Picture this: St. Thomas’ men’s basketball team finishes off a victory at the Summit League Championship next March in Sioux Falls, S.D., and books its first ticket to the NCAA tournament.

March Madness for a St. Paul school. Seriously, and it’s officially a possibility for the Tommies.

Head coach Johnny Tauer understands the monumental stakes.

“March Madness is a stage that every young player dreams about performing on,” Tauer said. “The exposure the NCAA tournament would provide for our program, athletic department, and university would be enormous.”

It’s not crazy.

This spring, Tauer’s team advanced to the Summit League championship game before losing to an Omaha team that knew its ticket had already been punched because St. Thomas wasn’t eligible.

In 2021, the Tommies became the first school to attempt the jump from Division III and Division I with a five-year probationary period on the table. In January, that probation was trimmed to four years if St. Thomas could meet a series of requirements, and the Tommies have.

“St. Thomas has completed all required processes and procedures and submitted all paperwork and reports associated with reclassification,” St. Thomas vice president and athletics director Phil Esten told the Pioneer Press. “We anticipate hearing something official from the NCAA as early as late June, but could be as late as mid-August.”

St. Thomas’ softball team celebrates its regular-season Summit League championship after a 9-0, five-inning victory over North Dakota State on May 3 in St. Paul. The Tommies were unable to play in the conference tournament and were ineligible for an NCAA tournament berth. That changes starting this fall (Kylie Macziewski / St. Thomas)

Men’s basketball isn’t the only St. Thomas program that will be realistically chasing an NCAA tournament bid in 2025-26. It’s been a nearly seamless transition for the athletics department as a whole.

The men’s hockey team advanced to the CCHA final before losing to Minnesota State Mankato, which earned the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where the Mavericks lost to eventual champion Western Michigan. Softball won its first Division I conference championship this spring, and baseball won the Summit League crown for the second year in a row.

All of those teams played for a conference title knowing it wouldn’t get a postseason.

“Our goal was to repeat, which we were able to do, but it did not have the same luster,” baseball coach Chris Olean said. “We felt like if we did have an opportunity to play in the conference tournament, we could have had a very good chance to represent the Summit League at the regional level.”

Starting this fall, St. Thomas will be eligible for the automatic NCAA bids that come with a conference tournament championship, and perhaps an at-large bid if they come close. The school also is eligible to receive revenue from those tournaments.

For the first time, NCAA schools are allowed to share that revenue with student-athletes, with a cap of $20.5 million per school, but Esten said the athletics department has decided internally not to do that initially.

The department does, however, have the “infrastructure and foundational tools in place to provide Tommie student-athletes with several NIL opportunities.”

Also new this season will be the school’s new on-campus basketball and hockey venue, the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena. The arena’s event will be a men’s and women’s hockey double-header against Providence College on Oct. 24, another major step in the Tommies’ matriculation to full Division I membership.

To Esten, competing in a national Tournament is the Athletic Department’s next major milestone.

“It would help to validate our reclassification and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to excellence,” he said.

Women’s hockey coach Bethany Brausen said that opportunity “transforms everything for our program — at both the individual and team levels.”

“Individually, our athletes gain a renewed sense of hope and drive that surpasses previous years,” Brausen said. “They understand that each day’s effort is a step toward earning a place on the national stage at season’s end, an opportunity they will wholeheartedly pursue. … This upcoming year enables the group to align around a shared vision and common goals, uniting their focus to pursue one of the most significant accomplishments in collegiate athletics – competing for a national tournament.”

Related Articles

Tommies men, women to open new rink versus Providence

International students in U.S., MN see legal records restored with fed reversal

St. Thomas wins fight on Goodrich Avenue loading drive near Binz Refectory

FCS football: St. Thomas to play national champion North Dakota State

Men’s hockey: Tommies beat Falcons, 3-1, advance to CCHA final

“To address the problem of member deference, land use approvals could be taken from the Council’s jurisdiction. I suggest the creation of a new city position, the Zoning Administrator, who would be entrusted with approvals expected to result in few real-world adverse effects.”

Members of the 2025 charter revision commission at a public hearing in Brooklyn last month. (X/NYC Charter Revision Commission)

In the spring of 2025, a New York City Charter Revision Commission is considering, largely in media obscurity, big changes in the distribution of power and patronage in the city. In a new Manhattan Institute brief, I discuss one category of potential major changes to the city charter, affecting the land use decision-making process. 

The city regulates land use in several ways, principally through enacting zoning but also by mapping streets and parks, constructing infrastructure, and acquiring and disposing of land for public projects. Under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in the 1930s, the City Planning Commission and the Department of City Planning were established to ensure these decisions were made in a professional manner, taking citywide needs into account.

But the city charter drafters of the era also specified that a political body, the Board of Estimate, would make the final decision. However, the structure of the board, which included three citywide officials (the mayor, comptroller and City Council president) and the five borough presidents, ensured that the mayor usually had his way. 

Back then, the process for making land use decisions was fast—it could be over in a couple of months—and much abused by mayors, often conniving with the infamous master builder, Robert Moses. Highways were blasted through residential neighborhoods and urban renewal projects displaced thousands of households.

The backlash against such practices started in the 1960s. Community boards were created as a neighborhood voice, and environmental review requirements were instituted. That slowed the process down greatly, allowing opponents time to organize.  The mayor still had a lot of influence, but opponents had more opportunities to make an impact.

The culmination of these process changes came in 1989, when another charter revision commission abolished the Board of Estimate in the wake of a corruption scandal and an adverse U.S. Supreme Court decision. The final decision-maker on land use was now the City Council, and the mayor had much less leverage. The Council would, and did, flatly turn down land use applications, something that rarely happened in the Board of Estimate era.

There is a view, not universally held but widespread among civic groups and observers of the land use process, that these changes have induced political paralysis. After 1989, New York City prospered, with skyrocketing population and employment. However, the participants in the land use process have failed to address the city’s obvious interest in providing an adequate housing stock to meet the needs of that population and allow for continued economic growth. 

Some argue that this is not a consequence of the defects in New York City’s governmental structure, but that politicians, planners and other stakeholders have not bargained well enough. After decades of crisis, however, that argument wears thin to critics. 

Those critics identify two major issues. First, the process is too long. Getting through often takes years, at great expense, and the elected officials who support a proposal at its inception may not even be in office when the City Council votes. Second, the City Council has evolved a practice of “member deference,” in which the rest of the Council defers to the views of the member in whose district a proposed development is located. That gives local opponents undue power and ensures that citywide needs are never addressed.

What city charter changes would help? The length of the land use process is largely due to environmental review. Unfortunately, that is specified in state law, which means the charter revision commission cannot change it, but the state legislature could. Good legislation has fortunately been introduced in Albany, and the governor and legislature should work to get it enacted.

The charter revision commission does have the ability to shorten the formal land use review process, known as ULURP, from seven to six months by having the borough presidents, borough boards and community boards review applications in a concurrent 60-day period. Since time is money for applicants, that would lead to savings. Another useful change would be to take non-controversial changes out of ULURP, wasting less of everybody’s time.

To address the problem of member deference, land use approvals could be taken from the Council’s jurisdiction. I suggest the creation of a new city position, the Zoning Administrator, who would be entrusted with approvals expected to result in few real-world adverse effects. 

Among those approvals would be construction of small multifamily apartment buildings in low-rise neighborhoods. Such buildings exist throughout the city as a remnant of once more-generous zoning, and provide “naturally occurring” affordable housing, not needing public subsidy. New ones, however, are among the hardest changes to get past councilmembers and their angry homeowner constituents. Citywide voters in a charter referendum, however, might be willing to countenance what individual councilmembers would not do.

These and other suggestions from civic groups, if adopted, might create a better process than the 1989 framework provides. 

That won’t solve the housing crisis—there is still much more work to do. It will, however, lower costs and supply better incentives to do the right thing. That would make the charter revision commission’s labors well worthwhile.

Eric Kober is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and former Department of City Planning official.

The post Opinion: NYC Panel Asks, Who Controls Land Use? appeared first on City Limits.

The state softball tournament will return Wednesday to its former format, when both the quarterfinals and semifinals were held on the same day.

That’s because Tuesday, which was the original tournament start date with quarterfinals to be played across all four classes, was entirely wiped out by heavy rainfall in North Mankato.

The Minnesota State High School League made the decision in consultation with Caswell Park administration.

Wednesday’s action will start at 8:30 a.m. with the Class 4A quarterfinals and a pair of Class 3A quarterfinals, including one between Cretin-Derham Hall and Byron.

The other two Class 3A quarterfinals, including Simley’s bout with Mankato East, and all four Class 2A quarters are slated for 11 a.m., with action taking place throughout the day and numerous semifinal start times dependent on the participating teams as the MSHSL tries to make sure any students with impending graduations on Wednesday evening can get to their ceremonies.

Full brackets can be found on mshsl.org.

The championship games are still set for Friday on the U of M campus.

Related Articles

A look at each east metro team in the state softball tournament

Metro softball players sue Ellison, MSHSL director over transgender athlete participation

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a highly rare move that will strip the ship of the moniker of a slain gay rights activist who served as a sailor during the Korean War.

Related Articles

Federal prisons must keep providing hormone therapy to transgender inmates, a judge says

The Trump administration is pushing therapy for transgender youth. What does that look like?

Musk slams Trump’s big tax bill as Republican senators race to meet a July 4th deadline

Ex-Homeland Security official Taylor fights back against Trump’s ‘unprecedented’ investigation order

Republican push for proof of citizenship to vote proves a tough sell in the states

U.S. officials say Navy Secretary John Phelan put together a small team to rename the replenishment oiler and that a new name is expected this month. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the next name had not yet been chosen.

The change was laid out in an internal memo that officials said defended the action as a move to align with President Donald Trump and Hegseth’s objectives to “re-establish the warrior culture.”

It marks the latest move by Hegseth and the wider Trump administration to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion. And it comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon’s campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.

The decision was first reported by Military.com. Phelan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.

Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie, served for four years in the Navy before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office. Milk served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing and employment. It passed, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone signed it into law.

On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk’s bill.

The ship was christened in 2021, and during the ceremony, then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he wanted to be at the event “not just to amend the wrongs of the past, but to give inspiration to all of our LGBTQ community leaders who served in the Navy, in uniform today and in the civilian workforce as well, too, and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”

The ship is operated by Military Sealift Command, with a crew of about 125 civilian mariners. The Navy says it conducted its first resupply mission at sea in fall 2024, while operating in the Virginia Capes. It continued to resupply Navy ships at sea off the East Coast until it began scheduled maintenance at Alabama Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, earlier this year.

While the renaming is rare, the Biden administration also changed the names of two Navy ships in 2023 as part of the effort to remove Confederate names from U.S. military installations.

The USS Chancellorsville — named for the Civil War battle — was renamed the USS Robert Smalls after a sailor and former enslaved person. And the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship originally named after a Confederate sailor, was renamed the USNS Marie Tharp after a geologist and oceanographic cartographer who created the first scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean floor.

Maritime lore hints as to why renaming ships is so unusual, suggesting that changing a name is bad luck and tempts retribution from the sea gods.