Teeder11

Lee is having a brutal game for DU.

I've told you before on this site that I would be the first in line to eat the biggest crow pie you've ever seen if and only if there's some way that UND can convince the NCAA to let us keep the nickname without sactions or potential harm. I want that day to happen. I'm not going to hide from anyone, especially you. I love the nickname, always have. I love it so much that I am willing to let it go to save the very thing, the more important thing, it represents.

Nice.

Trolling. Try not to bite.

Tim O'Keefe, executive vice president and CEO of the UND Alumni Association & Foundation

Exactly. If you don't know something, just make something up to fit your agenda. Typical SAB M.O.

You're cute. You make me smile. Listen, I don't know Tom Douple. Probably a nice enough guy, but I have never been in the same room with him nor do I know him enough to put total and utter faith in what he allegedly said to Jeff Kolpack, who I know only slightly better through my years spent in journalism (I know his brother much better than him.) What I do know is that I have complete trust in Dr. Kelley and Brian Faison, who I can visit and speak with on a daily basis if I I want. Hey, no one is going to win this one. I choose to trust someone I know. Others choose to put faith in a newspaper reporter and a conference commish with an axe to grind against UND. As a former reporter, I can tell you that, unfortunately, we do get things wrong, misquote, misconstrue, misunderstand so-called facts all the time. We also are known to not let the facts get in the way of a good story sometimes. Now, I'm not saying that Jeff did any of that, as I am more inclined to believe that Douple just flat out lied (in his pissed off state following UND's decision to go Big Sky). But again, that's my gut feeling based on who I feel is more deserving of my trust. I don't have proof that Douple lied any more than anyone else has proof that Kelley urged Douple to take a hard stand against the nickname. It's a "he said she said" scenario, and in that case, I will side with the people I know. You want to match quotes? OK, but I don't know what it proves... it's one person's version of what happened over the other's, and it seems no one was around to corroborate any of it. So it's left up to us amateur internet jockeys to write and revise the history as we see fit. So, in that spirit, here goes: Statement by University of North Dakota Athletic Director Brian Faison: "I'm here today to respond to a report that the University of North Dakota "pressured" the Summit League to take stand against the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo. The University of North Dakota never asked the Summit League, or its commissioner, to take a stand against the nickname and logo. In fact, the commissioner of the Summit League stated publicly, on more than one occasion over the past two years, that the university had to resolve the nickname and logo issue before they would consider us for membership. This resolution of the nickname and logo issue was always a precondition for league membership. My position has always been that we need a resolution. My job was to find the best conference for the University of North Dakota, and that is the Big Sky Conference." --------- UND spokesman Peter Johnson said Monday and repeated Tuesday that university President Robert Kelley “categorically denies” UND officials ever made such a request to the Summit League. “False. Not true at all,” Johnson said. “Neither the president or the athletic director or anybody else from UND ever talked to (the Summit League) from that angle. In no way, shape or form did we ask (Douple) to make that an issue.”

"UNC Pembroke's athletic teams are known as the Braves. Due to its heritage as an institution founded for the benefit of Native Americans and support from the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the school has largely been immune to the ongoing controversies related to Native American-themed nicknames and mascots. The school is a member of the NCAA's Division II and competes in the Peach Belt Conference, with the exceptions of football, track and field, and wrestling, in which it competes as an independent. The school fields 16 varsity sports teams." UNC-Pembroke Wikipedia entry. "Doing fine" is a relative condition, besides, I hope our aspirations are a bit higher than a Division II independent.

Neither did UND. Kolpack and the Foolem tried to connect those imaginary dots and failed miserably.

If true... you have found the missing link, cracked the code, discovered the key precedent that no one has been able to dredge up since this whole fiasco started, not even former speaker of the house Denny Hastert (in his battle against the NCAA on behalf of Illinois), not even Jerry Tarkanian, formerly of UNLV, after he sued the NCAA in 1992 (ended up settling with NCAA for $2.5 million) not even past UND administrations, not even our Congressional delegation, not even our current AG could find this "open sesame" clause. You're a genious!!! Where have you been our whole lives? I hope you're right.

And before anyone says "Denver, Shmenver" and throws out the ridiculous "apples and oranges" argument that UND in a much more dominant position than some small liberal arts college out in the mountains ... Denver is almost a mirror image of UND apart from it does not offer football as a varsity sport. Denver's enrollment is 11,000 to UND's 14,700, it has been competing in Division I hockey as long as UND and has as many national championships, it is dominate in NCAA Division I Lacross, too. Its men's basketball team has wins this year against Big Sky's Portland State, Utah State, Wyoming, Boise State, Western Kentucky and also recently beat a Top 20 ranked Middle Tennessee State on ESPN. They are not just some marginal school that fields cellar dweller athletic teams for opponents to kick around.

Professional contrarianism pure and simple. Stir the pot, attract hits to said website, and by turn it spurs responses, to hell with whether he truly believes it or not. It's a tried and true model started by yellow journalism editorialists and perfected by talk radio.... now we're in the age of the Internets.

It's become my daily comic relief.

Did anyone else catch the buzz that this amazing SH breakaway goal is attracting? Love the hair, too! http://sports.yahoo....-134512109.html

Sic speaks the truth. And your last point is simply false. Bison and Sioux fans condescend each other on here all the time and no one gets banned.

Ira is spot on here. Despite the popular narrative rolled out often and ignorantly by the save-the-name-at-all-costs crowd, Kelley and Faison are not and never have been against the name and logo because they believe it is disrespectful to American Indians. That is and always has been the NCAA's contention -- and a pathetically arrogant and misinformed one at that. Lumping Kelley and Faison in with that lot is a red herring . Kelley and Faison have always been friends of the name, as long as it came without sanctions or there was an endgame that didn't expose the University to potential harm. The deception campaign that is espoused by Fetch (or maybe he truly believes it.) and the gang riles the troops and may garner a few ill-informed converts along the way, but I can honestly say, it is patently false.

You keep mis-paraphrasing a statement made by Peter Johnson, UND spokesman, the day before the $300 million public campaign was launched. He never said it was going to be bigger than Ralph's gift. He said it was going to be one of the biggest announcements in his time at UND, which spans more than 20 years. He said it in the spirit of trying to generate excitement for a worthy cause, but in Grand Forks, where people have gotten spoiled in recent years by amazingly extravagant gifts falling out of the sky, some in the public took Peter's little teaser and ran with it and it became a game of "telephone" getting grander and grander as it passed from one person to the next.

I think this is the term you are alluding to: Sockpuppet: A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term—a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about himself while pretending to be another person. Full source citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)

We're fighting for our school. This is a blind spot for you. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

Rob Portly over at SAB just posted a doozy full of pompous uninformed opinions, biased conjecture, slanted speculation and revisionist history, basically, standard SAB fare. So in other words, nothing new to report there. http://sayanythingbl...ng-sioux-issue/

I'm anticipating a good-faith effort to do things like enabling announcers at games to once again refer to the teams as "Fighing Sioux" and allowing the use of uniforms with Fighting Sioux logos on them, but I don't think we will be seeing UND reinventing the wheel again and reversing everything that was done with the website and the formation of the new clubs, i.e. Champions club, nodak nation, etc., at least until after the people decide in June and the constitutionality of the law is challenged in court. I think UND will be reticent to continue the ping pong game of changing and then changing back until things become more settled.

I know you weren't. My comment wasn't directed toward you, but rather those from other regional schools who take this argument as a battle cry in their own little pi$$ing contest with UND. Certainly, on-campus enrollment is important, but you have to remember that UND is raking in a ton of cash from online tuition, too, and it is also sustaining on-campus teaching, technology support and administrative jobs and paychecks that get spent locally. It is also important to realize that UND's on campus enrollment is growing along with the online gains, so it's a win-win all around. There are more students on campus spending money in the community and more money being pumped in from elsewhere in the form of online student tuition and fees.

Cratter is correct.

I never did get that whole B.S. assertion. Who cares who is on campus and who is going to UND at a distance? They're all taking classes from UND instructors who are using UND time and resources to educate people who have chosen UND over other schools for one reason or another. It's not like they're phantom students. They are paying tuition and getting an education in exchange, just like thousands of others who do the same thing in on-campus classrooms. This is a different time than the ye ol' days of the 1960s-90s when you went to your parent's alma mater when you were 18 and graduated four to six years later, depending on how many brain cells you wasted on alcohol. We have technology now that allows us to do more than ever and to cast a wider net to deliver our education at a cheaper cost to both the institution and the student. Students tend to be older and more savvy than the days of old, and many take advantage of distance learning to go back and advance their education while they continue in the workforce. It's a win-win for both the University and the student. Why not take advantage and exploit it? Every other school in this country has the same opportunity to do the same thing; it just so happens that UND has been doing it since 1995 and has a leg up on most of this region and ranks high in online education delivery across the country. This whole attitude where jealous Jan Brady types poo poo online enrollments and suggest that on-campus enrollment is somehow more genuine is akin to jack-hole Minnesota Gopher faithfuls who diminish UND's success in hockey because we choose to recruit nationally and internationally instead of drawing our talent from in state like they do in the "State of Hockey." What's the difference, I say? Get the best players from wherever you can. Don't limit yourself to self-imposed parameters and then turn around and criticize others who choose not to. The same goes for university students: attract them anyway you can, and if an online program is one means of doing it and doing it well-- so be it.

Chuck Haga is thumbing through his Rolodex right now... "Hmmmm, now let's see 'F' for Fullerton, yes, Doug Fullerton, what's his number again?"