82SiouxGuy

I don't know anything about the candidate, but my guess is that he decided to get some head coaching experience after several years of being an assistant coach at the collegiate level. He wouldn't be the first coach to do that. I believe that one Dean Blais was an assistant for a certain DI hockey program and stepped down to get experience as a head coach in the high school ranks. He then jumped back to the DI level as a head coach. (Disclaimer: I am in no way comparing the coaching abilities of this candidate or any other high school coach to the coaching abilities of local coaching legend Dean Blais. I am also not trying to compare the coaching progression of hockey coaches to basketball coaches.)

That is correct tSicatoka, that's where I found the paragraph. I probably should have included a link. The 5 years experience and Masters degree were part of the original job listing.

Here is the criteria listed right from the UND web site:

How many neutral sports fans are there in North Dakota? Other than new people moving into the state, and there aren't large numbers of those, I believe that most people in North Dakota have made a choice between UND and NDSU. Even supporters of smaller schools in North Dakota usually like one of the bigger schools more than the other. I do agree that some casual sports fans that only go to 1 or 2 games a year may choose to go to Fargo if NDSU is playing a "name" opponent.

You may be right PCM. I am not an attorney, but my guess is that whether they wait or not may depend on what case they want to make the focus. If it is the breech of contract and the fact that the NC$$ has overstepped its authority they may go ahead soon. If they want to concentrate on the financial side it may be advantageous to wait until it happens. The attorneys will make that call depending on what they think is the strongest case. But, with the speed our legal system works at currently it may be quite awhile before anything is decided.

I think what Siouxman is saying is that UND may not be able to sue until the policy is enforced or until damage is done, such as being denied a home playoff game in football or basketball. There is no way to prove that UND would definitely host a playoff game in the future (in spite of the past successes).

They can promote them all they want but the news outlets usually don't bother covering them. Death, destruction and the like sell papers, not stories about flowers and puppies. But it is good to see good news like this reported once in a while. I wish we would see more of it. Good for UND, UTTC, the Education Department, and especially the students that have worked so hard to make a better life for themselves.

Has everyone forgotten the $171 million dollars that Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy got for Grand Forks after the flood in 1997? And more money for other parts of the state after the same flood? Or all of the money in highway funds, and research dollars, and weather related emergency funds for ag, and so on that they bring in for North Dakota? Like their politics or not, they are elected by the people of North Dakota to bring in money from Washington and they do that job well. They also pass laws like Dru's Law, recently passed by the Senate and sponsored by Dorgan. I don't think it would have made any difference if the Senators, Congressman or Governor had made a big stink about the Fighting Sioux name. No one at the NC$$ would have cared if a politician from the small state of North Dakota made a statement or not. Jeb Bush, like Florida State, has a lot more pull than Hoeven and the state of North Dakota. Our politicians would have been burning bridges with no positive effect, just to make UND fans happy. They have all made statements in favor of the name. People that are in favor of keeping the name should contact them to make sure they are doing things that actually can make a difference. One of those things may be the House legislation being discussed. Personally, I hesitate to make laws that are so narrow in scope but this may be an exception. Also, Dorgan and Conrad have proven very good at back room politics and may be able to make things happen that way. But I think that you are wrong if you think they would have been doing their jobs just by making some big public display of hot air so that UND fans could feel good about what their politicians were doing.

You can't blame Pomeroy if the House of Representatives system is set up to only accept messages from his district. I tried a random New York rep using my home zip code in North Dakota and was rejected. Pomeroy's web page has telephone numbers that you can use.

The problem is that these institutions are written in the state constitution and it would be very difficult to change the constitution to remove them.

You did say that UND has NO Sioux support earlier in this thread. And that isn't true. The Spirit Lake Tribal Council doesn't care about issuing a new statement because they have already spoken. It doesn't matter to them that the resolution was 6 years ago. They won't pass another resolution unless it is to change the present resolution. And we will never get a large number of Sioux tribal members writing letters of support or marching to the REA in support of the nickname because it is not a huge issue with most tribe members. I believe that most tribe members are more concerned with issues like food, housing, alcohol problems, education and so on. You know, the issues of real life. So I would not expect to see OVERWHELMING or MAJOR support even if 100% of the tribe members supported the name. The people that are against the name are a much more vocal group and always will be, even if they are a very small minority. That is PCM's point, from all indications it is a minority of tribe members that are against the nickname. According to Archie Fool Bear's letter a majority of tribe members in 6 out of 8 districts at Standing Rock support the nickname. And yet the Tribal Council has been against the nickname in recent years and may vote against it again this week. Should UND be forced to change the nickname to appease a minority? How significant a number does it need to be to give them that power? What if only a majority of the tribal council wants to have the nickname changed and more than 90% of the tribe members doesn't? Does anyone really know what the actual numbers are on either side of the issue?

As has been noted many times on this board, the Spirit Lake Tribe passed a resolution in 2000 that said they would support the nickname as long as UND worked to establish tolerance and fight racism. They told the NC$$ that they would not be changing their resolution and repeated that to President Kupchella earlier this year. That resolution is in writing. The NC$$ does not consider this good enough to qualify as acceptance by the Sioux Nation. Archie Fool Bear's letter indicates that there is a great deal of support for UND at the grassroots level on the Standing Rock Reservation even though the Tribal Council has not changed their stance so far. A segment of Sioux tribal members have been against the use of the nickname for several years, including several tribal leaders. But there has been no indication that I have seen that a simple majority of tribal members (or even a large minority segment) are against UND's use of the Fighting Sioux nickname.

I believe that the only thing that would stop UND from legal action is if the SBoHE decided to stop it. I don't think that UND is ready to show it's cards yet, but this issue is not anywhere near done. My guess is that one (or more) of those UND educated lawyers will take this case and run with it. It wouldn't surprise me if the AG gets involved since it is a North Dakota institution. There is no guarantee of success in a court of law, and that may have prompted the comment about modifications to the name. That is an issue of last resort right now.

And I have been told that the reason we don't play night games now is because Coach Lennon doesn't like them. He likes having the same schedule every weekend for his players. I am sure that college football atmosphere in the afternoon is part of his reasoning.

Do they have lacrosse teams at Canadian colleges? That could grow the sport very quickly.

The full Standing Rock tribal council does not meet until next week for their vote on the issue. I don't think that they are bound by the vote of the Judicial Committee or by the people. You could assume that they would follow the same path, but they could decide to do something totally different and vote against UND. Especially if one of their leaders feels very strongly about the issue. I think that the NC$$ will delay the decision on UND until after the vote by the full council. Then they will follow the wishes of the tribe and claim that they (the NC$$) are being consistent. The only way I see them making a decision tomorrow is if they see the similarities in the UND and Illinois cases and decide they want to avoid a potential lawsuit from those 2 schools.

It looks like we have a new development in the name issue. This statement was released today. It looks like the Standing Rock Tribal Council may now support the use of the nickname.

The announcement of the denial will probably be released on Friday afternoon. Isn't that when the NC$$ usually drops their PC pronouncements?

They have been trying for a new baseball park on campus for several years. The coach thought he could get most of the funding a few years ago but the administration didn't want to spend any money on bricks and mortar at the time. They have also tried to work with the St. Paul Saints to share a stadium and that hasn't worked out. Whenever the Metrodome disappears the UMTC baseball program will be in trouble during the early part of the season unless the Twins get a stadium with a roof on it.

I don't follow the basketball teams closely enough to give an opinion on Herbst either way. If he is interested in the job he could apply during the national search. Then we trust the search committee and the AD. That is part of Buning's job. All we can do is hope they find a coach that is a good fit for the program and a coach that will have more success than the program has had in recent years.

And, it is possible that if Harkness had been hired the program would have as little success as it did during the Rube Bjorkman era. There is no way to predict what "could have happened". If Glas leaves, which looks probable, we should do a thorough national search. Let everyone that is interested put in an application and we can hire the best coach for our situation. UND should be a great draw as either a DII program with great potential or an entry level DI program.

The rumor from another thread is that ZBJ has been going to school somewhere in North Carolina but he plans to return for next season.

Actually, there is a different perspective. Talent does not always equal acheivment. Young talent often needs to grow into acheivement. My perspective is that the Sioux hockey team, with a lot of very young talent, acheived faster than expected. I expected them to be competitive in the regular season and have a chance to reach the regional. Once you get there just about anything can happen in a single game elimination. We saw that happen in this year's tournament.

I think that what bucky is saying is that UND didn't get a chance to overacheive because UMTC underacheived, twice. UND played Holy Cross because UMTC lost a game in which they were overwhelming favorites. And UND played St. Cloud at the Final Five for the the same season. So Holy Cross and St. Cloud overacheived while UND was right where they should have been as long as they didn't have to face the mighty UMTC squad. I still see it as overacheiving when a team that finishes in the middle of the WCHA, where it was predicted to be at the beginning of the season, moves on to the Frozen Four. Just because the path is not as difficult as predicted doesn't make it less of an accomplishment.

Losing 3 straight games in tournament play, when your team was heavily favored in 2 of the losses, is why people think that UMTC underachieved this year. You are right, for this season UND belonged in a group of the top teams that included UMTC, Wisconsin and BC along with possibly a couple of others. Three teams from that list ended up in the Frozen Four. All of these programs will be near the top in most years. But there is a difference between freshmen and other underclassmen. If you are "expecting" to win a National Title or even reach the Frozen Four when half your team is made up of freshmen you are being unrealistic. They are great goals, and could happen (see UND and BC), but reaching those goals should still be considered exceeding expectations.