Chewey

UND would not be encouraging anything. Not replacing the nickname is not encouraging use of the former nickname. The people have options with "North Dakota" - "Flickertails, "Fighting Sioux", "North Dakota". According to your premise, the fans already have options. Who's to say people aren't going to say "Go North Dakota" at these same venues? By your premise, the NCAA an,d by extension, Kelley, Peter Johnson and the rest of them want to have a new nickname so that the wearing of "Fighting Sioux" attire, the saying of "Go Sioux", the saying of "Home of the Sioux" at the end of the national anthem and all other like references are eliminated. No matter how you dress it up with marketing and failure to abide by the surrender agreement hyperbole, this is tantamount to language and thought policing. And, what you just indicated here controverts assertions made to the contrary. "We don't want you saying 'Fighting Sioux'" is not an appropriate basis to select a new nickname. This is why I do not and will not support the choosing of a new nickname. In venues the NCAA does have control over, "North Dakota", at least for now, does not constitute negative and offensive NA imagery. The venues they would control would be public venues so they'd look pretty foolish in directly saying that they don't want people saying this or that. The surrender agreement does not contemplate not having a nickname. This is appropriate because that's an entirely different matter which would require a new policy.

1. No nickname = no need to be concerned about policies regarding possibly offensive nicknames; 2. NCAA and PC crybabies are accommodated because there is no use of NA names or imagery; 3. People who believe any new, insipid nickname (as any new nickname must be in order to satisfy and not offend the "stakeholders") would be an insult to the old nickname and logo and, more importantly, to the majority of the NA's who wanted to keep it would be accommodated.

Not having one violates no agreement/policy. The purported reasons for needing to select one are strained at best. The position that a new nickname is needed, as quickly as possible, so that UND is not known or associated, even inferentially, with the old one is neither appropriate nor healthy.

Not having a nickname will subject UND to a nickname policy prohibiting that employment of hostile and abusive nicknames/imagery. It makes sense now.

The NCAA has a policy against NA nicknames and imagery. UND's former nickname and logo ran afoul of that policy. Not having a nickname does not run afoul of a policy prohibiting the employment of hostile and abusive nicknames. With no nickname, there is no such policy applicable to UND and there are no prohibitions being violated.

No nickname is not a new nickname that violates the Policy or would render UND subject to the Policy. Exactly. There's no spin in reciting what the document itself says. Kelley and the rest of the "let's get a new nickname yesterday" crowd are employing both spin and eisegesis by indicating that not having a nickname violates the surrender agreement. Not having a nickname has absolutely nothing to do with either the Policy or the surrender agreement.

The "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo were excellent. Not having a nickname is likewise excellent, though not as excellent has having the "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo, because 1.) No hyper-sensitive passions vis-a-vis NA imagery are piqued and respect is shown because NA imagery is no longer used; 2.) the wishes of the sheer majority of NA's who supported the "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo are respected and due deference for the rich Sioux history and imagery is shown because no new and inane nickname is selected; 3.) Neither the policy nor the surrender agreement is implicated at all.

Is there any policy or document that requires this basic format? No. The university and its teams can legitimately be known and identified as "the University of North Dakota" or just "North Dakota". If UND does not have a nickname, neither the policy nor the surrender agreement applies. The parties can't even amend the surrender agreement to address it because it's an entirely different area. For there to be any offense, the NCAA would have to concoct a new policy to require all schools to have nicknames.

Exactly. So, just retain the part that's never changed. Thanks for your support and welcome to the "Keep It Just North Dakota" fold. #sarcasm

Um. Nope. Paragraph 2.d. Absence of Namesake Approval -- .....UND...will transition to a new nickname and logo which do not violate the Policy or render UND subject to the Policy. In the event UND announces a transition to a new nickname and logo which do not violate the Policy , the transition will be completed on or before August 15, 2011......If UND does not adopt a new nickname and logo, or if the transition to a new nickname and logo is not completed prior to August 15, 2011, then UND will be returned to the list of institutions subject to the Policy. Is there anything anywhere in the NCAA by-laws, etc. requiring that a school have a nickname and logo? No. Is there anything anywhere saying that not having a nickname or logo violates anything, including the Policy? No. The whole thing is about satisfying the policy or not offending the policy. What's the effing policy again? Anyone? Anyone? Yes. Policy = Don't have "hostile and abusive" NA nicknames and imagery. That's it. UND is no longer known as "the Fighting Sioux". There it is - policy complied with. Has either the NCAA Constitution or the NCAA by-laws been amended requiring schools to have nicknames? Has the NCAA Executive Committee come up with any such requirement? Now, the opponents of the "keep North Dakota" option can engage in linguistic and syntax divination or eisegete that paragraph with anything that's self-serving to their position. The meaning is quite clear and one certainly does not need to resort to diagramming sentences to see it. The parties are limited to the four corners of the document and the surrender agreement indicates that quite clearly. Paragraph 6, page 9, "UND and the NCAA agree that this Agreement constitutes all the agreements between them, and they have no other written or oral agreements or understandings." Parol evidence rule notwithstanding, the NCAA would have no basis, as per the agreement itself, to indicate that "we really meant this". In paragraph 3 of page 9, UND can challenge any changes to the Policy. The NCAA would have to come up with a new policy in order to have a new category of offense regarding not having a nickname. The second to last introductory paragraph on page 2 indicates that the parties "desire to settle and extinguish all claims, rights of action, causes of action, and demands between themselves that they have or could have". Not having a nickname or logo does not violate either the Policy or the surrender agreement. End of story, scare tactics notwithstanding. Is not having a nickname mentioned in "the Policy"? No. Therefore, no litigation will come out of the surrender agreement because it deals only with the Policy. Not having a nickname does not violate the policy explicitly or even inferentially because there is absolutely no verbiage or language anywhere dealing with that topic.

The MIAC has it solve with Johnnies Tommies Oles Gusties Auggies etc. Go by the Nodaks or Daks if North Dakota is too offensive. Why does anyone need to say "Here come your North Dakota (insert something -anything - other that Fighting Sioux)? Just so that it doesn't sound stupid ("Here come your North Dakota North Dakota)? How about "Here comes North Dakota" "Here we come - North Dakota " "Here’s your North Dakota scoring". Pretty simple to rearrange how one would say "the call". Having a stupid nickname just so that some thing's there and just so that one can say "Here come your North Dakota (whatever) is a poor basis to rush to a nickname and saying the inane and insipid replacement nickname would sound more stupid than just North Dakota.

No. You understand incorrectly so your stated self-assurance is for naught, unfortunately. For purposes of clarification, there are professors and administrators and some students on the UND campus who have stated that the simple wearing of Fighting Sioux attire causes a "hostile" atmosphere on campus and makes a lot of people want to cry. It's these that I'm referring to. I don't think UND settled with any of them.

No "void". It's "North Dakota". It certainly would make sense that they'd have denoted #North Dakota, accordingly. Choose any replacement and they probably would have done the same thing. When "progressive change" is effected through monopolistic fiat and economic terrorism, when you have some affected parties accept it for pragmatic reasons (and this is being all too generous in describing that particular sentiment) and when you have a rush to change based upon not only transparent and flawed reasoning but an explicit desire to expunge the former name and logo from the vernacular and from people's thinking, you're going to have long-lasting, vociferous, significant opposition.

Well, when you combine a "process" to select a nickname - any reasonable nickname - as soon as possible with the reason being to "encourage" people not only to yell anything other than "Fighting Sioux" at games but also to "cleanse" people from thinking about the former nickname along with certain parties - yes, the very same ones that the university and Kelley cow-towed to in the first place -- on campus assaulting the general public with invective about not allowing people to wear Fighting Sioux attire on campus, it's really not too much of a stretch.

Really? That must be why two "younger folks" who are recent Fighting Sioux hockey recruits denoted #Fighting Sioux in their correspondence when they indicated that they had chosen UND.

Yawn. The same tactic -- getting the U.S. Patent/Trademark Office to throw out the trademark protections - employed by them and reversed by the Court. All the more reason to continue fighting The Suzan Harjo's of the world and the accompanying sycophantic "media lackeys".

6 of them did and the tribal chair (Not RHHIT) would have gone in favor of allowing a vote

Good article by David! I would concur with Bob about the NCAA eventually slouching into the dustbin of history (hopefully).

Um. No. At this juncture, however, the right decision is to stay "North Dakota".

No thanks. Having a description of a landscape as a nickname is almost as bad as having some inane weather phenomenon.

UND did everything they could with the tribal councils and were 2 tribal council votes shy of getting a vote allowed on SR. Their fault the failure to nurture any kind of stable, good faith relationships from at least the 40's or 50's forward. Any payment would have been seen as a "bribe" and the nickname opponents on the councils were too "principled" to go that route. As President Kupchella said, the nickname had been in the public domain for decades. Not one part of the NCAA charade should have been necessary though the school have cultivated relationships anyway. UND was bullied 1.) because it was and is smaller than FSU and it's not a BCS school; and 2.) Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy did absolutely nothing and Florida's delegation did. Dorgan's, Conrad's and Pomeroy's indifference were no surprise, especially given their impotence and squishiness to GFAFB's loss of ICBM's to Malmstrom and B-1 B bombers all when Bill Clinton (yes, a Democrat) was President. There was hope with Hoeven but he turned out to be entirely squishy too. Whether it's "Redskins", "Seminoles" or "Fighting Sioux", the names have been in the public domain and permission should not be necessary. If you don't like the name(s), that's "tough darts", as Randy Lee used to say. Unfortunately the NCAA specifically and academia generally, with its "free speech zones" and like nonsense, have become the de facto US version of Canada's Provincial Human Rights Commissions.

I'm sure the NC00 believes that the financial losses from not being able to merchandise and promote a nickname constitute enough punishment already.

UNDertakers?

Well, opinions vary. What's at issue is how the surrender agreement is construed and there's no explicit prohibition against it.

The state passed a law saying that they had to be known as the "Fighting Sioux" and the NCAA had a problem with it and indicated that UND would be put back on the sanctions list. The state passed a law saying that UND will be known as North Dakota and that the school could not start a process for selecting a new nickname for a few years and the NCAA didn't make the same threat. That's my point. There was no basis for the NCAA to make the same threat, the ambiguity in paragraph 2d being the possible reason why.