Chief Illiniwek Supporter

(emphasis added) This is the part that always seems to be used as a given; as if somehow all (or even a majority) of Indians see these logos as "EXTREMELY offensive". No backup. No rebuttal to the various polls that state otherwise. Just a vague statement that seems to be responding to the loudest of the whiners who see "racism" in everything they disagree with and who have gained traction for this viewpoint on the ultraliberal college campuses of today. Not only that, this type of statement fails to differentiate between those subgroups of Indians who have been granted veto power over logos by the NCAA (the Seminoles, Utes and now the Sioux) and the greater population of Indians overall. How can anyone say that "The American Indians" feel that logos are extremely offensive given the tribal approval of the logos at Utah and FSU?? Sloppy journalism, but sadly I've become accustomed to it.

Going on the opposite tack, IIRC some "veteran's committee" came to your campus over the summer and had favorable (or at least not UNfavorable) things to say about the nickname/logo. And within a few days they retracted the statement, saying they had new feedback or something. That is what leads me to believe that either you won't get the necessary approval(s) or that it will be rescinded virtually as soon as it is granted.

Here's a funny letter to the editor: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/...tive_for_the_ui The point seems to be (and I'm not sure anyone reading it can figure it out) that now Illinois is winning because we've dropped Chief. Which ignores our Final Four years. And our Rose Bowl years. And the Butkus years, along with the Red Grange years. And that only works if you think that somehow Osceola is limiting FSU's success. Truly, anything can be printed in a newspaper. I certainly hope this guy signed his real name, and his employer realizes his limited intellectual capacity.

Not exactly on the subject of this thread, but did ol' Sean rush down to Mexico last week to help with the flooding? Did that Chicago rapper get on TV and tell everyone that the Mexican President hates some group in Mexico?? Back to this subject: last week I saw either the exact article Goon mentions or something very close. Couldn't agree more.

One thing I will add: remember that many of the tribes that used "Illiniwek" as a word that described "all of mankind" were killed off by other Indian tribes. I'm not trying to deny that the coming of the Europeans changed their lives also; but many people today labor under the misimpression that the only killing that ever took place was perpetrated upon Indians by Europeans.

No research here either (not even enough to support the original post, as noted) but perhaps, just maybe, the NCAA stops insults at the state line. I know that its impossible for the San Diego State Aztecs to insult Aztecs because they were originally from Mexico, a good half-hour away from SDSU: and insults seem to be stopped by 19th Century national borders....

And I haven't had time to read everything, but from what I can see the two tribes can agree to let you use it on December 1, 2007 and that ends all talk of the "three year period" and as of that date you are on your own. So on December 31, 2007 if one of those two tribes votes to say "we don't like the way you're using it, we take back our permission" you're out of business forever. The year 2010 has become meaningless; and there is no possibilty of a re-vote from the tribes to once again grant permission. Its JMHO, but the NCAA has stacked the deck entirely against you: and AFAIK, neither Florida State nor Utah are starting out with this handicap. Nobody has ever told them "once you lose it, you lose it forever" nor have they talked about the approval of TWO tribes.

Not sure I understand the point here. If the lawsuit had continued and your side had lost, the Board of Trustees would have been off the hook too. If you had won and then the NCAA had ammended the constitution, then again, your Board is taken out of the equation. So IMHO the Board isn't going to take heat in a lot of situations where a nickname change is forced on you. "Convenient cover": definitely something all politicians seek, but that doesn't make it a good thing morally or ethically. And it can backfire politically.

One other thing for me to add: I'll admit that since last Thursday I've tended to post with more emotion than with rational thinking. Numerous people have offered the quote below:

To me this seems like an absolute no-brainer. Why would these tribes change their position now when they have been unwilling to do so for the last 15-odd years? And the three year provision is simply counter-productive. Why would either of these tribes accept whatever your first offer is; or for that matter ANY offer made during the next two years? They know that the closer you get to 2010, the more you'll sweeten the pot. For that matter, the idea that you need two tribes to continually agree leads me to assume that these tribes will constantly be trying to "one up" each other. "You gave tribe X these conditions: we want all of that, plus we want this much more....."

Neither am I. So its quite possible we have a case of the blind leading the blind here. Hmm. Just as UND, et al would be making the argument that they didn't follow their bylaws, I would guess that the NCAA would be saying that the DID follow the bylaws. And as they (the NCAA) have already said that they were responding to complaints (but never said who complained, nor how many complaints were recieved) I think that your lawyers could have asked was how they interpreted their bylaws: i.e., that their bylaws allowed/empowered this particular committee to respond to/adjudicate complaints. And if they said yes, then Pandora's Box is opened. However, we'll never know the answer to whether such a line of question would have been allowed. Personally, I just thought it would be a natural lead-off question: "So how did you come to the conclusion that UND was hostile and abusive?" IMHO, its very likely that the NCAA would have submitted ammended bylaws in the event they had lost the (now settled) lawsuit. However, I think it would have been interesting to see the legal and semantic gymnastics they would have gone thru to write a bylaw that said "this tribe, but not that tribe from Mexico" and who and what comprised the namesake exemption. Not to mention the idea that its only native Americans other than Eskimos; but certainly not Scandanavians or Irish. And of course, your president would have had his day on the floor of the convention. For those who think the settlement was just as good as the FSU/Utah "agreements": do we know whether the Seminoles and Utes voted within their constitutional requirements? And do we know if FSU and Utah are subject to the "once a SINGLE vote is taken to rescind permission, you must change and you are never allowed to change back no matter what the result of subsequent votes may be" provision that you seemingly agreed to at the University of North Dakota? (edit) And for that matter, do we know if the Okie Seminoles have an equal voice with the Florida Seminoles in voting up or down on Osceola? Because AFAIK, only the Florida tribe benefits financially from the agreement with FSU.

It strikes me that since that your school has been shouldering the cost of these scholarships, etc available only to Indians for a number of years but now the NCAA has set themselves up as the sole judges of what is insulting to Indians and the protectors of the feelings of Indians everywhere-at the very least the NCAA could peel off a few $$ million from that $6 billion dollar contract and take you guys out of this responsiblity. Any complaints about the lower payouts? See the president of Hartford University, or the other committee members.

(emphasis added) I forgot about a few things when I wrote above about only the fear of an abandoned copyright. A group of our former Chiefs offered to start a scholarship fund for Indians to study at Illinois, and they said they would (tastefully) use the logo on t-shirts, etc. to help fund those scholarships. Now AFAIK the very quick answer of "no &*% way" came from our Board of Trustees; but it may have been written into whatever we signed with the NCAA.

I can tell you what happened at Illinois. The University retained all copyrights, trademarks, etc. to the Chief logo, but we cannot use them. No new merchandise can be ordered now. As it runs out, it runs out. The reason we retained the copyright is to keep the logo from falling into the public domain. If it did and someone started making Orange and Blue hats with the Chief on them, Indians everywhere (except Mexico, Florida and Utah) would suffer untold damage.

I'm not sure I understand the point of this question. Are you saying that either bringing or continuing the lawsuit had no value? I will try to share what I personally saw as the value of the case. I think it would have been valuable to get the NCAA on record as to how many "complaints" they had about ONLY Indian nicknames. And I would ask how many complaints they got about the Irish: because I know the answer is at least one. Then I'd ask what the minimum number of complaints is for action. I would ask them if they thought it made a difference as to "who" complained, and get that answer on record. (E.G., if a full-blooded Ute complained but a half-Ute person said "no problem", is that still a vote against the Utes?) I would ask them if they saw any difference between names like Sioux, Seminoles etc. and Irish, Vikings, Aztecs and the like; and get their answer on record. If I was thinking more clearly tonight, I could probably list out a few more answers I would like. And yes, assuming UND won and then the NCAA took the new rules and regs to their full convention, I'd then be raising those same issues on the floor. Namely (er, no pun intended) are we as an organization being fair to people of all races? After reading further, this earlier comment captures most of my thoughts on the value of continuing with the lawsuit vs. this settlement: One more thing as a general comment on whether or not its advisable to adopt a new nickname. If Illinois had been forced to drop our nickname, I was in favor of NOT choosing another nickname. The long and short of it for me was that if we didn't call ourselves anything new, in the minds of most casual fans we'd still be the Illini. Once we started calling ourselves "Praire Wind" or whatever we'd lose the small, tenuous connection we had to Illini among those who don't follow college sports avidly (and I think that is the majority of people).

Some people are born complainers. They want to find slights and insults in every communication. Once this is over, they will need to find a new "oppressor" to blame for their victim status. And I agree with you. I think some of the more militant Indian "leaders" are going to realize that their vitriol has led them to a position where they can either cooperate with "the man" and look like they've compromised the principles they've espoused for such a very long time-or they can continue on the path they've chosen and make a decision that IMHO will be unpopular among their tribe. But to be honest, I don't think that the unpopularity will lead to immediate consequences for the leaders. I think the vast majority of Indians don't view this nickname as anything that impacts their day-to-day lives either way.

Hypocrisy.

Perhaps people are thinking that effectively, the nickname was retired as of today; but with a three-year retirement party in between. I guess that's the best way I can think of my own feelings (and in reading the posts, I'd say a lot of others feel the same way). And also, I'd say people are defining "the fight" differently. My initial reaction was that I wanted far more of a fight than what was shown today. Getting three years to continue to talk to people who have clearly shown over the last fifteen (or more) years that they want nothing more than to get back at "the man" for (some) real and (far more) imagined slights that they think "their people" have suffered since the Europeans came to America isn't going to change them much. All it will do is give them an even more outsized sense of entitlement and "ownership" of a word from history. All in all, I think a lot of people invested a lot of time, some money and a lot of emotional energy in this, and right now they're very dissatisfied with the outcome their leaders have given them. They really think they deserve more. And today's posts are merely the begining. If UND is lucky, the posts will continue. If they're not, the posts will diminish as apathy sets in. Unfufilled promises usually lead to anger initially: but when you don't see any hope for a payoff you move on down the road. BTW, good luck with the hockey. Believe it or not, Illinois had (maybe still has) women's hockey on the club level.

I'll bring back an idea that I offered a few months ago: if one of the tribes works with you, why not rename yourself the " (insert cooperating tribe's name here) Sioux"?? Say, Turtle Lake Sioux or Spirit Lake Sioux or whoever. Creative fonts could be used, as you suggest. And a historical picture of a revered Chief could be used as a symbol/logo.

Did anyone die? No, but a lot of people are feeling awfully low right now. I don't think you can ignore it, nor can you rush anyone thru their own process of grieving (or at least adjusting to this settlement).

Hee hee-newspaper posts an editorial on Thursday morning, and suddenly our chancellor has a change of heart. This is all done by 2:30 Thursday afternoon. UI's homecoming parade policy on Chief overturned Here's the link to a blog from the same newspaper, posted at 2:30. UI reverses field on 'Chief' ban

Exactly, I only used a small portion of the article that Goon posted in his original comment. Just trying to keep it as succinct and on-point as possible!

Well, looks like its come down to this: -you have three years to accomplish what hasn't been done in the last fifteen (or more) years. -if not, you have four years to kowtow to the NCAA's small committee of PC-heads and change to a bright fuzzy color.Right now, I have more in common with the "we spent a million dollars for THIS?" posters than anyone else. I cannot see much this "settlement" bought you other than three years to ease into a name/logo change. The sword of Damocles will be forever over your heads; even if you initially reach some sort of an agreement with the tribes, given the one year notice it won't be long before the children on the reservations keep coming back for more and more and more; and the adults at the University will eventually tire of the endless meetings to listen to people stuck back in the 1800's talking about smallpox blankets-they'll just say "we can't come to an agreement" and before you know it your school will be the Praire Winds or whatever. An added deadline to accomplish something you had been trying to do all along isn't productive.

My dad drove for a living. One of the first stories I remember was when he pulled out the cash and handed it to the cop above the level of the windows: "no no!!! Just put it down on the seat where nobody can see!!" All you have to do is read the daily paper. Yesterday or today the story was about a politically connected person (incidentally, someone who was a convicted felon-not that there's necessarily a connection) who bought a small, irregularly shaped piece of land with pollution problems for $50k: lo and behold, it was soon found that this piece of land was "needed" for a park and ultimately the new owner sold it to the city. His sale price was $1.2mm.

SHHH!!! Please do not interrupt the agenda!!