By The Bemidji Pioneer
Published 10:30 a.m. on July 28, 2019
Deep down in the record books, buried beneath decades of box scores and rosters, dwells one of the earliest losses in Bemidji State history.
The date was Feb. 26, 1925. The dead of winter. The men’s basketball “cagers” from Bemidji State Teachers College were in Bagley that day, on hand to challenge the local high school squad.
The result reads, in full: L, 9-5 (ot).
BSTC’s fledgling program managed to overcome that gut-wrenching defeat – somehow – as they mustered the willpower to top Crookston Agricultural 33-10 two days later in the season finale.
When it comes to quirky, not much can match that overtime nail-biter. Nevertheless, with over two dozen athletic programs and a century to work with, Bemidji State has had its fair share of oddities pile up.
Don’t forget 1945, when the Beaver football team hosted the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at the still-new stadium. (But it’s OK to forget that it was a 40-7 loss, BSU fans.)
Drown out the noise from those pesky North Dakota State fans in Fargo, Beaver faithful, because your football club is 2-1 all-time against the so-called mighty Bison. St. Thomas likes to boast about its dominance, too, but Bemidji State is 5-3 all-time against the troubled Tommies.
BSU also molded alumnus Pete Fenson into the Olympic bronze medalist that he is today. The Beavers may not have an official curling team, but who better to come out of the town dubbed the curling capital of the United States?
Trent Baalke is another product of Bemidji State. The 1986 grad was a two-time all-conference football player, and he broke into the NFL as a New York Jets scout in 1998. Baalke later climbed the ladder to become the San Francisco 49ers’ general manager from 2011 to 2016, and the team reached Super Bowl XLVII in his second season.
As for the nickname, generations of Beavers have been labeled as such thanks to the university’s first president. According to school lore, Manfred Deputy often watched the football team, and in 1932, he declared that the players were working as hard as beavers. An identity was born.
Bemidji State can claim seniority to most everyone in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, too. The old North Teachers Athletic Conference was founded in 1932 with six charter members, and BSU is one of three schools to have remained in the conference throughout its entire existence (Minnesota State Moorhead and Winona State being the others).
We didn’t forget about college hockey, either, even though the Bemidji community had to for a decade. From 1950-59, Beaver fans coped with a puck-sized hole in their hearts that matched the hole in the roof of the Bemidji Sports Arena.
At 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 4, 1949, the building’s roof collapsed. BSU continued to use the ill-fated arena for another year, but the program was ultimately suspended until 1960.
The puck finally dropped again in Bemidji on Feb. 13, 1960, but the Beavers bounced around venues – from the 17th Street Rink to the 19th Street Rink to the John S. Glas Fieldhouse by 1967. The rink-to-rink whiplash earned the team a local nickname of “Hard Luck Boys.”
Speaking of traveling, the annual Battle for the Axe between BSU football and Minnesota State Moorhead has a high wager at stake. It’s a hand-made ancient weapon from New Guinea that former BSU Homecoming committee chairman Ron Smith acquired through a series of trades with Natives of the Mount Hagon region. With origins dating back to 1948, it’s the second-oldest traveling trophy in Division II history.
And who could forget about the marathon on the baseball field? On April 11, 2015, BSU endured an eight-inning, 41-20 home loss to Minnesota State. Yes, 41-20. In baseball.
The No. 7-ranked Mavericks bullied Bemidji State with 10 runs in the third inning and 14 in the eighth. In all, the two sides combined to tally 61 runs, a Division II-record 56 hits, nine home runs and a whopping 470 pitches.
The car that caught fire in the parking lot during the game pretty much made it official: Some moments are just too good to forget.
Written by Micah Friez
