Chief Illiniwek Supporter

I think Dagies is referring to the Florida State/Chief Osceola pregame ritual, which is NCAA-approved.

There will be a significant backlash against any new nickname, based on getting this change shoved down your throats by people who are out of touch with reality. In this case, marketing a "null" will be far easier than marketing a "negative" IMHO. You might check with Marquette to see how they liked marketing "Golden Eagles". They liked it so much they're trying to change it but they can't come up with anything the public likes other than "Warriors" (the nickname taken away from them by their own PC-obsessed administration). FWLIW, schools like Harvard really don't market based on their nickname. Neither does Stanford IMHO.

Bill Wirtz inheirted the team from his father, Arthur Wirtz. The Wirtz family has been involved with the Hawks in one capacity or another since about the 1940's. Bill Wirtz died within the last six weeks or so. At the time, the statements were that he was President of the Hawks for about half his lifetime; IOW, since the 1960's.

C'mon, "Dollar Bill" Wirtz make a decision based on money?? That never happened.... (Actually, since his death many stories have surfaced about Wirtzie's generosity. He had his business quirks, but OTOH there was no such thing as a down-on-his-luck member of the Blackhawk family. Many, many people found jobs within the various Wirtz companies when they needed one.) (Add to this the various statements about the "silent majority" and the quotes about how the nickname "isn't a priority"....) This pretty much captures it. The vast majority of people who now have veto power over your nickname/logo have far greater things to deal with in their everyday lives. The few people who do care about it are the "negative" screamers. Those that realize that there may, just MAY be some positives in having their name represented probably are also the people who are spending time getting schools, fire stations, hospitals, senior centers, etc. for their constituency.

All your players would be required to become members of Local 12 of the Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union.

One of the reasons I was hoping you would go to trial: Jury orders NCAA to pay Alabama fan $5 million. http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/7503656?MSNHPHMA

Did you cover the Pembroke Indians? I think it was an NCAA decision basically to back off, although the local tribe made their position quite clear. Bradley and William & Mary both eliminated imagery such as feathers. And AFAIK, Bradley is still on some sort of Animal House-style "double secret" NCAA probation. However, unoffically they also raised the possibility of changing to the Bradley Brave. I liked that gambit. And with all of the Redmen/Red Men schools listed, one other team came to mind: The "Red Storm" of St John's University in NYC. They voluntarily changed from Redmen before the NCAA edict came down.

Just to add a note, your nickname revision is proceeding down the same path as Chief Illiniwek's elimination at UIUC. A quick vote by our Board of Trustees after years of appeasement and that's that. An unsatisfied public be damned.

Remember why the "Bullets" were changed to the "Wizards"? This would help to cut down on crime in Washington, DC. (And yes, you're free to consider the word "crime" as either violent street crime or the white-collar crime rampant in government.)

No kidding. These people are going to break an arm patting themselves on the back.

A) My vote would be for no nickname. Either that, or go with "Dakotans". B) As regards... Sorry, the PC zealots have a big problem with Crusaders. Celebrating the pushing of Christianity onto non-Christian peoples and all that.

I'm suprised you even have to ask this question. If/when the nickname gets changed, petty vandalism on campus, poor grades, tooth decay and global warming will be blamed on your failure to change the nickname even earlier. "Why, if North Dakota would have merely changed their nickname years ago, then Kramer wouldn't be leaning out the window of a taxi with a cigar store Indian yelling 'whoo whoo'. "

I also wonder if the same "continental US borders of the 20th century" exception that San Diego State gets for "Aztecs" applies to the Warriors or Rainbow Warriors or whatever Hawaii calls themselves these days? If you want a case study on how not to handle a nickname change (and I'm not sure there is a good way to handle it-but there's definitely a bad way) then see Marquette. They dumped Warriors a few years back, and the PC zealots ( ) can't quite understand why the public isn't warming up to their bland replacement name, "Golden Eagles". They even tried to shove just plain "Marquette Gold" down their alumni/students throats for a summer, with laughable results. When that didn't work, they went right back to Golden Eagles-about six months after they had listed out all the reasons why they thought that Golden Eagles was NOT a good choice.

A bit off the subject, but I certainly wish that the pro leagues would take ownership of the nicknames. That would prevent silly things like the Utah Jazz from happening, and also allow the Minnesota NHL team to be called the North Stars again. And it would have prevented the abomination of the Baltimore "Ravens". If you want to move your franchise, think up a new nickname.

When I was young, our family traveled to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I believe "Sault" translates (from the French, so no worries there) to "the rapids" as in a whitewater area. And it is pronounced "Sue". How about the UND "Rapids"? I think you'd need to change the name of Grand Forks to Palo Alto if you want to do that....

Well, at least there wouldn't be any long-term protestors. "He had to go away. There wasn't anything we could do about it." Your enforcers could be said to have "made their bones".

That picture looks like it was taken directly from the movie "Saturday Night Fever".

Thank you for the kind words. I strive to be fair-minded and open-minded. But I cannot lie and tell you that this subject isn't close to my heart. I really admired the passion of the fans here (as well as the passion of your President and other administrators) after seeing my own school surrender without a fight. I know I know I can react vehemently and far too quickly at times. Too much passion can lead to foolish words, and I hope I am big enough to come back the next day and admit that I spoke too soon in those instances. Okay, since we're already far off the track as far as the original purpose of this thread... one more thing came to mind about people and what makes someone an extremist. It occurs to me that we've all seen people who aren't talking about the issues, or even the politicans: but instead they're spending most of his/her time standing on the streetcorner, screaming at the top of their lungs about the guy who's on the OTHER streetcorner expounding the 100% different political viewpoint-those people on the soapboxes are the ones who really personify the term "knee-jerk" conservative or liberal. And someone here mentioned something about why they're voting one way or another these days. Isn't it a very sad commentary when almost everyone you hear is pretty much saying "well, my guy isn't perfect but I couldn't see my way clear to vote for that other guy?" That's Illinois politics at its finest. Many commentators here have said how little difference there is between the Republicans and Democrats on the state level. "Ruling Cabal" is the term one guy uses over and over. He raises the point that the a unifying theme of all of the presidential committees on both sides is that they all want the current Federal Prosocuter out of office under the next president. He's doing his job just a little too well.

Hee hee. You're forgetting the recent trend to pluralize each name with "z" rather than "s". E.G., Sundogz, Swamp Ratz.... But on the subject of "Golden Eagles": when Marquette dropped "Warriors" a few years back, they adopted "Golden Eagles". While that was dumb, the even dumber idea was to adopt "Gold" as a nickname. (Why change? Uh, the Golden Eagles stuff wasn't selling and people are wearing homemade "Warriors" gear). The reaction was so swift to "Gold" that it was never used during the school year. This despite the assurances from the school that "people will get used to it..." The folks at Marquette still haven't quite grasped the simple fact that people will not buy what they don't want. I would hope that your school learns a lesson from them.

Absolutely, 100% agreement that there are knee-jerk reactors at the polar extremes of the political spectrum on both sides. Living in Chicago, we have plenty of people who will go into the voting booth on election day and pull that lever for the full party vote. Those are the people who I put into that "knee-jerk" catagory. And of course, there are people who live their lives 365 days a year following either a liberal or conservative way of life without thinking. How are they different? Some people will at least listen to discussions about issues and consider different viewpoints. Others will give you the "ah, you can't be reasoned with" walkaway reaction. I find the second group totally silly. Taking it back to the political spectrum, somewhere you have to decide the point of separation between the conservative and liberals. The closer someone is to the center, the less I put them into a "knee jerk" catagory.

I understand what you're saying from a political semantics point of view, but the more I thought about this the more I started to consider what this is saying from the old Venn Diagram viewpoint. So, is it possible to be a knee-jerk liberal and yet NOT be a PC zealot? The fact that you react without thinking to PC issues and side with the more liberal point of view-doesn't that make someone a knee-jerk liberal? I'll have to consider my answer to that question for a while. But in the meantime, thanks for providing a thought-provoking theoretical question. Certainly made me think twice, or even more than twice.

(emphasis mine) So, could someone say that the tribal leader is threatening someone with harm over their viewpoint on the nickname? (again, emphasis mine) Glad this was added. My point is not about whether its right or wrong, but rather the idea that this is nothing more than politics as usual. As is any discussion about the budget priorities of the University of North Dakota.

Exactly. Don't blame the internet: blame the people who helped Dan Rather "research" his story which was debunked about 3 hours after it aired by bloggers. In the era of cell phone cams and email, you will either print the truth or suffer the consequences.

I certainly wasn't going to bring this up: we've got more than our share of knee-jerk liberal nutcases in Champaign, we have no need for more of those jokers to make (literally) a federal case out of nothing. Unfortunately, ESPN fixated on it Saturday. They must have shown it about half a dozen times. I really don't remember them ever showing the other trophies we play for. Thanks guys. I cringed every time they had it on TV. But if you think the usual whiners would kick up a fuss about the present trophy, imagine what would happen if we used had the original??