Chief Illiniwek Supporter

I like the new logo, for whatever that's worth. I don't see as much "gender neutrality" as other posters do; but I did notice that the new logo looks "younger" and therefore closer to the typical college athlete and student. I also looked at the other logos proposed by users-you guys have a great deal of commitment and talent here! (BTW, in looking at the logo right now, I think one reason I see "male" is what I would consider a strong, jutting chin. Nobody has looked for an Adam's Apple yet??)

Well, right now the profs (along with some of the tribes) are concentrating on attacking the University. But if and when you persuade one tribe to sign off on the exemption, the dissenting tribes will turn on that cooperating tribe. But you're right, it will to be interesting to see if a prof (especially a prof who is NOT a member of some "victim" class) has the guts to go after the poor, oppressed, downtrodden, victimized Native Americans.

Thanks for that info. We have roughly the same system, except our governor has delegated the appointments to the state Senate President, who has let it become a single issue job.

Why wasn't he fired? Tenure. Short of murder and/or actually doing the things Micheal Jackson was accused of, a tenured prof can be there for life. And most prospective recruits simply laughed at the "information". Some HS coaches had the guts to say that they actually tossed the stuff in the garbage without giving it to the student (and I'm sure that's against federal law).

Exactly. Those issues (and many others) face everyone, regardless of race. But OTOH, the NCAA has pushed a word and a drawing the very tip-top of THEIR priority list. Ahead of alcohol abuse, violent crime (even model institution Iowa has a crime problem) and a lot of other campus problems that actually hurt people; not just cause hurt feelings. If the Chairwoman doesn't think this should be her priority as a tribal leader, then every time she sees a member of her tribe on TV or in the newspaper at a protest, I hope she calls him/her up and says "listen, quit going to those protests-come over here and help me out with my priority list". And both the Seminoles and the Utes as tribes also face same that same long list of problems, correct? Yet those tribes somehow squeezed the NCAA problem into their schedule. Why is that? (Answer: $$$$$$) Finally, I'll mention that one of the most off-the-wall of our loons at Illinois was a full (tenured) professor of Cellular Biology (or something like that). When some people asked why he shouldn't be fired, the squealers mentioned his "important work", how he was "finding a cure for cancer", etc. A whole lot of people mentioned he'd have a lot more time for finding that cancer cure if he wasn't running around making Xeroxs of newspapers and mailing them to recuits, etc.

One question for the crowd: how does one get on your State Board of Higher Ed? Is it a popular election, appointment by a politician (the Illinois method, unfortunately) or some other method?

Silly me, I spent five minutes resarching this, and now I'm more confused than ever. Before today, I thought that all meetings had to be open to start and they always had to go thru the rigamarole of "call to order; old business, new business, adjourn to executive session...". But upon researching this, I think we can actually schedule a closed meeting here. I didn't get far enough into it to confirm, but I think we still have to say why we're closing the meeting (the specific reason as allowed by statute). So if it was closed to discuss "legal matters" that's all we would have to say. In that case I guess we could get away with a semi-undisclosed appearance by our AG. This is as close as I could find to support.... And strictly for fun: Who says public employees waste time and money? I'm sure there was a good reason to insert this into the law.... Yeah, probably someone's brother in law got appointed to some small (or large) tourism bureau and the guy didn't want it to become public knowledge...

Right, I think our group can close the meeting or call it executive session or something like that: but AFAIK they always have to disclose exactly who is in that meeting. They couldn't just pop up six months later and say "remember that executive session we had in March? Yeah, we heard from Warren Buffett back then: snuck him in and out thru the back door..." But in any case, if its public knowledge that your AG is appearing at most/all of the board meetings then I don't know how the paper can make such a statement-unless they're hearing that info from the AG himself (highly doubtful as it would border on insubordination IMHO) or a member of the board (in which case he/she won't be anonymous forever).

I'd say the alumni are about 90% dead-set against dropping Chief. The problem is that Illinois is one of the most Democratic of all states. Right now the Democrats control the Governors office and both houses of the State Legislature (and they STILL can't agree on a budget). Needless to say, they saw Chief as a discriminatory, bigoted symbol and dropped him in order to pander to their voters. I don't think Hastert is an alum. Besides that, he's no longer in power. He made it clear even before this last election that he had no desire to remain as either Speaker of the House or Minority Leader. Our two Senators are people you may have heard of: Barack Obama and his lap dog, Dick Durbin. Those two certainly won't help (see "pandering" above).

Two things: actually, "Illinois" is a word derived from a word. Its the French-ification of the word "Illiniwek", which roughly means "people who speak our language" and can be loosely interpreted as equivilent to what we would presently call "mankind" or "the human race". And technically, the folks to the east of us call it "Indiana University". (Which allows their fellow Indianans at Purdue to put out bumper stickers, etc with the phrase "Purdue: THE Indiana University".) Here's something I learned during the Illiniwek controversy: Originally, this had nothing to do with Satan or religion. The nickname was chosen shortly after WWI and honored a French regiment who wore blue uniforms. Another school that has a "devilish" nickname today despite very benign origins: the DePaul Blue Demons. I agree, lets not go too far: the Bears wear Orange and Blue because George Halas went to Illinois. We'd get dragged right back into this with our colors....

Simply a guess, but if your state has "open meeting laws" then the agenda, etc. for every board meeting has to be public. If the AG has not appeared before the board since that initial authorization, then the paper might be inferring that effectively he has had carte blanche for the last year to pursue the lawsuit as he sees fit.

Just to be fully accurate, they always said they wouldn't stop at Chief, they wanted the name too. Its the halftime show music that's a new demand. And yes, we at Illinois are led by the Neville Chamberlains of the prairie.

I can tell you what is happening at Illinois. Now that Chief Illiniwek has been "retired", the PC loons are after the nickname. And they are not happy at all that we're actually going to have the band play the same music that we have used for years and years (undoubtedly because they know that the vast majority of people will be yelling "Chief" at the end, and during it many will be attempting to duplicate the dance). A few years back the Board of Trustees assigned one Trustee the task of searching for compromises. He came back and said that no compromise was possible. This was after years of the pro-Illiniwek faction giving in, Chief's role on campus being slowly diminished, etc. The people who are the absolute lunatics about this will continue to protest no matter what. Even if you change your name to "Butterflies" they'll find something else to protest. And these last few days has been mildly interesting, but mostly they've been a rehash of the same things that have been said over and over again. My only question is this: who gets to define the following terms (all of which have been used over the last week or so)? "Members of the group" "Object" "Moral" "Unnecessarily" "Historically Oppressed" BTW, one word I haven't seen used here: "consistent". As in, "at least the NCAA is consistent by objecting to Pontiac" or "at least the protestors are consistent by objecting to the use of Indian names/images in business, movies and on their own reservations". post edited for spelling

On that subject, here's a story about someone who makes over $250k and gets a house (and an expense account) to supervise a small campus of 7,000 commuter students. Yet she can't seem to organize her own purse. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...2&cset=true BTW, a personal and political benefactor of this school (and its president) is the state of Illinois politician who made it his personal mission to torpedo Chief Illiniwek.

In general, I agree. I mean, if North Dakota, Illinois, FSU, etc. are so horrible, why wouldn't Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Florida want to see go down in smoke by chasing student athletes away from "hostile and abusive" schools like us (and towards them)? Why not let us continue to use the rope to hang ourselves?? Now that would describe a perfect, rational world and academia rarely is either perfect or rational. But that's the way it should work-and especially as the NCAA does function as a business.

Oh, I think any of those four could describe the typical college prof/adminstrator, politician; or officer of a large corporation for that matter... Anyone see the recent Ward Churchill stories??

I can't believe that there would be virtually ANY additional expenses with a full membership vote. Issue the Executive committee report to all members (internet or piggyback on other regularly scheduled mailings), add an item to the annual convention agenda and there you have it. Interesting. I have to think that there would be a lot of lobbying going on, and hard line, scorched-earth schools like FSU would have been out in front of that effort. Furthermore, I don't think all of our Big Ten bretheren would have been as PC as Wisconsin and Iowa. And I really think that a few well-written ammendments to the original resolution would have shot down its "this group, but not that group" effect.

Coaches? Don't give them any ideas. We've already taken Title IX to quite illogical conclusions.

Right now, it seems like broadcasting rights are controlled mainly by individual conferences (which are almost all regional). I don't see breaking up the NCAA as doing much to change that. And to take that one step further, there's already a movement to create a national championship playoff in football. If we did break up the NCAA I think it would be inevitable that the organization would re-consolidate, much like the Baby Bells. I agree, I think the NCAA did count on the protestors and PC maniacs to carry the day on individual campuses; and that didn't happen. Finally, I can't quote everyone but I'm in total agreement with anyone who ever said "arbitrary and capricious". Give us a vote on ALL nicknames that refer in any way, shape or form (under the most liberal of guidelines) to humans and not just those nicknames that refer to groups of people who were living within the current boundaries of the Continental USA before Columbus arrived (and then back off if any group decides that they don't mind being humiliated for the right price), and I think there might be a different result.

That's been brought up before-if FSU played in Champaign and brought their band, Osceola could ride around on horseback while brandishing a flaming spear and everything would be just fine: but if Illiniwek even peeked out from the dressing room, the local Native-American loons would be "humilated" and "sink back in their seats in shame". As noted above, they have done nothing but empower imbeciles and single-agenda troglodytes.

Here's an example of a writer with an agenda. Illini halftime show won't change except for no chief "Other than some minor dampness issues, the maiden voyage of the Titanic went off without a hitch..."

Very simple: politics. Our governor controls the University's Board of Trustees. He needs minority votes in order to stay in power, and he handed over control of the nominees to the board to the President of the State Senate; someone who has a large minority constituency and loves to play up the "victim" approach in order to get his base motivated to vote. The latest two board members were a minority rights lawyer (law partner of Johnny Cochrane) and someone who authored "The Diversity Game" and sells it to grade schools. They made it clear that Chief had to go. The University's budget was being held hostage. The alums were 85-95% in favor of Chief. This was all pandering to the victim constituency. They can't. I'm sure there will be plenty of shirts, not to mention headdresses this fall. And the traditonal halftime show will go on, and you'll see plenty of dancing in the stands also. You may not see this unless you're there, because the TV networks won't show anything of the sort; but it will be there. You can bet on this. We've got the fringe element who don't like the name, they'll be out protesting for sure. The NCAA has done nothing but empower lunatics.

The NCAA banned the usage of the "hostile and abusive" logos, names, etc. at all times. The penalty for non-compliance was not being able to host post-season events. This did affect at least our men's tennis team; and possibly also one of our women's teams also. And as a point of info, the NCAA won't even let our Chief Alumni perform at an off-campus site in a pep rally-esque situation.