A brief history of football at Dana College
from "A Place Called Dana" by Peter L. Petersen

Students had participated in a wide variety of sports before the 1920s, but such activity was generally sporadic and seldom part of any regularly scheduled program. In 1897, for example, a group of seminarians coached by C.X. Hansen played a football game against the local Y.M.C.A. After a player suffered a broken leg in a New Year's Day game in 1900, football, to quote one historian, "was never mentioned for a great many years."

In 1926, members of the student body petitioned the School Board for permission to field a football team. Student spokesmen explained that basketball was played "only three months a year, while football will be something of interest to the students who are already here, and added attraction for students for that fall." Because of a "late start" and delays in securing the proper equipment (a student drive provided funds for uniforms), only one contest was actually played. Under the direction of Coach L.C. Bundgaard, the Dana Vikings took to the Blair field on November 19, 1926, for their first football game, suffering a 25-0 defeat at the hands of Omaha University.

Despite the setback, enthusiasm for the game remained high, and as the 1927 season approached, players and fans alike predicted great success. But things did not go as planned, and the Vikings lost all seven games by a combined score of 378-0, thus earning for themselves the appellation of "scoreless wonders." The following year, Professor C.S. Fynboe took over direction of the team and in the second game of the season, the Vikings garnered their first gridiron victory—a 13-0 defeat of McCook College. It was during this game that fullback Merton Jensen scored the first touchdown by a Dana player.

In 1930 the administration hired Cleveland "Tex" Jones to coach and direct athletics. Prior to this time most coaches had been faculty members who simply volunteered their service, but Jones, a star football player at West Texas State Normal College in Canyon, was hired specifically to coach. Positive results were soon forthcoming. The 1930 football team, by finishing with a 4-3 record, not only posted the first winning season for the Vikings, but also won the championship of the Nebraska Junior College Conference. (Although there were juniors and seniors on the squad, they did not play in conference games.)

In many ways the struggle for survival gave wartime students at Dana a sense of unity and purpose. Few in number, they nevertheless saw themselves as guardians of the Dana spirit and thus sought to carry on as many as possible of the school's prewar traditions and activities. This was no easy task... By 1943 there were no longer enough men for regular football, so two impromptu six-man games were played with Luther College of Wahoo, Nebraska. The following year four more six-man games were played. Unhappily, the inexperienced Vikings lost all these contests by a combined score of 193-12.

After a three-year interruption caused by the war, Dana returned to 11-man football in 1946. Although victories were initially scarce, Coach Paul Peterson's gridders showed rapid improvement, and in 1948 they finished with a 5-2 record and a share of the Nebraska Intercollegiate Conference championship.

Replacing "Coach Pete" as Dana's grid mentor in 1950, Kieth Skogman directed his first Viking team to a record of 6-2-1. Skogman's 1953 squad was one of the strongest in the school's history. Although its overall record (3-1 in the Central Church College Conference, which had been formed in 1950, and 4-3-1 for all games) was not particularly impressive, the team set more than a dozen school records and ranked fourth in the nation among small colleges in rushing (2,634 yards) and eleventh in team offense (2,898 yards). Six players were named All-Conference.

In November 1956 the school joined the Nebraska College Conference. In addition to Dana, the 10-team conference included Concordia, Midland, Doane, Hastings, Nebraska Wesleyan, and the four state teachers' colleges, Chadron, Kearney, Peru and Wayne. Unfortunately, Dana frequently found itself badly overmatched in this sports league, particularly when it competed against the state-supported colleges; the Vikings won only three football games in as many years. After unsuccessful efforts to secure a more equitable level of competition within the NCC, Dana, Midland and Confordia withdrew in late 1959 and joined with two Iowa colleges, Northwestern and Westmar, and schools at Yankton and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to form the Tri-State Conference... Football fortunes also improved as gridders put together back-to-back winning seasons in 1961 (5-3) and 1962 (6-3), the latter good enough to earn a share of the conference title with Concordia. Unhappily, nine years would pass before fans were able to see another winning season at Dana.

In 1969 the Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (NIAC) was formed with six members – Concordia, Dana, Doane, Hastings, Midland Lutheran and Nebraska Wesleyan. In 1992, the NIAC added Northwestern and became the Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference. Eight years later, Dakota Wesleyan, Dordt, Mount Marty and Sioux Falls joined the conference which became the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) in 2000-2001. Briar Cliff entered the league in 2002-2003 and Morningside became the 13th member starting with the 2003-2004 school year.