When Tom Wistrcill took over as the Big Sky Conference commissioner in 2018, one of the first things the league’s group of presidents suggested was to move its office.

The Big Sky was born in 1963. Weber State was one of its initial members and now, with its 27,000 students, is the largest school. The league office had been headquartered in downtown Ogden since 1995, but the presidents didn’t like the commute from the Salt Lake City International Airport for their occasional meetings. Wistrcill was living in Salt Lake City, so he welcomed a shorter commute to work, too.

 He sought a real-estate broker to find office space and, for the next year, several locations were considered. Finally, a building under construction in Farmington became the winning choice. It was an easy Lyft or Uber ride from the airport, and the Farmington Station complex offered a hotel and several restaurants nearby. It also had everything Wistrcill and the league’s 10 other employees needed, and they could even construct a sign on the west side of the building that faced the freeway.

Weber State University was still only a 20-minute drive and while Wistrcill might be recognized there, Davis County is perceived as BYU country and he and the league have a tougher job to get recognized than … say BYU football coach Kalani Sataki.

  Wistricill said the signage has helped him solve one of his first objectives – to inform and impress the local residents. After that, it’s probably up to Weber and the league’s other athletic teams to do the rest.

The Big Sky started with six schools – Weber, Idaho, Idaho State, Montana, Montana State and even Gonzaga.

Boise State joined the league in 1972 and Gonzaga – a private school – left the following year to join the West Coast Conference of similar teams. There have been many other shakeups since, but Weber, Idaho State, Idaho, Montana, Montana State are still charter members and have added Eastern Washington, Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona, Portland State, Cal Poly and Sacramento State. Southern Utah was welcomed in 2012, but recently revealed plans to move to the Western Athletic Conference next year.

Wistrcill, who grew up in Wisconsin and has also lived in another athletics-dominant area, Texas, was quick to note an important aspect of his job:

“College athletics is transient,” he said.

So, he has tried to bring stability. One of his first steps was to sign a 10-year lease on the building, which can easily be found. The “Big Sky” sign is well-lit at night and can be seen from both north and south-bound lanes on Interstate 15.

“We’ve had thousands of comments about our sign on the building,” he said. “I hope that tells people we plan to be here for a while.”

The Big Sky has also tried to keep up with the changing times. Even before the coronavirus pandemic shook the world starting in March 2019, the league wanted its office to include a comfortable way to host meetings – in person and online. When athletics was put on hold last fall, the league’s emphasis became helping the schools communicate and discuss ways to solve comparable problems.

“Before, we would host meetings maybe twice a year,” Wistrcill said. “Now, we get groups of presidents, athletic directors and other people together a lot more.”

The league worked together to move fall sports, like football, volleyball and soccer, to late winter and into spring. Wistrcill said it wasn’t easy watching the country’s national powers play on TV but he said the Big Sky (schools) just weren’t ready.

“We had a lot of things to figure out.”

Coronavirus testing was a top priority. It was even more important for Wistrcill, whose entire family contracted the illness last summer and each was afflicted in different ways. Wistrcill was ailing for about a week, he said, but his wife, Kelly, felt uncomfortable for a month.

Time, and vaccinations, have helped them get through those problems and, over the next few months, Wistrcill hopes the league will also recover quickly enough that fall sports will be played as usual.

The difference, though, is the league’s employees, presidents and other important members know each other better because they have been through a difficult – and unique – time together.

“We played football in the spring, and had a lot of sports going on at the same time,” he said. “We could have cancelled the seasons but we got through it and, one thing I noticed most of all, was the kids wanted to play.”

He recalled a special moment at the Big Sky basketball tournament, where the men’s and women’s teams played together at one site – in downtown Boise.

“I had two women (players) from Portland State walk up. They recognized me and thanked me for letting them play. It (the tournament) was also the first time their parents had seen them play all year.”

Since college athletics is transient, more problems likely await but they probably won’t be as difficult as 2020. In the meantime, the office space is nice and the sign works great. Now, let’s play some sports.