FORT WAYNE – IPFW athletic director Tommy Bell has a dream.

“If I was given one wish from a genie and he says, ‘You could have anything for your athletic department at IPFW’ – if I could put us in the Horizon League, that’s an (aspiring) league for us to have an association with,” Bell said.

Dreams aside, is IPFW ready for such a jump?

“No,” Bell said. “But we’re getting there.”

The recent trend of conference restructuring – the Big 12 losing Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado moving to the Pac 10, for example – isn’t exclusive to the larger universities.

The Summit League, of which IPFW has been a three-year member, will be losing Centenary after the 2010-11 season. Perennial league power Oral Roberts has been rumored to be looking elsewhere. Southern Utah has an eye on the Big Sky Conference. And South Dakota and North Dakota could be joining in-state cousins South Dakota State and North Dakota State in the Summit League within a few years.

“We’re going to see some shuffling in the future,” Bell said. “The Summit League will grow; then it may retract a little bit.”

With the Summit League expected to bulge farther west, travel expenses for all IPFW teams could be an even greater financial drain.

If Bell ever gets his wish and IPFW eventually lands in the Horizon League – which includes nearby schools such as Butler, Valparaiso, UIC, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland State and Wright State – not only would travel costs be diminished greatly, but the competition level in most sports would go up considerably.

“We’re very competitive with the Horizon League members we play now in non-conference games,” Bell said. “Basketball would need to be the sport where we would really have to ramp up and grow in, but I think we would be competitive there. We have a history of beating Valpo.”

In the last two meetings, IPFW’s men’s basketball teams have beaten Valparaiso, including 75-72 last year. In addition, the IPFW women’s softball team last season split doubleheaders with Detroit and Valparaiso; the women’s basketball team beat Wright State and lost to Butler; and the women’s tennis team that won the Summit League championship and qualified for the NCAA tournament had a 5-1 record against opponents from the Horizon League.

“Right now, from top to bottom, I think the Horizon is probably a little bit better than our league as far as basketball is concerned, with the success of Butler and Cleveland State,” IPFW men’s coach Dane Fife said. “On the other hand, we’re not far off.

“Having been here when we were not in a league, I’m still happy to be affiliated with a league and have a chance at an automatic (NCAA tournament) bid. But we always need a lot more money. If we’re going to compete against North Carolina and Duke for the same trophy as them, we need a lot more money.”

Women’s basketball coach Chris Paul agrees.

If he had Bell’s same genie, he would have three requests:

“No. 1 would be facilities,” Paul said. “We have to continue to upgrade our fundraising and our budget efforts so that we can hire full-time positions and pay them what other people are paying so that we don’t always have to look at turning coaches over all the time.”

IPFW is in the middle of attacking problem No. 1.

An estimated $42 million is being spent on the construction of a 160,000-square-foot students services building. The facility will not only house a 200-meter, six-lane indoor track but also coaches offices, meeting rooms, classrooms and three basketball/volleyball courts that will take considerable pressure off the overused Gates Center.

The track, Bell hopes, will lure indoor high school events, which would in turn bring high school students onto the IPFW campus.

“From a recruiting standpoint just for the university, it’s a big plus,” Bell said. “Anytime we can get ‘town and gown’ going on, it’s a great situation, because we serve the entire region as a university.”

The construction that has closed off the front entrance of Gates Center is expected to be completed in the fall of 2011.

Paul’s third wish is for the Fort Wayne community to accept IPFW as a viable, competitive university.

“There is still this perception that we’re a branch or at the bottom of Division I,” Paul said.

“Sometimes I talk to people and they say, ‘I know the men are Division I. You play Division I, right?’ If they’re asking me that, that means they think the other sports might not be Division I, as well. It’s a hurdle we’ve got to get over.”

The budgets have gotten better, Paul concedes. And the name recognition has improved over the years. And recruiting is better. And the women’s volleyball team joined the women’s tennis team as NCAA tournament participants.

“But we still have a long way to go,” Paul said. “People are going to have to be patient and understand we’re not quite Butler, and we’re not quite going to play for a national championship yet. Give us a few years to really establish ourselves.”

stwarden@jg.net