For UND Athletics, a ‘Division I place to live’

Housed in the Hyslop at Memorial Village building, UND Athletics’ new home will help the University recruit and retain top teams

Editor’s note: In the UND LEADS Strategic Plan, the Affinity core value calls on UND to “strengthen athletic excellence at UND by supporting our student athletes and enhancing our athletic facilities.”

With that in mind, this story calls attention to an event that’s part of the University’s commitment to student athletes’ success: the recent grand opening of the UND Athletics Department’s new offices.

* * *

Back in 2019, when Andy Armacost first toured UND Athletics’ old offices in the 1927-vintage Memorial Stadium building, he remembers thinking, “Hmm. This is a Division I program without a Division I place to live.”

That was then. This is now:

UND Athletics’ spectacular new headquarters is a sign of the department’s commitment to “compete at the highest level,” Armacost said at the offices’ grand opening on Nov. 15.

And just as important, the offices — and the support they’ll provide for UND athletes — send a message to those athletes from the University. That message is, “We believe in you. We’re behind you. We’re going to cheer you on to victory,” Armacost continued.

DeAnna Carlson Zink, CEO of the UND Alumni Association & Foundation, agreed. The new offices “join a complex of facilities that show what can be accomplished when state and local leaders, donors, the University and developers come together to give student athletes the very best facilities,” Carlson Zink said in her remarks at the opening.

“And just look around at what’s been accomplished!” In fewer than 10 years, much of the University’s east campus has been entirely rebuilt, with the Athletics offices joining the new Albrecht Softball Field, the Frederick “Fritz” D. Pollard Jr. Athletic Center (completed in 2015), the soon-to-be-opened Nodak Insurance Co. Sports Performance Center and other facilities in promoting athletic excellence.

“To call this ‘transformational’ is even underselling it,” Carlson Zink said. “I can’t imagine, when I think back to the fundraisers for the original Memorial Stadium, what they would think of their grassy field today.”

Carlson Zink’s note about the fundraisers refers to UND’s very first original fundraising campaign: the 1925-27 crusade to raise money for a UND Athletics facility. “Help the ‘U’ that is helping U,” the fundraising slogan at the time went.

Memorial Stadium was the result. The stadium served as the home for UND football games until 2001 (when the Alerus Center opened), and for the offices of UND Athletics for years after that.

Then in 2021, the stadium was demolished, and the new, five-story Hyslop at Memorial Village building was built where the stadium’s western grandstand had stood. (The stadium’s actual field — complete with new turf, which was installed earlier this year — remains as a practice field.)

The result of a public-private partnership, the Hyslop at Memorial Village offers market-rate apartments on the upper floors — 85 percent of which are already rented, officials said — plus offices, meeting rooms and other facilities for UND Athletics on the ground floor.

And as the Grand Forks Herald reported in July, “once the Pollard addition is completed, players will have the ability to walk from the locker room to the meeting rooms without stepping outside, thanks to the walkway on the north side of the complex that features some of the old bricks of Memorial Stadium.”

“We couldn’t be any more excited,” said Bill Chaves, UND’s director of Athletics, at the offices’ opening.

“And I’ll say this: Although this facility is incredibly beautiful and incredibly functional, the most exciting part for me walking in every day is the fact that this matters to all 375 student-athletes that we have. No matter who they are, this is where they get their support.”

Importantly, the building maintains the commitment that put the “Memorial” in Memorial Stadium — that is, to the 33 UND alumni who died in World War I, said Steve Burian, president and CEO of Burian & Associates, and a partner in the Hyslop at Memorial Village project. A World War I monument near the facility will be dedicated on or about Memorial Day in 2025.

Likewise, the building’s name pays tribute to W. Kenneth Hyslop, namesake of the Hyslop Sports Center — slated for demolition in 2025 — across the street. A baseball player at UND from 1904 to 1906 who went on to become a UND benefactor and internationally known businessman, Hyslop in 1981 left $6 million to UND with the intent that it be devoted to athletics, physical recreation and intramural sports.

Such efforts show the thoughtfulness and care with which UND and Grand Forks projects are put together, Burian said. Besides being part of the development team, “I’m also a citizen of Grand Forks,” he said. And considering how so many elements in town came together to bring about the successful completion of Hyslop at Memorial Village, “this project was really a testament to how wonderful Grand Forks is.”

Carlson Zink offered a final thanks to UND supporters, whose donations have made such a huge difference for the University ever since the Memorial Stadium campaign.

“By asking alumni to support that first stadium, those leaders launched a culture of philanthropy that endures at this University to this day,” she said.

“So thank you all for becoming a part of the legacy of giving back to the University of North Dakota. You are the essence of what it means when we say, ‘We do. We lead. We are forever UND.”

>> Do you have questions or comments about the UND LEADS Strategic Plan? Your thoughts are welcome. Please contact Mike Wozniak, coordinator of Leadership & Programming, and/or Ryan Zerr, associate vice president for Strategy & Implementation, the co-chairs of the UND LEADS Implementation Committee. You also may offer your thoughts by visiting the UND LEADS Strategic Plan home page and clicking on the “Provide your feedback” link. Thank you for your support of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan!