Dickinson State University has begun again, recruiting Thug Hoodlum athletes. I don’t like that my state income tax money, is being used to provide scholarship money and financial assistance to someone from a foreign country, to come attend school in Dickinson, and when they get here they have an attitude of arrogance, entitlement, and wanting to disrespect and fight me.
When I first came to Dickinson in 2011, the office manager of the company where I worked was complaining to me about the Thug Hoodlum athletes that had been recruited by Dickinson State University. Several of her neighbors’ houses had been broken into recently, and her husband just caught a DSU student athlete inside their house late one night after they had gone to bed.
I remember one DSU athlete in particular from 2011, everywhere I ever saw him, he was causing problems and getting into trouble. Even though he might have only gone to DSU for one or two semesters, he stayed in Dickinson for several years. Many, many people in Dickinson began to notice, that there were people of bad character who had been brought to Dickinson by DSU athletics, they quit going to school, but remained in Dickinson causing problems.
After the scandal of 2012, that resulted from the discovery that foreign students were being awarded degrees from DSU without having completed their course work, DSU changed many of its practices. After 2013, I no longer saw Thug Hoodlum athletes being recruited to DSU.
In fact, after 2013, the DSU Football team players were some of the nicest, most decent, respectful young men that I have ever met. Many people in Dickinson noticed this, and discussed this. Employers were happy to have these DSU football players as part-time or seasonal employees because they were good kids.
On this past Friday night at 9:00 p.m., I went to a diner in Dickinson after having worked all week far outside of Dickinson where there wasn’t any internet service. I was using my computer to check my e-mail and read my Facebook while I was eating. When anyone came in, I looked up to see if it was someone that I knew, I have been going to this diner for the past five years.
Two DSU Women’s Basketball players walked in wearing their DSU team warm-ups. When they sat down at the table behind me, I looked up to see who they were, and I said “hello” to them, and I went back to what I was doing. Both of these young ladies sneered and glared at me, acted like they had a chip on their shoulder, and a very bad attitude.
When someone else came in the diner, I looked up to see if it was someone that I knew, to acknowledge them or say hello to them. Every time that I looked up or looked around, these two DSU Women’s Basketball players became angrier and angrier toward me, acting like they were wanting and ready to fight me.
If you have ever been around people who came from the street, people who are involved in street gangs, people who have been in jail and prison, who try to be threatening, intimidating, challenging, and confrontational with people, like they are ready and wanting to fight, this is exactly how these two young women acted.
I felt, here we go again, DSU is recruiting Thug Hoodlum people for their athletic programs again. I looked up the DSU Women’s Basketball roster, and I saw that the player who was acting the most aggressive and wanting to fight me, was from a foreign country. This is her first semester at DSU, before that she went to Miles City Community College in Montana.
Reading the DSU Women’s Basketball team roster further, I saw that the women’s basketball coach, Liz Lewis, came from Miles City Community College where she coached women’s basketball last year. I saw that she brought three women’s basketball players with her from Miles City Community College.
I can’t believe that tax payer dollars in North Dakota, are being used to provide athletic scholarships and financial assistance to people from a foreign country to attend school in Dickinson, and when they get here they act arrogant, entitled, and act nasty toward the tax payers that are paying for them. I doubt that DSU Alumni and financial donors would like that DSU is once again recruiting athletes that are people of bad character and with bad behavior.
I wonder if the DSU faculty, campus police, students, and other women basketball players have had run-ins or problems with these two women. If DSU continues to recruit athletes that behave like this, this will be more reason for parents not to send their kids to DSU, and for the North Dakota State Legislature to become persuaded that Dickinson State University is not a campus that should be supported or continued.
I am going to find the North Dakota State Legislators that have been advocating for closure of DSU, and bring to their attention what the Women’s Basketball program is doing.
I later found out, that on this particular Friday night, the DSU Women’s Basketball Team had just had a 77-47 loss in Dickinson. This is no reason for two players angry with their loss, to go take out their anger on a 48 year old grey bearded man who is sitting and eating by himself in a diner.
Update 9/8/2018:
I looked up the Dickinson State University Women’s Basketball program for the 2018-2019 season. This will be coach Liz Lewis’ second year as head coach. Just about everything from last year’s season 2017-2018, is gone from the internet, the team roster, the game results, the photographs, everything. Now, going forward, the women’s basketball program appears to be more positively oriented, and more image conscious. It appears that everything that I was angry about, has been addressed.
I looked at the 2017-2018 roster. I’m glad it seems the people you’re talking about happen to be white. I wouldn’t want your comments dismissed as being biased by race (I don’t believe they are, but these days too many want to go there). What strikes me as curious about the team is how short they are. Out of 12, only three are tall, 4 if you include 5’9″ as tall (it’s not that tall for basketball, even women’s BB, these days). The heights seem more like what you’d find in an average high school team. That said, I have never watched these athletes play and I know nothing about them. A couple years ago, one of my daughters (who is 6’0) was hanging out at the rec center and the DSU women’s team was practicing. They asked her to stand in for somebody and play with them. She said they were really good (and nice to her). That was a couple years ago.
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Also, what specifically were they doing? What does “acting like they were wanting and ready to fight me” look like? Were they making hand gestures, saying something? My question is sincere. This is sounding kind of strange, unless these girls thought you were staring or something. I’m going to be direct with you and say this all sounds peculiar. Female athletes do tend to be different from the non-athletes, IMHO. Daughter was an athlete in high school and the girls HAD to be tough. My daughter developed what I described as “net face”. She played VB and when she’d stand at the net, she’d have “net face”, a look of contempt, but also with boredom like she was trying to intimidate the girl on the opposite side. I think athletics are GREAT for young women because they DO TEND to make them stronger people (again, IMHO). No crying in the dugout and all that. Please explain what they were doing, only because I am curious.
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s,
I have been going to bars for about 27 years, bars all over the U.S., some of them pretty rough, where men not only wanted to fight, they also would not have hesitated to stab, or shoot someone. In these bars, and elsewhere, I have been around many criminals, convicted murderers, convicted attempted murderers, thieves, drug dealers,fighters,etc. When thug people start aggressing toward others, they begin glaring, sneering, scowling, staring, and agitating to make someone else uncomfortable, not liking it, taking offense, believing that they are being threatened, and will have to defend themselves, until it does come to fight.
In the case of these two women, this wasn’t even in a bar, this was in a diner. They kept pushing it, and pushing it, glaring, sneering, scowling, expressing anger toward me, and disapproval, well past what would have caused a fight between two men, which would have begun with, “What the fuck are you looking at, do you have a problem?”
To be honest, I was very close to getting up, walking over to her, and yelling in her face, “What the fuck………………………!”, and then …………….., and then proceeding to ……………… Though I could have, I didn’t, because I don’t want to go to jail.
It is difficult, time after time, to just let people get away with aggression and disrespect with no consequences. Because women are less physically strong than men, they are mostly excused from physical consequences, which leads some women to believe that they are backing men down. They don’t realize that men are chosing to spare them the physical harm that would have been done to a man who did the same thing. Some women don’t realize that someone much stronger than them could grab hold of them and beat them nearly to death.
Some women just taunt and taunt, and then when they get beat up, they are such innocent victims. Women are such badasses, tough as anybody, but then when they get hurt by a man, its just cry, cry , cry, why would anybody hit a woman? Because she didn’t stop taunting someone and instigating a fight, that’s why.
S, you said that this whole thing sounds peculiar, yes it is peculiar. This is not normal for two young women to want to fight a man. I later found out that on this Friday night, the DSU Women’s Basketball Team had just had a 77-47 loss. I now believe, that they were angry about their 30 point loss, and they wanted to take their anger out on somebody that they thought they could get away with it on, a grey bearded old man sitting in a diner eating by himself.
But hey, I’m wrong, because women never do anything wrong.
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