Home Sweet Dome

[News from the FCS]

FARGO, N.D. (AP) -Supporters of an indoor football stadium in North Dakota's largest city helped sell the project more than two decades ago by telling residents they would no longer have to watch those college playoff games in snow and subzero temperatures. Turns out, they wouldn't be watching playoff games at all - until now. After dominating small college football for a quarter of a century and playing host to dozens of playoff games at an outdoor venue called Dacotah Field, North Dakota State is about to make its first postseason appearance inside the city-owned Fargodome. The Bison (7-4) play Robert Morris (8-2) on Saturday in the first round of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The Fargodome has been home to the Bison since 1993 - a year after they last played a playoff game. ``It's about time,'' said Jim McLaughlin, 85, a Fargo resident who was chairman of the dome's steering committee in the late 1980s. It was 22 years ago when Fargo residents were asked to approve a half-cent sales tax to help pay for the $48 million arena. The vote came at a time when the Bison were approaching their eighth Division II national football championship in 25 years, the most of any team at that time. Robert Entzion, the NDSU athletic director back then and one of the promoters of the dome, said he expected the indoor facility to bolster recruiting, fundraising and attendance. He told reporters that while a lot of older fans attend games at the beginning of the year, they can't stay through the whole season and playoffs because of the cold weather. The measure passed with 61 percent of the vote. ``At that time everybody I talked to wasn't going to vote for it. Then when it passed I don't remember running into anyone who didn't vote for it,'' said Roger Gress, the Fargo parks director who was a park district planner at the time. Dale Rust,

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