82SiouxGuy

What exactly did you want Kelley to do or say that could have helped "save the nickname"? He was hired after the settlement was signed, he couldn't change that. Of course, the SBoHE had control of that situation anyway so the President of UND really had no control of that situation. After the settlement the only way to live up to the terms were to get approval from both tribes. Spirit Lake gave approval. Standing Rock said no and then wouldn't talk to anyone. They wouldn't return phone calls or emails from anyone with any authority in Higher Education. They wouldn't talk to anyone in state government about the issue. They still won't return phone calls or emails on the subject. If they won't talk to anyone on the subject, how can anyone get them to change their mind. The President of UND has no power at Standing Rock. Blaming Kelley is foolish and a waste of time. THE ONLY THING THAT HAS A CHANCE TO HELP CHANGE THE NCAA POLICY IS THE STANDING ROCK LAWSUIT, and that is a long shot. The rest of this lunacy is just doing damage to the school, it isn't helping anyone other than lawyers and selling newspapers.

There are a lot of people in North Dakota that have trouble getting the facts right on this issue, including blog writers.

Not angry at all. My spin is trying to state facts, that you refuse to believe. And I was trying to lighten things up with the "your own lying eyes" thing. It comes from a Groucho Marx quote that went something like "Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?". I should have realized that it was probably too obscure for most people.

It makes you wonder if he has even read the settlement agreement. The agreement specifically spells out how each tribe can communicate their approval to the NCAA, along with the deadline to do that. Standing Rock was allowed to give approval in any way acceptable in their Tribal Constitution. If Standing Rock wanted to accept the pipe ceremony they just needed to send a letter to the NCAA stating that.

Why? You'll just claim it was Photoshopped. You wouldn't even believe it if you saw it with your own lying eyes. I've seen them both wearing Fighting Sioux clothing. As I've said before, I've heard them both say that they were not against the nickname. Who in their right mind would take a job just to get rid of a nickname, especially one that they had no reason to hate? That entire argument is just irrational.

They were hired to run the University. They weren't hired to get rid of the nickname. The SBoHE was handling the nickname issue. I would guess that Kelley and Faison have had to get involved with the nickname issue a lot more than they planned when they were hired. And they have had to take a lot of time away from their actual jobs to handle the nickname issue.

I think that most schools use their school name or initials on uniforms if they put any words. If you look at football and basketball, all the big schools seem to do that. Just look at North Carolina, Duke, UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky, Texas, etc. Sometimes they use logos on helmets, and even on the shoulders of football uniforms. But the main thing on the uniforms is the school names or initials. Nicknames and logos go on t-shirts, logos and other stuff.

Another big problem is that so many people weren't paying attention along the way. They see people threatening to take away the name and they blame the people that they believe are in charge of the situation. They don't know the steps that have happened along the way, they don't know that this situation didn't just happen in the last year, and most of them have never met any of the people involved. It becomes a mob mentality to attack whoever is responsible, at least in their minds.

Again I'll ask, what was provided to them? Did anyone from UND give them the undsports.com website? It wasn't used very long as a stand alone web site so it probably wasn't as well known. Whoever published the program may have just used either what was provided to them or they went to simple sources of information, which probably listed fightingsioux.com.

Did UND have a team photo with the new jerseys? If UND gave them a team photo with the nickname and logo on it then the photo wasn't going to be used. That's part of the sanctions.

The State Board of Higher Education took control of the nickname away from UND administration in 2000. UND and the SBoHE did fight. Maybe you remember the lawsuit. It was in all the newspapers. The settlement was signed in 2007. Kelley and Faison were hired after both of those events. They never had any way to fight for the nickname. Kelley works for the SBoHE and Faison works for Kelley. Neither one was going to go against their boss. That would have been career suicide. The SBoHE education was responsible for everything that happened with the NCAA, not Kelley or Faison. I know that people are looking for someone to hate, but these are not the right options. Kelley and Faison were doing their jobs, as they were instructed to do. That's what employees do, or they get fired.

Their job is to review the law and decide cases based on the law. You don't lobby the Supreme Court. They will review the briefs presented by parties that are determined to have a legal interest. They will listen to oral arguments from those lawyers. They will review the appropriate case law. Then they will render a decision based on the facts as presented and as they understand them.

The issue of a pipe ceremony in 1969 has been brought up many times over the years. I've tried to find information on it in the past and haven't had a lot of luck. I tried again in the past couple of days and haven't come up with a lot of concrete information. Most people seem to agree that something happened. Beyond that there is very little agreement. No one can agree on who was there representing Standing Rock. Some have said that the Tribal Chair was there, some say he wasn't. Some say that this was a religious pipe ceremony to present the name, some say it was just a ceremony to honor President Starcher. Ron His Horse is Thunder has said that the Tribal Chair was part of the group, but the same person later voted against allowing UND to use the name while he was serving on the Tribal Council. The bottom line is that everything about the ceremony is hearsay. That includes exactly what happened and what the intentions were for either the Tribe or UND. There just isn't much written proof, and there is a lot of disagreement about the ceremony. So it is going to be hard for any court to accept that ceremony as gospel.

It was sympathetic to the UND side, and some of the concepts were in the ballpark, but even our friends to the south recognized that it lacked a lot of facts. That wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that it was written by a journalism student. And the fact that it was printed in the school newspaper. Someone studying journalism should be able to get some more facts in the piece.

Since my position is in line with the head of the UND Alumni Association, many past presidents of the Alumni Association, the vast majority of UND alumni that I have spoken with, a growing number of former UND athletes that have made public statements, several current and former UND coaches and many others, I'm not too concerned about your opinion. Especially since you have expressed a willingness to destroy the UND athletic department rather than change the nickname.

Like I said, strange word that almost no one gets right. Although, if a bunch of people were wearing that shirt together they may have it right. ;-)

Yes, it was. And to show what a strange word that alumnus/alumni is. Almost everyone (including me) has trouble using the proper term and tense.

From Merriam-Webster: Alumnus is used for a single male. Single female is alumna. Multiple males or mixed group is alumni. Multiple females are alumnae. Alum can be used as a shortened version that helps ease the confusion of figuring out the proper version of the singular and alums for a group. Isn't English a wonderful language?

That's interesting, Dave. One of my sources told me a coach for another sport on campus predicts that if UND gets thrown out of the Big Sky, the football program will be eliminated in about 3 years. That should please you because it means UND is still the Fighting Sioux.

I think that the date given when Soderstrom was out of town was today. But when the Legislature got involved I think they had a deadline of March 9th.

I believe that FCS is mainly carried by cable systems. It's probably been very lucky that this past weekend was the first time DirecTV didn't pick up the games.

I believe that the AG wanted a decision before the ballots were printed. The deadline for candidates to gather signatures to get their names on ballots is approximately 60 days before the election, which would be mid-April. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear a decision by about the same time. It could be even a little earlier than that if the Court believes that it's a straightforward case.

It's very interesting how little you appear to know about how high school kids think, and about how college sports work.

He got close to 10% of the story right. If he is representative of the NDSU Journalism Department they might want to audit that program. It might rank with some of the Dickinson State programs for educational quality.

I wouldn't let him bring his 4 legged friend either.