Oh, duh, teams in northern climates play in domes. That gives a Fairbanks football team a fighting chance.

(05-24-2016 10:31 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Just speaking from personal knowledge, but the Miami system would be a decent model to draw upon. You have the primary university in Oxford, but you also have branches in Hamilton and Middletown that are mostly two-year schools with a process for transferring students to the superior main campus if they make the grades. As of late they've been granting those regional campuses some more autonomy to offer some four-year programs not covered in Oxford. Sports-wise, they have their own programs that compete in a conference with other Ohio university branches, probably somewhere near Division II NAIA if I had to guess.

Quote:UpStreamRedTeam Wrote:
(05-24-2016 09:17 PM)NoDak Wrote:
(05-24-2016 09:03 PM)Wolfman Wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, Pitt and Rutgers have satellite campuses. No idea how they divide up the sports though.

Ohio State has satellite campuses that have athletic teams that compete in a separate organization / conference called something like OSUIA. The NCAA and NAIA need accreditation for each campus, and Ohio State can not provide that.

Almost all of the public universities in Ohio have at least one campus like this, and while most of them aren't officially in the NJCAA, they play NJCAA teams to fill out their schedule, however, they can participate in track and cross country meets with NCAA teams.

(05-25-2016 09:49 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  As I've said in another thread, there is no reason for Fairbanks to have any significant human presence year round. There just isn't.

Or for that matter to have the state capitol on an inaccessible (except by airplane or cruise ship) island.


I'm sure some clever (or dumb lucky) state politician caused the university to be established in Fairbanks. What is done is done. And almost impossible to be undone. Even if it makes no sense.

But if UA was going to merge into a single accredited system, then all four-year and graduate degree programs should be based from Anchorage. All sports should be in Anchorage. Fairbanks and Juneau should have two-year degrees than can transfer to Anchorage.

Alaska Fairbanks was created as Alaska Agriculture College and School of Mines.
Fairbanks was the primary agriculture area of the state as well as a major mining area. There was a federal agriculture research center there and there and the school really grew out of that. The school was started where the jobs were.

You'd have to give me a $5 million scholarship to go to school there. 18-20 hours of darkness for most of the non-summer school year? I bet depression is high in Alaska though its probably balanced by the summer time amount of sun.

Wonder how they do youth/HS baseball/football in Alaska. Keeping baseball exclusive to May-July and football exclusive to August-October would probably do wonders for participartion.

High school football begins mid-August and the regular season is eight weeks. There are only two large school conferences and two small school conferences. The large school semi-finals and small school championship games are the third weekend in October. The large school championship game is the last week in October.

Ark St,

I doubt that. Fairbanks growing season is what ... 2 months long?? Do you know how ridiculously cold it gets there?

Well how cold and dark does it get in the rest of the Land of the Midnight Sun/Noon Moon? IINM, Anchorage is surrounded by mountains, which means it doesn't have much room to farm. A farming locale would have to be somewhere with arable land and a decent population base.

(05-29-2016 01:13 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Ark St,

I doubt that. Fairbanks growing season is what ... 2 months long?? Do you know how ridiculously cold it gets there?

And much warmer than you realize in the summer. Fairbanks routinely sees 80 degree days in the summer with an occasional 90 degree day. Mid 90s is not unheard of in interior Alaska and the all time record for June, July, and Aug is 100, 99, and 99 for each of those months

You can sweat your butt off in Fairbanks at times.

I just looked up the 10 day Forecast for Fairbanks and every day is around 68-75...and it's not the warmest part of year yet. They have about 6 months of moderate to warm weather (50-80 degrees), mid Apr- mid Oct.

Alaska is also having wild fires as well. They have been dried enough times and with the polar bears losing their habitat each year.

(05-29-2016 01:13 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Ark St,

I doubt that. Fairbanks growing season is what ... 2 months long?? Do you know how ridiculously cold it gets there?

Doubt it all you like if ya don't mind being wrong. The valley Fairbanks is in was the agriculture center of the state until the late 1930's, the college was established in 1917.

(05-29-2016 02:02 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  

(05-29-2016 01:13 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Ark St,

I doubt that. Fairbanks growing season is what ... 2 months long?? Do you know how ridiculously cold it gets there?

And much warmer than you realize in the summer. Fairbanks routinely sees 80 degree days in the summer with an occasional 90 degree day. Mid 90s is not unheard of in interior Alaska and the all time record for June, July, and Aug is 100, 99, and 99 for each of those months

You can sweat your butt off in Fairbanks at times.

I just looked up the 10 day Forecast for Fairbanks and every day is around 68-75...and it's not the warmest part of year yet. They have about 6 months of moderate to warm weather (50-80 degrees), mid Apr- mid Oct.

And the long sunlight makes the growing season faster. My parents always talk about how they had never seen cabbage or strawberries so large as what grew around Fairbanks when they lived there.

(05-24-2016 01:45 PM)PlayBall! Wrote:  Pardon my ignorance, but do any of them already play FB? If so, in what NCAA division and conference?

If not and if combined, could they likely build an indoor stadium, nearby airport and hotels, field a team, and be worthy of a G5 conference? If HI can do it, AK should be able to as well, IMHO, if the state pulls together to make it happen (see NE's NU model).

I know they have D1 hockey. I think some high schools have football because I watched a documentary on Netflix about Alaskan football. I don't think their colleges have it though.

(05-29-2016 06:35 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(05-29-2016 02:02 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  

(05-29-2016 01:13 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Ark St,

I doubt that. Fairbanks growing season is what ... 2 months long?? Do you know how ridiculously cold it gets there?

And much warmer than you realize in the summer. Fairbanks routinely sees 80 degree days in the summer with an occasional 90 degree day. Mid 90s is not unheard of in interior Alaska and the all time record for June, July, and Aug is 100, 99, and 99 for each of those months

You can sweat your butt off in Fairbanks at times.

I just looked up the 10 day Forecast for Fairbanks and every day is around 68-75...and it's not the warmest part of year yet. They have about 6 months of moderate to warm weather (50-80 degrees), mid Apr- mid Oct.

And the long sunlight makes the growing season faster. My parents always talk about how they had never seen cabbage or strawberries so large as what grew around Fairbanks when they lived there.

Don't get me wrong their winters are extremely cold but summers are downright hot by Alaska standards and compared to Anchorage. 80 degrees and 20 hours of sunlight is very common.

(05-29-2016 07:11 PM)CyclonePower Wrote:  

(05-24-2016 01:45 PM)PlayBall! Wrote:  Pardon my ignorance, but do any of them already play FB? If so, in what NCAA division and conference?

If not and if combined, could they likely build an indoor stadium, nearby airport and hotels, field a team, and be worthy of a G5 conference? If HI can do it, AK should be able to as well, IMHO, if the state pulls together to make it happen (see NE's NU model).

I know they have D1 hockey. I think some high schools have football because I watched a documentary on Netflix about Alaskan football. I don't think their colleges have it though.

UND often signs Alaskan and western Canadian players. Chris Kuper, a UND OG from Anchorage, went on to become a starting guard and well paid star for the Denver Broncos. Alaska high schools have football programs, especially the bigger HS's.

(05-29-2016 07:11 PM)CyclonePower Wrote:  I know they have D1 hockey. I think some high schools have football because I watched a documentary on Netflix about Alaskan football. I don't think their colleges have it though.

The most famous team is at the top of the world in Barrow. Their team won their section as I remember it and the team and their coach jumped in the Arctic Ocean after the win.

Regardless, Fairbanks is nothing to Alaska in a post-oil world. No reason for it to have the state's flagship public university. It can have a two-year college and an agriculture extension station.

Cole Magner, a star football player at Alaska's Colony High School, had a very successful career as a wide receiver at Bowling Green a decade ago. I think he briefly made the Atlanta Falcons roster and played arena football for several years thereafter.

(05-30-2016 09:44 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Regardless, Fairbanks is nothing to Alaska in a post-oil world. No reason for it to have the state's flagship public university. It can have a two-year college and an agriculture extension station.

True and a factor to consider in making decisions going forward, but Fairbanks was the logical choice in the early years of the 20th century, which was my point in addressing a comment about some politician making it happen.

That's fine, if it was just going to be an agriculture college. But since it was also set up as the public university, it would seem that it should've been in Anchorage from the start.

But I guess the New England public flagships did the same thing. All six of them are out in the country. Though I'm not sure if Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine had (or even have, to this day) much of an urban center.