jimdahl

To be fair, 50% is really high. There's no question the state nicknames are somewhat associated with the state in a way that some of the other options aren't.

If we're going to nitpick, I'm actually pretty good at math. I think your complaint is with one specific member's post, not the community. I'm feeling pedantic because I'm on nickname thread duty, generalizations are kind of weak, and I'm watching this thread closely because I've been warned we must. I will agree that I haven't been disappointed. It has lived up to the hype. No question there's some passion (a word I've used a lot today) here.

Thanks, I started writing that just wanting to call broader attention to the point about how ex-Indian mascot teams always get steered into ____Hawks. Then I found myself re-editing it because I was worried that I would be perceived as endorsing, or slamming, the name, while I actually find it just acceptable. That's when I realized that Fighting Hawks might win because it's safe rather than loved. It's been so under the radar and is so generic that it has generated no controversy. It's not clear that a name that generates no passion is what I want (at a minimum, it's very different from what we're accustomed to with Fighting Sioux!) Now I'm worried that Fighting Hawks is more suited for a lesser institution than the state's namesake university. I'm even starting to wonder if, in the long run, I'd prefer any of the bolder names (even those I dislike), because they'd eventually become uniquely associated with UND athletics given their uniqueness and strong ties to the region. Shameless plug in case anyone missed it, the post: Fighting Hawks – the safe, unimaginative, generic, dark horse nickname that finds itself a front runner

I'm a little surprised people are questioning the integrity of the committee members. If a fix was in, perhaps in the composition of the committee (such that one constituency was outnumbered), but the committee seriously debated the names and did their best to follow the process. Dropping North Dakota was far from unanimous, and there were numerous attempts from the expected constituencies (athletes, students) to keep it alive.

Letter to the Herald, anyone?

This has been discussed/questioned a bit here in the past: Full Herald article: http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/education/3801860-undnorth-dakota-out-committee-forwards-five-nicknames-public-vote

To say the fix was in on sundogs would be overstating it, but the PC crowd has been positioning it since long before the majority of us here, on Herald polls, or at large in G.F. believed the Sioux name might really go away. It had a big head start. Some of the opposition from old timers is that Sundogs was already being positioned as the successor to Fighting Sioux back when people believed it didn't matter because Fighting Sioux would stick around, so Sundogs became sort of synonymous with the anti-nickname movement.

This thread's been toeing the line for some time, but really went off the rails this weekend. I rather hoped it would veer back on its own, but hasn't. Can we drop the national politics?

Exactly. It was someone on the losing side of the "just North Dakota" vote making one last hail mary to back door keep it alive. It didn't work.

He means Anna's tweets are old. Including it to "see what the public thinks" was discussed, but rejected by the committee.

I assumed someone would take offense at that I just meant that it consistently polled well, and certainly generated a lot of chatter. It was quite polarizing, some thought it the only reasonable choice, some thought it insane.

You know how after something dies, sometimes some limbs keep twitching; or in a horror movie, how the bad guy jumps up one last time after you're sure he's dead? It's like that...

That doesn't even make sense -- why would you measure what the public thinks if it's out of consideration? If it's back in the vote, it's back under consideration, no matter what they say.

And we're down to five, with fan favorite "just North Dakota" having been eliminated. What now?

Pay attention, it's Rough Hawks

I know no one likes it, so we try to minimize it, but the practice of closing threads really does generally achieve its goal. The first weapon in the moderator toolkit is posting "hey stop this particular line of discussion", but someone often continues it (either because they haven't yet reached the moderator's post, or because they just can't resist trying to get in the last word). Closing a thread results in the legitimate discussion picking up in a new thread, but leaving the garbage behind because it can't be directly responded to. That said, we definitely intentionally let the on topic woofing go in pregame threads, especially for big rivalry games. So, given that we actually hold them to a bit looser a standard, they're particularly challenging to moderate.

Neither. We'll change so the brand stays identifiably associated with UND athletics, but I haven't bought hundreds or anything like that. UND made a pretty serious land grab on its favorite names (ie they're not going to get caught not owning [mascot]sports.com again), but I'm confident we'll find something acceptable. I've grabbed a few favorites (sundognation.com). Kidding on that one, sundogsnation.com is still available to anyone with $10 to spare

I might be able to bring myself to cheer for Oshie...

"Here come your University of North Dakota Ursae Minor!" I'll have to think about it. [in all seriousness, I still stand by North Stars as better than at least 4 of the remains 7]

I don't think that's quite right. When you look at the "top 15" poll here, of the votes for a new nickname (disregard "North Dakota" for now) North Stars was top 3 after only Roughriders and Cavalry. When it was cut to 7, eliminating Cavalry, North Stars is #2 behind only Roughriders. I'm certainly among those who think we can live with North Stars. Much as I don't think anyone outside the city of GF will know or care that Roughriders is the local high school's nickname, I don't think anyone outside of Minnesota will know or care that North Stars is Minnesota's motto. UND is like 2 miles from Minnesota, it's not surprising that each feel an affiliation with similar mottos/nicknames.

Agreed. I think that's why some people are complaining about the consultants adding minimal value, in that they just seem to be trying to minimize downside risk by recommending the safe ("fighting green", "_____ hawks") names instead of helping vet unusual names that could really give the school a unique and powerful brand.

Explorers, for example, had never even crossed my mind until it somehow made the final 15. When I gave it some thought (i.e. imagine a world in 10 years in which UND has been the explorers for 10 years), I decided it was one of those unique names that could work. Of course, the committee then dismissed it because, as you said, it didn't sound right initially. I personally came around on cavalry in the same way. The structure of the process that we can point to as the cause of that is that the first round of winnowing involved going through the whole list and advancing a name if someone on the committee gave it a "yes" vote. That precluded many truly out-of-the-box names from advancing, leaving us only with things like "spirit" and "force" as non-traditional possibilities (which then appropriately got culled in the elimination round).

Check out the shoulder patch. Another attempt at depicting a SunDog. That could be our future, people.

I imagine sundogs would turn out something like this.