Mike McFeely sits down with new MSUM President

Edna Szymanski spent 30 minutes talking 150 miles an hour about Minnesota State University Moorhead athletics earlier this week, expending more energy and brain cells on the Dragons than her nine predecessors combined.

The new MSUM president greets first-time visitors with a standard line: “Just call me Edna.”

Spend time with Szymanski and you’ll walk away with another thought: Just call her Hurricane Edna.

She became the MSUM president July 1, replacing the low-key Roland Barden. The difference in personality is astounding. So is the view on athletics. Barden didn’t detest intercollegiate sports, but he certainly didn’t recognize them as an asset.

Szymanski sees games in the same manner as many college presidents: As a way to raise the profile of a university and get into the pockets of alumni. If the results match the talk, or even come close, the Dragons will have their very own version of Joe Chapman, the president who’s led North Dakota State into a Golden Age of athletics with the idea that football and basketball games are the best way to sell your university.

“This is going to be a different time for Dragon athletics,” Szymanski said. “Mark my words.”

The promise comes across more ambitious than cocky, which is good considering MSUM’s long history of under-funded, under-supported athletic programs. The Dragons rank near the bottom of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference in scholarship money.

Still, Szymanski’s talk is big and aggressive. This is not business as usual coming from the presidential suite at Owens Hall in sleepy south Moorhead.

“I believe very much athletics aren’t an afterthought. They are the fabric of the institution,” Szymanski said. “I have to get scholarship dollars up. We have to get to a respectable rank within our conference, that’s all there is to it. Athletics are too important for it not to have this kind of effort. Of my energy and effort since I started here, I’d say the majority of my fundraising work has centered on athletics.”

The years will reveal how much substance is behind the style – this is the university that hired Alfonso Scandrett as athletic director, after all – but Szymanski’s early actions indicate a reason for optimism for long-suffering Dragon coaches and fans.

One of Szymanski’s first deeds was to name Doug Peters, Scandrett’s replacement as A.D., to her cabinet. This is the braintrust of vice presidents and other bigwigs that meets regularly with the president to help with decision-making. In Barden’s 14 years as president, the A.D. was never part of his cabinet.

“You can’t say athletics is part of the fabric and not have the A.D. sitting with you,” Szymanski said. “If you’re not present, you’re not thought of. I think athletics is key, so athletics is present.”
Szymanski has a big plan to raise big bucks for the athletic department.

She’s already approved a half-time position for an athletic fundraiser, which she hopes is only an appetizer. The main course will come with what Szymanski dubs an “investor adviser group.” She wants to find 10 heavy-hitters to give $50,000 each to MSUM over a five-year period. The $500,000 in seed money would fund a senior athletics fundraiser, a full-time person to harvest scholarship dollars.

Szymanski would like to have commitments in place by Jan. 1, so MSUM can begin finding its own version of Bison fundraiser extraordinaire Erv Inniger. The plan is bold, to say the least, but Szymanski has already met with possible donors. She said more are on the docket.

“It would be a catalytic transformation. This is something that would have an immediate impact,” Szymanski said. “The scholarship thing is terrible. Absolutely, positively terrible. We need to deal with that.”

Szymanski’s enthusiasm for athletics seems more practical than fanatical. She describes herself as only a lukewarm sports fan, but has seen the effect of successful athletic teams at previous career stops at Maine, Maryland and Wisconsin. While hitting up alums at Maryland, she found people who gave to athletics also gave to other areas of the university. A strong sense of excitement for athletics, she said, gave donors a tie to the campus and made them more willing to write a check.

Szymanski’s gusto over her athletic department came as a bit of a surprise. In a very brief interview the day she was introduced as MSUM’s president in April, Szymanski gave the following quote to Forum sports writer Heath Hotzler:
“I do believe that athletics can bring excitement to the community like nothing else – except the arts.”

At first, the comment raised an eyebrow. After some thought, it was assumed the new president was trying to perform the age-old tap dance routine titled “Not Stepping on Anyone’s Toes.”
Can you clear this up, President Szymanski?

“Let me explain this to you: Athletics is going to energize a whole lot more people. If I don’t say the arts somewhere in there, somebody is going to shoot me,” she said. “The number of people athletics can bring to a campus is extremely high. This campus does have some advantages in the arts, but I think athletics needs my attention right now and it is getting my attention.”
Rejoice, Dragons. A possible savior has arrived. Just call her Hurricane Edna.

Forum sports columnist Mike McFeely can be heard on the Saturday Morning Sports Show, 10 a.m. to noon on WDAY-AM (970). He can be reached at (701) 241-5580 or mmcfeely@forumcomm.com. McFeely’s blog can be found at www.areavoices.com