82SiouxGuy

Sorry, I don't see any context where use of a nickname can be compared in any way with slavery. It's a bridge too far.

Looks like opposite sides of the same coin. With both sides being way out of bounds.

No, the comparison is that weak. There is no way to compare changing a nickname to slavery in any way.

Rational business decisions can't be made based on an optimistic outlook. UND has to make a rational business decision. They have to do what is best for the future of the school. That decision has to be to change the nickname. It would be irresponsible to keep the name at this time.

UND and UND lawyers already sued the NCAA over this issue. The settlement of 2007 includes an agreement that neither side can sue about this issue again.

Unless the lawsuit is successful it's meaningless. The case won't even be started until next year and could take years. The NCAA isn't going to back down just because of the lawsuit. A lot of damage could be done to UND before it's settled. This story, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=4316170, gives a pretty good summation of the South Carolina situation. Here are a few excerpts: Not a lot of give in the NCAA, ACC or the SEC.

What is going to actually force the NCAA to change their position? Why should they give in? They have a legal settlement document that allows them to do what they are promising to do. The law is on their side. They have shown that they are not impressed with the sentiment of the citizens of North Dakota and a law in North Dakota, whether passed by the legislature or put into the constitution, does not affect what they are going to do. There isn't going to be a huge public outcry across the nation, and it probably wouldn't bother them even if there was because it wouldn't take long before people moved on to another outrage. This issue is a minor annoyance to the NCAA. They will enact their punishment and then just check back every season to see if UND is still using the nickname. If UND is using the nickname then the NCAA will say carry on with the punishment and move on to the next topic. The only way the NCAA would change this policy is if forced to by the Federal government in some way, most likely by the courts because Congress isn't going to worry about it.

Contact the Ralph Engelstad Arena box office, or go to undsports.com. UND hockey used to have a waiting list for season tickets, I don't know if they still do. None of the other sports have a list. Season tickets for sports are usually sold to current ticket holders first, usually in about May. They have a deadline and then open up the other seats to new people. Undsports.com will have more information, the costs shown there will be for the current year.

Dave, I'm sure you realize that none of those prove anything other than that there are people that are upset about the name changing. Anyone can set up a Facebook page for pretty much anything. I'm sure you could do it. You might have created one or more of those. They don't prove anything. And Mr. Black Cloud has no proof of any of his allegations. I feel confident that he has no experience working with athletic departments in a college setting, or in a college conference. I also feel confident that he has no inside connections at the Big Sky or within the UND athletic department. It's easy to make an allegation, much harder to prove it.

I don't know about others, but I have several other things that I stand up and fight for. A nickname for a college athletic department, especially when keeping the name is going to damage that athletic department, just doesn't seem like a good choice. Unless the name is more important to you than the athletic department itself. Again, that doesn't seem like such a good choice to me.

That person thinks that UND should join the Summit and MVFC. Unfortunately, there is no way that UND was going to be invited to the MVFC. USD wouldn't have gotten an invite to the MVFC if it had to include UND. So the person obviously doesn't understand how things work in college athletics. And if they are ready to be an independent rather than be in the Big Sky Conference they have shown their total lack of knowledge about the situation. Also, did you notice where the person suggested that the rest of their teammates disagree with him/her and believe that it is time to get rid of the nickname. You believe that the one person that agrees with you is right while everyone else on the team is wrong?

That quote says they wanted to support UND and its president. It doesn't say what happened, what he did or what Kelley did. Sorry, that doesn't tell us much of anything. And there is absolutely no supporting evidence. Try again.

And exactly who put you in charge of determining who is and isn't a Sioux fan? I'm pretty sure you weren't elected to that position.

I don't know how they could afford a Fullerton impersonator. Those guys usually get big money. And they got him to make up things like possibly moving UND out of the conference if the problem persists. That couldn't really happen, could it?

Been there myself.

Let me try to summarize for you. All of the political leaders in North Dakota got together on this and decided to get rid of the Fighting Sioux nickname. That includes Democrats and Republicans at both the state and Federal levels. Leaders in higher education were also in on the plan, as well as the people at the NCAA and all of the media in the state other than Scott Hennen and his cohorts. Then they all decided to set up a farce of an effort to make "the people" believe that they tried to save it even though they really didn't try. That's what you really believe? I wish all of those people could work together to make some decisions on the really important matters of the day. From uslegal.com: "Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people. Here, people allow representatives who form an independent ruling body to represent them in the various forms of democratic process and are not directly involved in any of the processes of legislation or lawmaking. This form of democracy is found at the federal level of the U.S., and the branches of government in U.S. act on behalf of the people. To a very large extent, the whole concept of representation depends upon the ability of the people to make their wishes known to their representatives. Representative democracy is often considered as superior to direct democracy because it provides a solution for the problems of mob rule, issue overload, and demagogy." Government officials are hired to make decisions in the best interests of the people, not to follow the wishes of the people. The best interests of the people are not always the same as the wishes of the people. Not the same as a banana republic.

Have you ever seen the quote where Mr. Douple actually said this? This is from the Kolpack article that started this: "The University of North Dakota asked an athletic conference it once considered joining to publicly come out against accepting the Fighting Sioux as a member until the controversial nickname and logo issue was resolved, according to Summit League Commissioner Tom Douple." No actual quote. Or real proof. And later: "Commissioner Douple did not want to go into further detail on the issue, but when asked why he agreed to UND’s request – that the Summit League would publicly forward this idea – he said, “In support of the (UND) president. He thought it would help them and the board move quicker.” " We don't have a quote, just Kolpack's interpretation. And Douple went along with the idea to support a school that wasn't a member of the conference, even though it was going to put the conference in the middle of a PR mess. That doesn't make sense to most people. I would need actual quotes with some other evidence before believing that article.

The Big Sky waited until UND had declared that they were changing the name and following the settlement agreement before they agreed to add UND as a member. They didn't know that North Dakota was going to start changing laws and trying to pass constitutional amendments to keep it. Otherwise they may have put that into the membership agreement. The Big Sky can also change the constitution by a 2/3 vote (or could probably put something in as a rule with a simple majority vote). They can also put a school on probation for violating rules by a 2/3 vote. So even if the Big Sky didn't throw UND out they could make things very difficult.

Article V Section 3 Affiliate Membership A. Affiliate members may be accepted to the Big Sky Conference in a given sport by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the member institutions. B. Affiliate membership may be permitted in those sports where additional sponsoring institutions are needed to conduct championships. C. Affiliate member institutions may not vote on Conference matters. D. Those institutions applying for affiliate membership must be Division I in that sport. I didn't catch on to what you were suggesting because Poly and Davis are covered under Section 3 Affiliate Membership as listed above. Section 2 refers to full membership. Poly and Davis are not currently, nor are they scheduled to be, full members of the Big Sky. They will be Affiliate members for football only. The NCAA does not allow membership in more than 1 conference in a given sport, and both Poly and Davis were members of the Great West for the football season. I'm not sure when their membership would transfer to the Big Sky, at the end of the football season or perhaps on July 1 when the NCAA calendar changes to the new year. Still not a "hole in the constitution".

It isn't a "hole in the constitution", it's the clause that allows schools to have sports that the Big Sky doesn't sponsor. An obvious example, it allows UND to keep hockey and have the teams be members of the WCHA or NCHC. Without a clause like that they would not have allowed UND in at all unless the school dumped hockey, swimming and any other sports that the Big Sky does not sponsor. That clause has absolutely nothing to do with the nickname either now or the future. It shows that UND doesn't qualify as a full member of the league until it meets the requirements of the NCAA for full Division I membership. That should happen in July unless something prevents UND from finishing the transition.

Big Sky Conference Constitution 2009-2010 (couldn't find 2011-2012) Article V Membership Section 2 Membership A. Member institutions shall be Division I members of the NCAA and be classified as Football Championship Subdivision in football. B. Member institutions shall meet the NCAA Division I membership criteria as set forth in NCAA Bylaws. C. Member institutions may participate as members of another Conference only in those sports not recognized or sponsored by the Conference. The NCAA currently considers the University of North Dakota a Division II institution that is transitioning to Division I and playing Division I FCS football (see http://web1.ncaa.org/onlineDir/exec/divisionListing). UND can not be considered a Division I member until July 1, 2012 at the earliest, and only if they get final approval from the NCAA. According to the definition above, UND is not a full fledged member of the Big Sky Conference at this time, and will not be a full fledged member until July 1, 2012 at the earliest.

Libraries aren't dying, there are new libraries being built all over the country. They are doing quite well. But they are changing and adapting to the new world. The library in Grand Forks averages more than 800 people every day it is open. They check out more than 2,000 things every day. My guess is that a lot larger percentage of the population uses the library on an annual basis than you think. People need to do a lot of research that isn't school related. Not all of it can be done on the internet. Even a lot of school research can't be done on the internet. Books are still a big part of libraries But using computers is a large part of the new library too. The average person can't use the libraries in schools. Do you think they would allow someone to walk in off the street to use the library at any school in the country? And the library at UND does not supply the same type stuff that non-students need from a library. Childrens books is just one example, do you remember seeing a lot of childrens books at the Chester Fritz Library? A lot of people can't afford to buy new books all the time, and many others would rather not spend the $10 or $20 or more that it costs to buy a book and read it one time. Libraries make reading affordable for the average person. You pay your share of the taxes and you have the opportunity to use the facilities and to read a huge selection of books, magazines and newspapers as well as use any of the other items. Libraries are part of a lifelong education program that exists in the United States. Free libraries are part of our heritage, and one of the things that makes the United States special. If you want to go after a real money loser, go after things like the Park District, the Street Department and several other departments. They all "lose" a lot more money than the Alerus Center or the library.

AZSIOUX has the best information on Sioux jerseys. I did see another site that had pictures, but I don't remember where it was.

Those are all sites that rebroadcast regular and cable TV on the internet. Some of them would occasionally have a UND game. Someone that does the rebroadcasting would have to be interested in UND sports and have access to the signal to put it on the internet. I have watched sports on channelsurfing, justin and firstrow plus a few others. I've watched NFL games on all 3 and seen UND hockey on at least 2 of them. But UND sports didn't show up on them very often.

The turnout will depend a lot on 2 things, when the election is held and how active the supporters on either side of the issue will be. This will be a special election for just this issue. Normally that would mean a much smaller than normal turnout. Because of the tax issue and how influential that was on the last general election, I don't know if this will be a normal special election. My guess is that it will be a larger turnout for a normal special election (probably somewhere between 5-10,000) but not as large as a general election (which can be around 20,000 depending on the year). A library can strike a chord with a lot of people so I really don't know how many voters will turn out or which way it will go. But overall I don't think voter participation has changed significantly in North Dakota. It can vary from election to election depending on races and issues. But overall voter participation in Grand Forks and North Dakota is pretty good compared to most of the country. I believe that Fargo's sales tax is .75% higher than Grand Forks now that they approved the tax to support flood control. I think they are at 7.5%. I don't think that the increase in Fargo will hurt their tourism or help Grand Forks. I don't think that an increase of 1% in Grand Forks will hurt Grand Forks or help Fargo, especially for a 2 1/2 year period. The differences are way too small. If Grand Forks is .25% higher than Fargo and you spent $1,000 you would save $2.50 in taxes. Canadian traffic, which makes up the bulk of Grand Forks tourism, would spend more than that on gas driving to Fargo. If the difference were higher, if Grand Forks were maybe 1% or more higher than Fargo it might make a difference. And Fargo would probably have to be much higher than Grand Forks to make a difference. The truth is I don't think that tourists worry a great deal about what the sales tax is in places. Sales taxes are usually much higher in big cities and other places that attract tourists, but it doesn't slow down the tourism in those areas. I know that I rarely pay attention to the sales tax levels when I am planning a trip. I just figure that I am going to have to pay whatever the rate is if I want to go to that place. As far as sales taxes never seeming to go down, there are a couple of reasons for that. First, most of the sales tax is set up as perpetual. The 5% state tax and the 1% regular Grand Forks tax do not have a sunset clause as far as I know. They aren't going away. The second reason is that most sales tax with a sunset clause are for large projects so they have long timelines. The 3/4% for the Alerus Center is a 30 year tax. That is going to be around for a while. The extra 1/4% on hospitality in Grand Forks is a permanent tax to help support the Alerus Center. So most of the taxes are fairly long term, that's why it seems like they never go away.