned out to be one of your, maybe your best friends moving forward.

And I think without a doubt, that's something.

And when I talked to predecessors, that was always the first thing they said is the people you meet in this job and how that'll be your favorite part of it.

- Okay, well, we're almost out of time Matt, but if people want more information about this, where can they go?

Who can they contact?

- I would definitely direct them to our website, ndhsaa.com.

I think the first thing, the first link you see on there says three-division basketball.

You can click on there, get all the information you want.

We have other documents there that in our tournament information that have pretty rich history of like we've talked about earlier and you'll be able to find all that on our website.

- Matt, thanks for joining us today.

- Yeah, thank you very much, appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat soft rock music) Ross Hier of Crookston, Minnesota is an award-winning painter specializing in detailed, intricate portraits of birds, many that he's seen throughout his travels across the world.

(soft country music) (birds chirping) - You can go anywhere on the planet, there's gonna be a bird species there.

There's something like 9,000 species on the planet, still some being discovered today, which is amazing considering how populated the earth is.

I just think it's such a gift to the earth and humanity to have these creatures around.

(soft country music) I started painting when I was probably seven or so.

I had just a desire to create these incredible creatures that I could see every day of my life.

Never had any training in school.

I'm a wildlife biologist by training, so my whole being is immersed in nature.

There's all kinds of offshoots that come from that every day of my life, whether it's making duck decoys or painting or walking on the Prairie and just observing.

I definitely gravitate towards watercolors.

My excitement is getting pigment on watercolor paper.

Ideas come to my mind and some of them have been described as whimsical.

I don't like to use the word realistic.

I yearn in my mind to be more impressionistic.

My style tends to be loose background washes and then bringing detail forward.

Sometimes when you travel, you get all kinds of great gifts and Ecuador boasts an amazing 164 species or so.

I saw several hundred new species on that trip, but of them were 33 hummingbird species.

When I got home, I just got this wild idea to paint all 33 of those species and I'm up to about number 18 and it's already been two and a half years since that trip.

It's fun, they're challenging.

Watercolors doing iridescent bright colors is difficult for me anyway.

it's been a fun project.

We've been gone from Antarctica quite some time, but it was the most amazing place I've ever been on the planet and it's a watercolor painter's dream world 'cause of all the blues and greens and the ice and the bird life.

I've done a few Antarctica paintings, but I'd like to do kind of a series of that.

- I've known Ross for I would guess over 20 years actually.

He started doing art when he was working with the DNR and our relationship grew because we have an annual art show, so he would enter two pieces of his watercolor that he would do when he was out on the job.

He had a really great year with us.

He was recognized as our Artist of the Year and then the juror selected him as second place.

- That's a real feather in my cap and I'm proud of it because Northwest Minnesota has some tremendous artists.

You go through life doing what you do and whether it was in my professional work or my hobbies, when you just put your nose to the grindstone and love what you're doing as an effort, you do find out that people do see that.

I think that's all anybody can hope for.

- I've really enjoyed his art.

He has a fine style to the way that he handles watercolor, his love of nature and his very specific attention to detail because he knows the animals so well.

He can talk about the bird itself because he has his career working with nature and with wildlife.

- It is something I'm so glad that it's still burning in me.

I'll paint as long as my hands and my mind, vision-wise is kind of a big deal.

I've been nearsighted since I was in fifth grade.

I've got hearing aids now.

I mean, (chuckles) slowly being kept together with technology.

It's something I can continue to do.

There are thousands of people that paint and do other things, but to be able to keep that love for it here, that's the big gift to me.

I've had a great life.

I mean, I don't know how life can get any better.

(soft country music) - Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Post" for this week, and as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.