HELENA, Mont. — The Bellevue University athletic department and commissioner Scott Crawford jointly announced today that BU will become a full member of the Frontier Conference starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
Bellevue is one of four schools to announce today the move from the North Star Athletic Association to the Frontier Conference.
The move effectively completes a merger of the NSAA and Frontier and creates an 11-team league that will be among the strongest in the NAIA. The 11 teams comprising the new Frontier will be Bellevue, Carroll College (Mont.), Dakota State University (S.D.), Dickinson State University (N.D.), Mayville State University (N.D.), Montana State University-Northern, Montana Technological University, University of Montana Western, University of Providence (Mont.), Rocky Mountain College (Mont.), and Valley City State University (N.D.).
The new-look Frontier Conference is expected to employ a divisional setup, with the former NSAA schools comprising one division and the pre-existing Frontier Conference schools making up the other.
Fellow NSAA members Dakota State, Mayville State, and Valley City State also announced today that they will join Bellevue in the Frontier Conference. That quartet joins Dickinson State, who previously announced their intention to join the Frontier for the 2025-26 academic year.
The 2024-25 academic year will be BU’s 10th and final season competing in the North Star as the NSAA announced its dissolution in January.
Nine of Bellevue’s 11 NAIA varsity sports – baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, and volleyball – will compete in the Frontier Conference. The men’s and women’s soccer teams will continue to compete in the Continental Athletic Conference while the Frontier and its new members explore the possibility of sponsoring the sport.
Schedules and postseason formats will be decided in the future months before play begins in all sports in August of 2025.
ABOUT THE FRONTIER CONFERENCE
Since 1934, the purpose of the Frontier Conference has been to encourage, promote, sponsor, and control athletic competition among participating colleges as an integral part of the total educational process. Based in Helena, Montana, the Frontier Conference is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and its members compete for championships in 12 varsity sports and growing. The Frontier uses the motto, “Promoting Academic and Athletic Excellence.”
Current Frontier Full Membership Schools
Carroll College (Helena, Mont.)
Montana Tech (Butte, Mont.)
University of Montana Western (Dillon, Mont.)
MSU-Northern (Havre, Mont.)
University of Providence (Great Falls, Mont.)
Rocky Mountain College (Billings, Mont.)
Current Associate Membership – Football Only
Arizona Christian (Glendale, Ariz.)
College of Idaho (Caldwell, Idaho)
Eastern Oregon (La Grande, Ore.)
Southern Oregon (Ashland, Ore.)
