82SiouxGuy

The Target Center is a great location for fans. Lots of hotels, restaurants and bars within walking distance. They are going to spend $150 million renovating the building, hopefully they will make it a good hockey building. I have attended basketball games and concerts in the building and thought it worked well for them, I never saw a hockey game there.

The latest Grand Forks Herald editorial recommending that North Dakota voters vote YES on Measure 4 and allow UND to retire the nickname and logo, http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/238469/group/homepage/.

A letter to the Grand Forks Herald from a former football player who was also President of the student body at UND, http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/238467/group/homepage/, asking that people vote YES on Measure 4 and allow UND to retire the nickname and logo.

You are so blinded that you can't see the other side. I am on the University of North Dakota's side. Since you didn't attend the school, you don't know how that works. The politically correct group may end up getting their way also, but it isn't the same side.

Yes we are. We are on the University of North Dakota's side. We are trying to do what is best for the University of North Dakota. So we support a YES vote on Measure 4.

I believe that they have already started working on it. I think they had to start with rebuilding the pit where the turf is stored.

At this point, the MVFC wants nothing to do with adding any more members. They didn't really want to add South Dakota, but did it so the Summit wouldn't lose them. They wouldn't add Nebraska-Omaha, so UNO had to drop football if they wanted to move up to Division I. The MVFC won't add UND. That would mean no home for football. The Summit may have plenty of its own troubles in the near future. Several schools keep getting mentioned as potentially leaving for another conference. That could weaken the Summit and make it as vulnerable as the WAC. Why would UND want to leave the Big Sky under the current conditions, when they wouldn't have a home for football and they would be looking at a conference for the rest of the sports that may or may not be stable. Things can change in a hurry in college sports as we have seen the past few years. But for right now it doesn't make any sense for UND to rock the boat and leave the Big Sky.

They got rid of more than a dozen Native American nicknames. They set themselves up to get rid of the rest in the next move. They knew it was going to be messy. When they announced the NA policy they thought they had the Oklahoma Seminole tribes on their side. That was going to be their ace in the hole against Florida State. It turns out they were working with bad information. A tribal lawyer had misrepresented the position of the Oklahoma Seminole tribes. It turns out they weren't against Florida State using the name, and let the NCAA know right after the policy was announced. I've posted links to these stories in the past. The Florida politicians were ready to make a big stink. So the NCAA came up with an appeal process very quickly. They made major strides in their efforts to get rid of Native American nicknames and imagery, they just couldn't finish the job all at one time. As others have noted, this isn't the end of the NCAA efforts to eliminate NA names. They couldn't get it done in one move so they will finish the job with a second move. The policy got messy, just like they knew it would. But they made big progress and set themselves up to finish the job. Even if UND had gotten approval, it would be temporary. At some point, probably within the next decade or so, all NA nicknames and imagery will be eliminated from the NCAA.

Contracts to pay for a house, or a car, are contracts. The settlement is a contract. Both the NCAA and UND/State of North Dakota signed it. Dates in contracts can be changed if both parties want, and if they both have an incentive to do it. That becomes an amended contract. The NCAA has no motive or incentive to change because they have what they want. In that case we revert back to the same situation as a house payment or car payment. You can't just change the terms of the contract when you want, or because you don't think it's fair. I don't know what you do for a living, but I hope you don't have deadlines in your job because you don't seem to understand their importance.

The Standing Rock government operates almost exactly like the US Government. Do you ever get a chance to vote on any issue related to the US Government, other than voting for President, Senator or House of Representatives? No you don't. You live in Minnesota. Do you ever get to vote on an initiated measure or referendum? No you don't. Minnesota doesn't allow that. Half the states don't allow it. Standing Rock doesn't allow it. That is how their government is set up. Don't they have a right to set up their government how they want? That is the form of government that they have set up. Why should you be able to tell them that they have to have a vote on the nickname issue if they don't normally allow that and don't want to allow that?

Those other schools understood deadlines and the fact that they have to be followed or pay the price. The schools that could not get something done by the deadline accepted their fate and either changed the nickname and/or logo, or they're Alcorn State and they accepted the sanctions. It seems that some nickname supporters can't understand the concept of deadlines.

If you own a house, do you not care about the dates that payments are due? If you own a car, do you not care about the dates that car payments are due? Do you file your income taxes by April 15th each year? Are there penalties for any of these if you don't follow the dates? Dates were set for the policy and appeals, and dates were written into the settlement. If there are dates written into a legal contract you have to follow them or face the penalty written into the contract. What is so hard to understand about that? You can't just ignore deadlines an operate on your own schedule.

Braun got off on a legal technicality, not because someone thought it was the right thing to do. The courier took the sample home and put it in his basement over the weekend. That breaks the chain of evidence and there was no way to prove that someone couldn't have gotten access to the sample and tampered with it. The chances of that happening are very small. But that protection is in the legal system to protect against those rare occurences. That is what got Ryan Braun off the hook. Nothing like that is possible in this case. No one can go back to the courts unless the other side breaks the agreement. So UND can't touch the NCAA unless the NCAA screws up in some major way. The NCAA pays some high powered attornies to prevent that. It isn't going to happen. And you are overlooking every Sioux tribe in the country except Spirit Lake. They are all on record against UND using the nickname. Why would the NCAA suddenly change their policy, and cause all of those other headaches with other schools, to support Spirit Lake when all of the other tribes still oppose it?

I'm tempted to put them all on Ignore starting June 13th, and only think about dealing with them if I need to in the future, like if we have to deal with the constitutional amendment issue.

I've asked before, but you have never explained how this issue can be resolved with the NCAA. UND and the state signed a settlement agreement. The NCAA is living up to their end of that agreement. They have a legal right to do what they are doing. Furthermore, they are getting what they want. Changing the policy for UND would cause problems with more than a dozen other schools that made changes in nickname and/or logo because of the policy. Why would the NCAA ever back down? No one has ever explained this part to us.

That's his usual response to try and get people on the defensive. A common answer when accused of something like that would be no, and then he would follow up with when did you quit, or something like that. The way the question is asked, it is an assumption that you are doing the act and they are trying to get someone to implicate themselves. It doesn't work so well if you don't have a wife or kids. But you are correct, he is definitely acting like a troll.

Contractually they had to listen to both tribes until November 30, 2010. But both tribes had to agree to keep the name. After that date they don't have to listen to either and they don't care.

He appears to be trolling to pick a fight. He can't accept that people don't think exactly like him, or the fact that people can change their opinions.

The NCAA didn't get the final card until the deadline on the settlement passed. But I saw that nothing was going to change well before the deadline. I went through the timeline earlier today. But you keep going with your revisionist history.

I believe that you meant "to deny that Grand Forks IS racist is hilarious". You kind of have the double negative thing going there, which makes it a positive. You are saying that you find it hilarious that others would deny that Grand Forks is not racist. That translates to saying that you find it hilarious to agree that Grand Forks is racist.

Well, I'll worry about you about as much as I worry about the Fetch's and DaveK's of the world. The fight isn't over yet because the final result isn't in. UND can end up in 2 different places, either on sanctions and being damaged or off sanctions and building for the future. I will keep working toward the latter. You can live out your bitter life.

Actually, if you read the statement carefully, he said that Grand Forks is not racist. "Deny that Grand Forks is not racist is hilarious"

Good for you, you are rigid and unable to learn new things. You don't change your opinion based on a changing situation. And you are bitter that other people didn't support you the entire time, or because they don't have the exact same reason for coming to the same conclusion. You would rather support people that blindly follow their own path, even if it is completely at odds with yours, than accept people onto your side. That is a great method for building a consensus.

Saying for a month? You really haven't paid attention. I first said that it may be time to retire the name about 3 years ago, when the State Board of Higher Education first started looking at moving up the deadline. More than 2 years ago I was pointing out that Standing Rock wasn't going to change their position and didn't have time to change their constitution to allow a vote, so it wasn't going to happen. More than a year ago I was writing to North Dakota legislators, and having in person conversations with local legislators to try and defeat Carlson's Folly. I did some of the same before the special session in November. And have been posting vigorously the past 6 months or so. Not exactly last minute on the bandwagon. But it doesn't matter to me when people have accepted the reality of the situation. It is just important that enough people realize the situation before they make it even worse by putting the law back on the books.

8 years ago many of us recognized that a problem was coming. The solution at that time was for UND to develop relationships with the tribes. I know that some people communicated that to UND officials, most of us were not in a position to make that happen. Not quite 7 years ago the NCAA issued their policy, and quickly offered an appeal process. UND tried to use the appeal process with the support of most alumni, the tribes did not cooperate. UND looked at other legal options because there were some legal options. The result was the settlement. If you go back and read the discussion at that time you will see that many people recognized it would be difficult to get approvals from both tribes. But if there was a chance it was worth taking. As the settlement period went on it became more and more obvious to people that Standing Rock was not going to change. Some of us moved to supporting retirement of the name at that time, and when it threatened conference membership. More moved to supporting retirement after the settlement period ended. Many others have move to that side as they learn about the actual results of sanctions. Others have not moved yet. 8 years ago there wasn't a direct and immediate threat to the University. That threat became more concrete and more immediate over the last 8 years. And now you attack people that are finally realizing the magnitude of the threat. You really know how to make friends.