RAPID CITY, S.D. --- To borrow a sports cliché, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

For the South Dakota Mines athletic department, the Hardrockers are consistently looking ahead after making the move from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) to the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II over 11 years ago.

South Dakota Mines was accepted into Division II in 2010 and began a three-year transition from the NAIA in 2011-2012. The Hardrockers became a full-fledged member of NCAA Division II starting the 2013-2014 school year.

The Hardrockers initially began as a D-II independent. In 2014, the Hardrockers were accepted into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, with the football program joining the RMAC in 2016. The football program initially competed for two seasons in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and the men's soccer program for one season.

South Dakota Mines athletic director Joel Lueken said they are doing what they feel they need to do to be competitive at the Division II level and they have plenty of room to grow. He said an inspired athletic department to keep an eye on is the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo., a fellow RMAC institution.

The Orediggers have been in Division II for over 20 years and are arguably one of the top five athletic departments in the country. In 2018, they were ranked third in the country overall in D II. Colorado Mines has 18 varsity sports, compared to 13 for South Dakota Mines.

"They are at a high level at everything they do," he said. "We're getting there, we're competing against them with athletes, we're competing against the Air Force Academy and Ivy Leagues and some high academic institutions to get those mid-major Division I caliber athletes. It's a process, you have to be patient."

What do Division II student-athletes need?

When Lueken came to South Dakota Mines in 2014 from William Jewell, he did a student survey in which he felt encompassed everything that went on with their student-athlete experience. He said one of the top things that they have done for their athletes is create a better experience medically, along with strength conditioning and sports performance.

With their partnership with Monument Health, the South Dakota Mines athletic department employs two full-time trainers and two full-time strength and conditioning coaches and it consults with the coaches and the athletics department.

No. 2 in the survey was developing a culture of not making any excuses.

"I will get in trouble for saying this, but I absolutely despise the song, "That's all right, that's OK, you are going to work for us someday,'" Lueken said. "In my eyes that justifies losing. That's not the competitive culture that we want to establish. You should never justify losing just because you are a higher academic institution."

Third, he said they have to have better facilities, which means they have to improve O'Harra Stadium. Lueken had hoped they were on their way with the stadium when they applied last fall for $5.75 million in Vision Funds money from the City of Rapid City, but they were denied.

"It was unfortunate that we were unable to get Vision Funds, but that facility is dated," he said. "It is a unique facility. I don't want to change the ramps, I don't want to change anything. But we need a women's locker room. We need to get the concession stands from out underneath the bleachers where you are afraid what is going to land on you. We need to give it a little more of an aesthetic appeal."

Differences from NAIA to Division II

Longtime broadcaster Tom Rudebusch has watched some outstanding athletes in basketball and football in his 43 years at South Dakota Mines.

Now with the school 11 years into its tenure at the Division II level, Rudebusch said the biggest difference now is the talent level.

"When we first decided to go D II, none of our coaches had really recruited D-II athletes or had to try to compare a D-II athlete with a NAIA athlete," he said. "Especially in the last five years, the talent level has really increased on our teams, especially in football."

Early in the D-II days, Rudebusch said it appeared that there was somewhat of a lag in some of the athletes understanding that South Dakota Mines was not at the NAIA level anymore.

"A lot of athletes still didn't view us as a D-II school, and obviously that has changed in the last few years," he said. "The change in the schedule is another factor in that. Our coaches had not been through the rigors of the D-II schedule. In the NAIA you had a lot of games where you probably knew you were going to win before you even stepped out on the floor or field. In the RMAC, it is tough to win a game, let along win on the road. It is just a competitive conference."

Lueken said that the biggest thing he has noticed is the expectations are a little bit higher in NCAA Division II, compared to NAIA. He said that everybody has a strength and conditioning coach, if not two, and the attention for physical and mental awareness, nutrition, and sleep is all hyped.

"You have to pay attention to that now because everybody else is playing attention to it," he said. "If you are not, you are going to lose out on kids because they will go someplace that has that, to take care of their athletes."

Lueken said the trend lines in college athletics, whether right or wrong, and the amount of money that is being spent is on an upward trajection.

"If you can't at least maintain it, you are falling behind," he said. "We're spending a lot of time and thoughts on how we help our kids with nutrition, how we help our kids with recovery after practices. Playing a game in Salt Lake City and getting on the bus for another six hours, that's not real healthy for people. That adds to people's stress loads. We require Wi-Fi on the busses for our trips so at least our kids can get their homework done.

"It is a higher level, which I think has brought the institution a larger ring, so to speak, of marketing, branding and exposure, especially down in the Metro Denver area. Colorado has the second largest and sometimes the largest number of athletes that we have in the department."

Getting the best student-athletes possible

Lueken said that if their recruiting can get more consistent, their trend line should go up with wins and losses without sacrificing any academics. He said it is 100 percent a process.

Much of that success comes from the school's ability to improve on its athletic scholarships.

South Dakota Mines has gone from about $575,000 in money for scholarships in 2014 to about $1.3 million today. Still, that is less than half of what the NCAA allows ($2.8 million).

The South Dakota Mines athletic program has "moved the needle quite a bit," said Lueken, who mentions a story that Doug Schlepp (1970-74), the Hardrocker men's basketball all-time leading scorer, likes to tell. 

"Doug said that he got $250 to play basketball here. He said he got rewarded his senior year when he got $600. I know the costs were different then, but whether it is right or wrong, we have to have the ability to give full scholarships for some of our sports," he said. "In order to get a caliber of academic athlete away from Colorado Mines or the academies or the lower-level Division I's, we have to be able to make it financially appealing to them and their families. I guarantee you someone else is, although there are no guarantees that if you give somebody a full scholarship that they will be an All-American, All-Conference or All-World."

When recruiting today's student-athlete at the Division II level, Lueken said that everything matters. For instance, the Hardrocker basketball program has a nutrition center in its locker rooms. A player can go get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after a workout or chocolate milk or protein shake.

"That stuff matters. It may not have mattered in the 90s when I was going to school, because I never thought of that. But it matters now because someone else is doing it, and they are using that," he said. "Renovating the weight room by painting it, getting some new equipment, putting the Grubby logo on it – branding it and creating a sense of unity and a sense of pride in the facilities that you have.

"That stuff is all important. When I came here this building (King Center) had no signage on it, no branding on it. We are slowly putting the Grubby logo up as much as we can, where we can. We're trying to make things look nice. Nothing against what was taking place in the past, this is just some of the things we must do in order to be successful in the future."

South Dakota Mines head men's basketball coach Eric Glenn has been through the NAIA-NCAA Division II transition twice. The first time came at Chadron State College where he was an athlete – football and basketball – in NAIA, then coming on as an assistant basketball coach when the Eagles transitioned to NCAA Division II.

His second transition came at South Dakota Mines as a longtime assistant men's basketball coach under Jason Henry. Glenn took over as head coach before the 2018-19 season.

"A lot of it just comes down to, No. 1, being able to catch up in the scholarship area," he said. "When we were at Chadron, it was not quite as big for us because there were still some haves and have-nots, so to speak. There were a lot of have-nots like Western State and Fort Lewis. A lot of the Colorado schools did not make the jump scholarship-wise right away. Some stayed that way until the last seven or eight years."

Glenn added that you had to put together your two tough classes with those scholarships because you weren't going to spread it out amongst four classes, and then you had to rebuild again.

At South Dakota Mines, he believes they have gotten ahead of that kind of curve considering they were joining a league that was already Division II for 25 years.

"You had all of these schools who had already had their opportunity to build and develop, and now they have added all of those non-football schools," he said. "Schools like Regis, Metro, Pueblo, they were already DII (in basketball), but they were in their own league at that time."

Lueken said that the school's fundraising organization, the Hardrock Club, is essential to their success. There are only about 2,200 athletic alumni out of 15,000 or 16,000 total alumni.

"It's a small portion of the pie to go after scholarships," he said. "The other part of that is corporate partnerships. We have had fantastic partnerships with some engineering firms who like, for a better word, to write us a check because they just want to help out the athletic department because they are either a former athlete here or a former athlete at another institution. They want to hire those kids down the road for co-ops, internships, or maybe full-time employment.

"All of that is an appendage of the athletic department that is just as essential as the students themselves. We need scholarships to attract the talent, so to speak, and we need to perform on the fields of play. In order to do that, you have to be able to get more money. It just keeps spinning in a circle and it is not going to stop. This year we are at $1.23 million. We could have handed out $2.8 million – that is fully funded everyone we have in all 13 sports offered."

Competing on the field, court, course, and track

The Hardrockers certainly had success on the NAIA level throughout the years before moving to Division II.

The men's basketball program won nine conference titles and had two national tournament appearances (1972-1973, 1996-1997). The women's program won 13 conference titles, 11 under head coach Barb Felderman, and made nine national tournament appearances (1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-00, 2001-02 and 2004-05). The Hardrocker women had eight Sweet 16 appearances and played in two title games (1998, 1999).

The volleyball program won seven conference titles, also under Felderman, and the Hardrocker football program won 14 SDIC titles.

In track and field in the NAIA era, the Hardrocker men were All-American in 11 events and the women in six events.

In Division II, it has been an up and down process, certainly with a slower start. Both basketball programs and the volleyball squad have now qualified for the RMAC Tournament in the last four seasons, with multiple individual all-conference performers in football and track and field.

Lueken believes the Hardrockers are showing signs of becoming more consistent, although he said they still must always improve their recruiting.

"The bar has been set, so now let's recruit even better," he said. "I don't think that is too much to ask. We have a bunch of competitive coaches, and we have a bunch of competitive kids, and they want to get better."

Glenn said in the early years of D-II, the biggest thing was the unknown of what it was going to take to be competitive.

"Any conference that you were away from, you forget what the feel was of a league or a level that you are playing at," he said. "For us, since we didn't get in the RMAC right away, we were the only independent west of the Mississippi. We were able to play some in the MAIAA – Kearney and Fort Hayes – but other than that we were going to Texas and playing Lone Star teams, which is one of the top conferences in the country."

Glenn said they had good players back in the NAIA days and early D-II days, but he thinks they just have more of them now. Now instead of finding a 6-foot-1, 6-2 guard that shoots 38 percent from the 3-point line, you can get that 6-4, 6-5 guard that can shoot 38-40 percent from 3.

"There might be a little more athleticism, but it is more the size of the kid you can get now," he said. "It's not that size is everything, but you look across the league – Black Hills State starts a 6-4 point guard. Colorado Mines next year will start a 6-4 point guard. Colorado Mesa starts a 6-4, 6-5 point guard and they only get bigger from there."

Lueken added they have recently been fortunate to have athletes like Ryan Weiss, who came into the women's basketball program (2017-2022, two-time first-team All-RMAC), and Jake Sullivan (quarterback), who was at South Dakota Mines from 2015-2018 and left as the program's all-time leading passer.

"Now we have to get to a point where we have one of those kids every year," he said. "We need a Jake Sullivan-B and a Jake Sullivan-C just waiting in the wings to take over, so we don't drop down talent-wise."
It is no different at any level, Rudebusch said, as teams win with players. It all comes down to "recruiting, recruiting, recruiting."

"I think a lot of our football kids are really sold by the coaches and players when they come on campus. They do a wonderful job," he said. "They have a culture in their program that is a winning culture. It is a pretty tight-knit group. I think that comes from head coach Charlie Flohr and I think it comes from the coaching staff. "

Lueken said having success in athletics at an academic school is not something they should apologize for. They need to celebrate it and say they want to keep doing it.

"When our men's and women's basketball teams made the RMAC Tournament and our women's volleyball team made the RMAC Tournament, we want that to happen every year, and we should celebrate that," he said. "These kids have worked exceptionally hard to put their program in that position."

The future: Scholarships and improving facilities

To keep moving forward, Glenn said they just have to keep recruiting the best athletes that fit in with what South Dakota Mines is all about; they are not a school that bends corners.

"They have to be strong in academics, especially in basketball because it is a two-semester sport," he said. "I'm not big on comparisons, but the top-level D-II schools probably have bigger staffs, and that gets you more people to get out there and recruit. But we're at a point now that we are finally getting in a good spot for us, we're making strides in the scholarship department."

To stay with the top teams in the conference, particularly Colorado Mines, Colorado State-Pueblo, Colorado Mesa, and even in some aspects rivals Black Hills State University and Chadron State College, South Dakota Mines also needs to improve its facilities.

Lueken said that two areas of improvement need to be at O'Harra Stadium and the possibility of an indoor facility that could include a 300-meter indoor track, much like Pittsburg State (Kansas), which hosts the indoor national track championships.
"We have an indoor facility for our track and field program, but we have the caliber of athletes that the runway is too short for their athleticism," Lueken said. "We had an All-American pole vaulter (Erica Keeble) here that couldn't train unless she was able to go outside or go someplace else because the runway was too short."

There's a plan, he added, and with part of that trend line going up, they need to move ahead.

The locker room at O'Harra Stadium isn't big enough and there is no women's locker room at the stadium, which is a Title IX concern. Lueken said they have press boxes where you can't see the entire field unless you press your face against the window, and they are not big enough. When they put in a new scoreboard a couple of years ago, they had to bring in six more people to run it.

"It is always evolving, and it is always moving forward," he said. "If you are going to have college athletics, you have to embrace that reality."

As an athletic department, Lueken said their goal financially is to reach out to alumni, city, county civic groups, and corporate naming possibilities.

"There aren't too many places where somebody drops a $100 million check as an alum," he said. "A new facility with community camps and track meets and basketball tournaments that will bring economic impact to Rapid City. It is going to help everybody out and obviously it will help us recruiting. I see that as a win-win. I know the community views us as a technical and an academic institution, and there is nothing wrong with it, but why not be good at athletics too?"

In its second decade as a Division II athletics program, that's the goal.

About South Dakota Mines
The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and NCAA Division II offering 11 men's and women's varsity intercollegiate athletic programs. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is a premier NCAA Division II conference with 15 members, as well as four associate members, located in the states of California, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.