Chief Illiniwek Supporter

The words "Illinois", "Illiniwek" or "Illini" come from the original French explorers. It's their translation of a verbalized expression of the area's native tribes which was considered to mean "Man" as in mankind, or the human race. Various area tribes were aware of the existence of neighboring tribes and this was the word they used to describe what they considered the entire population of Earth. Separate tribes, but with a common language. FWLIW, there is/was no particular tribe named "Illini". The descendants of the people native to present-day Illinois are members of the Peoria tribe, now living in Oklahoma. During our NCAA nickname "investigation", this tribe showed no love for our Chief Illiniwek. The NCAA had given them veto power over our Chief. Our University showed the NCAA that the term "Illini" had been used since the 1800's to refer not only to sports teams, but to the entire student body: therefore the NCAA gave us that one. I don't recall a controversy over "Fighting", but that also might have been a term that came into usage after veterans returned to school following WWI. Our Chief Illiniwek first appeared in the mid 1920's: we played the Quakers of the University of Pennsylvania, and at halftime of that game our Chief met the student dressed as a Quaker settler. As the name predated Chief's first appearance, the two were considered separate issues.

Didn't get all the quotations right, but you get my drift.... A) The numbers quoted above are for the year 2009 only, and include men's and women's teams. The men's only total for 2009 is a bit different. Michigan: -$44,000 Michigan State: -$429,000 Ohio State University: -$1.6 million Wisconsin: $1,031,000 (Note the change from loss to profit) Minnesota: $4.3 million B) The data also indicates that a NUMBER of schools somehow, someway managed to show exactly ZERO PROFIT OR LOSS for that year. Here's a partial list of schools where revenue matched expenses down to the dollar: Boston College Brown University Holy Cross Harvard Miami of Ohio Princeton Robert Morris UConn UMass (Amherest) Western Michigan I find it extremely hard to believe that those numbers came out exact for all those universities. In short, those reports aren't worth the paper they're printed on IMHO. FWIW, for that year your school reported a profit of $1,475,302 on Men's Hockey, and an implied loss of $59,203 on the women's program.

Don't be too surprised if there's a state law mandating that all jobs for public employees must be advertised in the newspapers for a certain period of time. When Illinois needs to hire a football or basketball coach, they have to advertise the position. And the advertisement must run for a specified length of time. Equal opportunities, etc. So despite the fact that no one on earth hires a coach for a highly visible sport on the basis of "who sends in the best-looking resume", the state mandates that the university waste time and money with advertising. And somehow, taxes continue to rise despite all this newly-found efficiency. Go figure.

FWLIW, it seems more and more schools are moving in this direction. Assuming you had one "Voice of the Sioux" before, odds are you still will have that person: he or she will now be a University employee after a fashion. It's JMHO; but I'd say with the rise of cable and satellite TV, radio rights are declining in value.

The motto of the SEC is "if you ain't cheating, then you ain't trying." I have heard stories from a prof at an SEC school (and it's not a football factory by any means) that would curl your hair.

The well-known saying is that "the opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference". But the bigger point is how people at FSU are shocked, simply shocked to find that their school is cheating.

Always nice to have your school's name brought up when the term "most severe penalties are appropriate" is being used. And the penalty ISN'T very severe. "Hey, remember those games we went to three years ago? Remember what a great time we had when FSU just romped over....? Well, the joke's on us; turns out we shouldn't have had so much fun in the parking lot afterwards. See, we actually lost that game. Had I known that, we wouldn't have contributed so much to the Seminole Fund these last two years."

This reminds me of the quote I referenced (in another thread) from the TV show that pokes fun at the ultra-environmentalists.

And people can criticize me all they want; but if you don't stand up to the extremely small (but vocal) minority, then do not complain when your contributions dry up. I don't agree with you. I will not support you. I have no obligation to do so.

Usually the "...don't bother me with your sophomoric ideas..." statement can be translated verbatim as "I really can't refute your central argument; so instead I'll attack you personally." This writer lives up to that stereotype.

Here's the part I like: Yeah: uh, any ideas on why that happened? Wait, some sort of evolutionary "conquring" made their civilization either adapt or become extinct? It's exactly the same. You and your thesaurus need to find a different word than "sophomoric". Same thing with "fading". And if you want logic, give me your explanation for why the Aztec nickname is allowed to exist. And Sooners. Let's not even go with Seminoles, Chippewas or Utes just yet. None of the "insult" logic changes merely because you think that ND was founded by Irish-Catholics. And BTW genius, the full name is "Notre Dame du Lac" which sounds kinda French, doesn't it? Maybe you'll be able to follow the logic of a FRENCH order religious order founding a university and giving it a FRENCH name. And it was FOUNDED not so much as a university but rather as a seminary. Don't let the facts get in the way of you and your thesaurus. Did you email your rant to the Pulitzer committee yet? There's a slot for fiction writer that's been open for quite a while at a newspaper in Washington DC. I think the incumbent left after her work on a heroin addict.

Well, is it fair to the younger brother (or sister) in some long line of Sioux hockey players, or wrestlers, or maybe debaters who has grown up dreaming of the day that he can compete and hear "Let's go Sioux" if he's now told that he'll hear "let's go Banana Slugs" or "let's go Praire Fire"?? What about the former player who dreamed of the day that his/her son/daughter would hear "Let's go Sioux"? How about the Mom/Dad who always dreamed of yelling that for their child? There are no good answers. "Deserve ain't got nothin' to do with it."

At the games you'll hear either "Let's go Warriors" or "We are Marquette". I don't think you'll hear much about Eagles at all. Also out there in cyberspace is the story of the student who came to the games (in the official student section) with a headdress. The powers-that-be either tried to boot him out or did actually boot him out. They're sticking to their PC guns, but its costing them money. BTW, here's [strikethrough]another Wikipedia entry[/strikethrough]. (Sorry, I realized that's not Wikipedia but rather a wiki from a specific site. My bad.) It's a bit more strident. http://wiki.muscoop.com/doku.php/nickname/golden_eagles And a little bit on the disaster of "Gold" that I referenced above. http://wiki.muscoop.com/doku.php/nickname/gold For fun, look at the link to JS (that's the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal) that's at the bottom of that last page and enlarge the picture. Also in that links section is the Dewayne Wade reaction on YouTube.

No, they first went to Golden Eagles. I think you want to utilize to that timeline below in that Wikipedia link. It's a lot closer to reality. They went PC back in the 1990's with "Golden Eagles". About ten years after that, when they decided it was going over like the proverbial lead balloon they formed a committee (and beware of that happening at your school) which included one of their trustees, who was a MARKETING PROFESSIONAL. That's when the abomination of "Gold" came up. A high ranking official (either the president or the president of the Board of Trustees) came out with the "it's going to be "Gold" and that's that: end of discussion" statement when the overwhelmingly negative public reaction started to came in. His ironclad, rigid, "my way or the highway" stance lasted oh, about a good week or so. This is one of the textbook, classic foulups in marketing, right alongside New Coke. They ended up going back to Golden Eagles after wasting a lot of money and getting absolutely lit up by their alums and the press. I don't know if that trustee resigned, but he/she should have. Check out YouTube: I'll bet if you search for "Marquette Gold", ESPN and Dewayne Wade you'll find his reaction when he was blindsided with this disaster. It's hilarious.

Right, I knew the quote was older than that-it's just that during the protest/counterculture era of the 1960's it became a very popular thing to say.

I wanted to stay away from this subject, but here's the one that always got me going when it was brought up at my school. No, I'm not abandoning anything because I don't support Illinois athletics anymore. There are a million and one good charities out there. For that matter, there are a million and one schools out there. For me, there's Northern Illinois where several relatives have attended: there's local high schools, there's school-like organizations such as the Boy Scouts, and there's good causes galore. I will not support something I don't agree with. Just because I gave some group money once does not mean I need to support them forever if the group has been hijacked by some PC professors and psychotic "do-gooders" who have no grounding in reality.

Don't forget to give him time to grow his protest beard! The old "when they came for the Gypsies, I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Gypsy....and then they came for me and no one spoke up; because there was no one left" saying was brought up recently here. That one hasn't been spoken much lately, but it was pretty big back in the 1960's. We have forgotten history, therefore we are doomed to repeat it.

Don't forget I've had twice as much experience with twit administrators as you have. Just last week our president and chancellor both pooh-poohed the idea that it was a big deal for them to pressure the admissions office for individual students who had political influence: once Blagovich's name got put into play, they were backpedaling so fast they created a sonic boom.

That it is, no doubt. But how would you prove that the presence of the Sioux nickname promotes "wider dissemination of American Indian awareness throughout the state" and provides greater "opportunities for American Indian students at UND"? It's been my viewpoint that the nickname doesn't do all the harm that the whiners complain about. So OTOH I can't honestly say that I think it does much at all to concretely affect the University in a positive way; a positive way that would be provable in a court of law in other words. That's MHO.

Tricky task, ain't it? I mean I fully sympathize with those who never had the chance to attend North Dakota but have been passionate fans & supporters over the years. But trying to create a catagory for them (to the exclusion of the people who would just muddy the waters) is almost impossible. I've given my thoughts above, but I will add this much to your proposed list: throw out administrators and faculty. They've already had their say.

See, to me Ron/Thunder has already had his opportunity to vote: for that matter, he was a superdelegate if you will. He had his one lever and he threw it away. He could have kept on using that tool over and over in a wise way. Now his influence is gone. Does anyone remember "A Bronx Tale"? There was a biker gang that occupied DeNiro's bar. Their influence was that they wouldn't leave the bar when they were told; they would leave when they wanted to (or so they thought). DeNiro's character did one simple thing: he merely said "okay, you say you don't want to leave? I don't want you to leave either." And he locked the door. That one simple action turned all the power the other way. Ron had his chance to use the power the NCAA gave him: he didn't use it wisely and now it's alllllll gone. I've said this before: it's not perfect, but I've got to limit it to alums. I know this shuts out a lot of everyday fans but IMHO the possiblity of stupidity goes up exponentially when you involve the students. I'll post a picture tomorrow of what can happen.

No, the name "Sioux" was intended to honor the Natives. But they (apparently) didn't want the honor. Now it appears as if the "honor" will be consigned to history. And if that's the case, IMHO what you ought to honor with your next nickname (if any) is the great tradition of democracy. I'd say let all alums (without regard to heritage, just a simple "do you have a North Dakota diploma?" test) have a say, but nobody's opinion should be worth any more or less than another person's opinion.

You have to have academics before you can have academic fraud. Don't feel sorry for Memphis: they got what they wanted. Calipari isn't clean, everyone knows it and so did Memphis (and so does Kentucky). The NCAA should have had a "show cause" on him for the rest of his life after UMass; but there he is-nice suit, shoes shined and ready for business in Lexington.

I'm sure the NCAA has found someone who's organized a fantasy league for huge money based on the stats generated in the Big Sky Conference.

From the article... So I guess the question is, how much money is being made on this type of thing? Is there some sort of fantasy league that includes the stats from the lower Division football leagues?? Does the NCAA have a freakin' clue? Are you kidding me? "Listen, we know you're leading the league in catches, but someone on Weber State is catching up and it's worth big money to us to have him win. So we'll split the take with you if you take a dive in this game. Here's the offer: $37.50 for you, and $37.50 for us."