82SiouxGuy

You are correct!

He isn't a fan of the school. As long as it says Fighting Sioux somewhere he will be happy (unless it's a color he doesn't like, or it's too modern, or too different, etc.).

If anyone is shocked that other schools are using the nickname issue to recruit against UND they haven't been paying attention. That is one of the silent killers that the nickname-at-all-costs group don't see. A lot of good athletes are going to avoid UND because of the threat of sanctions, even if they don't know what those sanctions actually are. Recruiting in all sports is getting harder for UND because of that issue.

The free agency rules for NCAA drafted players.

The original deadline to get approval from a single tribe was back in 2006. UND didn't meet that deadline. Spirit Lake didn't give approval until 2009. The NCAA wouldn't have given any further deadlines without the lawsuit, and probably wouldn't have even considered the Spirit Lake approval. There is a pretty good chance that UND would have had to either live with the sanctions or get rid of the nickname by some time in 2006 without the lawsuit. The Attorney General and his office helped negotiate the settlement, but the State Board of Higher Education was in charge and had to approve the terms. All reports say that the NCAA wouldn't approve the settlement without having both tribes approval. As I have said before, if the lawsuit had gone through instead of settling, UND could have won and still gone back on sanctions with no chance of getting off by early in 2008. At that point UND didn't have any approvals and wasn't going to get any in 2008, plus Spirit Lake wasn't a sure thing. The settlement bought three years. The bottom line is that keeping the nickname was a long shot from the time the NCAA policy was announced. The main hope was getting quick approval from Spirit Lake, especially since they had voted to let UND keep using the name in 2000. But the Tribal Council wasn't willing to communicate that approval to the NCAA. And most people knew that it was an even longer shot when the settlement was announced. Unfortunately, UND wasn't able to get the approvals needed.

Winning championships are important, but I agree with burd. I would rather have the team competing for championships just about every year than have a great year and then 4 or 5 or 6 bad years. If you are competing for championships eventually you will probably win one or two. Look at the other top programs in college hockey. Michigan, Boston College, Boston U, Wisconsin, Denver and Minnesota have all had long periods of being very good without winning a championship. I believe the "what have you done for me lately" attitude is bad for a program. The only thing that Hakstol hasn't done is win the title. If he keeps going he probably will get his trophy eventually. And he may even win more than one.

If the Fighting Sioux name is kept there won't be any athletics at the University of North Dakota, at least not at the level that most of us want to see. You clearly don't have the ability to see this, but keeping UND Athletics strong and keeping the Fighting Sioux nickname can't both happen. A choice has to be made, only one of those two things can go forward.

The law that set up the SBoHE is actually part of the North Dakota Constitution. He needs to have the citizens of North Dakota approve of the change. The easiest way to get that approval is to get the citizens mad at the SBoHE, mad enough to want to get rid of it. The nickname issue was an easy way to get a lot of people mad at the SB.

That's because the SBoHE isn't the biggest problem. They've made some mistakes. But the biggest problem is Al Carlson and the rest of the people that are willing to destroy UND athletics to make a point. And some of them, like Carlson and Rob Port and Sean Johnson, are trying to make a point that isn't even related to the nickname.

That's a very good question. He may have a big enough ego that he would believe he could control the entire situation.

Only if you don't like University of North Dakota athletics.

It's hard to know exactly what he disagrees with since I'm not in his head. But I know that he thinks Higher Education has grown too fast and spends too much money. There have been complaints about tuition waivers. The rising cost of tuition is something that just about everyone is concerned about. I don't think he likes the Centers of Excellence. I also believe that he thinks the legislature should have more control, he seems to think that they should have ultimate control over every issue in the state. That's a start of the list of things Carlson doesn't like, and I believe that all of them rank way above the nickname issue for him.

Problems can happen with any form of governance. I like the current structure because it insulates higher education a little bit from regular politics. Giving either the governor or the legislature more active input into higher education would be a mistake. And a problem with electing either the head of higher education or even the board could be getting political hacks in those positions that just want to get elected rather than getting people involved that have an interest in improving education. That being said, they could do a better job getting qualified people in place on the current board than they do at times. The proposal wouldn't have any legs without the nickname issue. It has worked pretty well for more than 70 years. There is a group of very conservative people that think higher education spends way too much money and they think the current system gives the board too much control. They would still try to propose a change, but most people wouldn't be listening without the nickname issue. As I said before, mistakes can happen with any structure. Having a different structure may not have prevented the NDSU President's house issue or the Dickinson State diploma mill issue, or maybe something else would have happened instead.

I would be shocked if those were the only options. There are too many games left across the country that can figure into the rankings over the next 2 1/2 weekends. My guess is that we could still get in losing tonight, winning next weekend and winning 1 or 2 in St. Paul, depending on what happens in other games across the country. Upsets in other league tournaments would have a big effect on that.

Sean Johnson's group seems to want that model.

The vote, if it happens, will be for North Dakota residents. So, you're correct that you would not be eligible to vote. You are also correct that there would probably be people that would vote to keep the name in order to do harm to UND. But I don't think there is any way to know how many would actually do it. They could very well be a factor. But, at this point I don't think there is any way to know which way a vote would go. If it were held today it would probably pass. That could change with a good education campaign to let people know the true consequences of the sanctions. The Supreme Court could change the entire story and end this before it happens. Then we would have to wait to see what happens with a possible constitutional amendment.

I believe he has 2 years before he is up for election. He is probably making his move now so that any hard feelings fade some before the election. Plus, he is in a pretty conservative district. They may like a lot of the things he's trying to do. Bottom line, you're probably right. It would take a lot of work for someone to have a chance to beat him in his district.

Johnson must have some connection to Rob Port also. Johnson has been one of the people speaking for the group passing around the petitions.

Yes, he does. He was at the sessions today. And he has talked about it a lot the past couple of weeks.

They are fueled by Al Carlson's power grab. He wants to get total control of higher education for the legislature. He proposed a constitutional amendment to do that last session and it was defeated. That's why he has contributed so much to the current nickname fiasco. He wants to use the emotion created by the nickname to get people to vote against the State Board of Higher Education.

You can call it anything you'd like, it doesn't change the fact that it's a sports nickname. If wearing the alternative jerseys were the only sanction it would be a much smaller problem, but other issues like not hosting playoffs, schools refusing to play against UND and the other rumors that schools will use against UND in recruiting are much larger problems.

And you would best be described as anti-University instead of pro-nickname. But I still like nickname-at-all-costs.

You are correct.

I remember that the volatility of Tribal Councils was a topic of conversation on this board at settlement time. Many of us thought that the SBoHE would need to find a way to get a specific length for a commitment from the Tribal Councils, an open or unlimited approval would be too easy to change. I'm sure that's why the SBoHE wanted to ask for a 30 year commitment. Even if Spirit Lake actually wins the lawsuit and gets the NCAA to change their policy, we can't be sure that the problem won't come back again in the future.

The Tribal Council at Standing Rock, which is the ruling body of government on the reservation, disagrees with you. If they don't recognize the ceremony then no one else is going to recognize it either.