Back before he became a North Dakota television fixture and a national talk show host, Ed Schultz was an awfully good quarterback at what used to be called Moorhead State University.

He was good enough to lead NCAA Division II in passing in 1977 and was the Most Valuable Player in the Northern intercollegiate Conference that season. He had a tryout in the Canadian Football League before starting off his media career as a sportscaster at NBC and CBS affiliates in Fargo and Grand Forks.

According to the press release at msudragons.com: Schultz "will provide scholarship support for players on the college football team he once quarterbacked. Schultz has pledged $25,000 a year for the next four years for football scholarships at Minnesota State University Moorhead."

In addition, he is donating "studio gear and satellite uplink equipment that Schultz used when he began making national media appearances from his Fargo studio. The equipment will be a learning resource for students majoring in mass communications."

MSU-Moorhead can benefit from all the help it can get. The Dragons have fallen on hard enough times lately that they have gone 2-9 in each of the last four seasons. (Trivia: Three of their eight victories in that span have come against Minnesota-Crookston.) Opening Day of the 2012 season is Sept. 1 against Wayne State.