Chief Illiniwek Supporter

No kidding. The schools who used "Braves" found this out. As well as "Tribe". Not to mention "Warriors" and "Red Men" (yes, when it was adopted Red Men was no more racist than either the DePaul Blue Demons or the Big Green of Dartmouth. Of course, it could not be redeemed according to the NCAA.).

Florida State uses Osceola, the name of an individual. I am quite sure that the NCAA originally desired to do away with Osceola as well as the name "Seminoles". There was a clear record of support for the use of both Osceola and Seminoles. The NCAA tried to ignore that, until they were threatened with the mother of all lawsuits and a huge PC debacle. Then they saw the light. AFAIK, the NCAA refuses to take money directly from breweries, insisting instead that it be laundered thru bowl committees and television networks. This has nothing to do with regulating sports. OTOH, they confer "official sponsor" status on Pontiac.

You would think that people would be embarrassed to make simple-minded statements like this in public:

Another media story, from the Champaign-Urbana newspaper. This is the home of the University of Illinois. http://www.news-gazette.com/news/u_of_i/20...mascots_symbols

Yes, good idea-increase women's opportunities by getting rid of males. Where have we heard this one before? Oh yeah-every time a men's team (or the number of walkons allowed for men's teams) is lowered or eliminated. One question: has anyone seen the names of these committee members published anywhere? I hate it when clowns hide behind "oh, it was a committee decison". Back to the point at hand. At Illinois, the coach of our women's basketball team has used men practice players for as long as she's been at the school-which is at least ten years. Her qualifications include being a Olympic Head Coach (1992), winning a National Coach of the Year award and being elected to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Additionally, she helped to found the Women's Basketball Coaches organization and has served as its president in the past. She also played hoops, winning a national title in college during the pre-NCAA years. I have no doubt that some of her past players have gone on to coach in college and high school. Her job is to win basketball games and also to turn out solid citizens. If using male practice players is such a bad idea, why are some of the best coaches in the game doing it? To expand on this, if using practice players stunted the growth of the reserves, the teams that "grew" their reserves by giving them all sorts of extra practice time would eventually win, wouldn't they? Have these teams dominated women's hoops? I doubt it. If this was to start happening, male practice players would be quickly dropped. As someone pointed out, the simple fact is that women's teams (in virtually every sport) have a hard time attracting competitors. I can confidently say that most schools in the Big Ten have a cap on the number of walkons allowed for men's teams and floors on women's walkons. In the past, the volleyball coach at Illinois has been out recruiting during the first week of school when he should be coaching. Isn't that "limiting opportunities" to learn??? Meanwhile, baseball tryouts have been overwhelmed. But, that's getting away from the point. To me, its very simple. The people closest to the sport-the head coaches who are both men and women-have adopted the use of male practice players to improve their team. I don't see that their input was valued or even considered. This sort of top-down dictation is not only unpopular, but silly in the long run. ANY team that has an extra-tall assistant coach (who's young enough) probably has that guy/girl tutor the inside players. Is their any difference between the two situations??

There seems to be some discussion of Minnesota's "advisory committee" here. We at Illinois have a Student-Faculty Senate, and they've been against Chief and the nickname for quite a while. I'm not suprised that a faculty committe at Minnesota has taken a similar preachy stand. Its symbolic, cheap and harmless to them. Of course, actually going to a reservation (or any underprivliged community either within the US or internationally) is something they haven't considered. But lectures? Sure, we can do that. Wait, we're coming out with an advisory policy on shoes, coffee and Venezeulan oil real soon. In short, you can't force someone to play you. All you can do is continue to be the best team you can, and wait for them in the NCAA's. And play those teams who will play you, and wait for the "Minnesota is hiding behind their 'policy' because they're afraid they'll lose to North Dakota" stories in the newspaper. One last though-is Minnesota a Nike school? This advisory committee seems like they've got a LOT of time on their hands. Have they come down with a pronouncement regarding Nike's sweatshop labor, egregious corporate profitering, etc? If so, has the Minnesota AD done anything about that???

Why no reference to Florida State? Why are they not lumped in with Illinois and North Dakota with the snide "honoring" comment?

And by saying "solved", we mean we have made the vast majority of our fans and supporters unhappy, and we expect them to just shut up, give up but certainly keep on supporting us at the same level they have before. Chosen by whom??? And by saying "past", we mean "financial support from people who are disappointed at losing this tradition for no good reason at all but was done merely to shut up some PC whiners who will now move on to the next 'outrage' ". Yes, thanks for sharing. What took you so long to find this thing that people can finally wrap their arms around? Why do you think people couldn't wrap their arms around "Indians"? Why do you think those people who saw nothing wrong with the former nickname will accept this??.

Wisconsin is hardly "required" to take part in this challenge. And these games are simply NOT a tournament. It is not labeled a tournament, there is no "winners move on" policy, no champion is crowned. Simply a series of games scheduled for/by television, no more or less than ESPN's labled "showdown weekend" or "mid-major weekend" or whatever. Check the records for the years when Bobby Knight was coaching at Indiana. You won't find IU playing a game. That's because Bobby didn't want to take part. Nobody told him he was "required" to take part. Multi-purpose arenas are needed in several cities. Scheduling these games is a complex task. The institutions themselves have significant say in who/when they play, or if they DO NOT play these games at all. No team or school is "required" to do this, its as simple as that. Conference meetings and conference consensus were/are required to make this happen. Wisconsin could have (and on a yearly basis, CAN) make their wants and requirements quite clear. I would suggest that either Wisconsin doesn't care about their policy, or its not a policy at all in that it gets bent and/or broken at whim. edit- From an June 12, 2001 article in the Wisconsin State Journal, a newspaper based in Madison, WI: "Earlier this spring, approval of the women's soccer schedule was held up because it was to play the William & Mary Tribe in the opening game of a tournament at Colorado College. The pairings have since been changed, pitting UW against the host Tigers. The UW policy does not prohibit the Badgers from meeting William & Mary in another round of the tournament. " http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejourn...ports/2016.html

Did you notice that Wisconsin played Florida State in hoops? Aren't they a model institution? Was this a part of the post-season (no) or a tournament (no again)? Why would they do this??? The answer certainly wouldn't be cold hard cash and TV exposure, would it?

One other blog: http://illiniwek.typepad.com/the_chief_per...njunction_.html This is written by a former Chief Illiniwek. BTW, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the tradition of Chief Illiniwek last weekend. Several former Chiefs made it back to campus, including one gentleman who's 92 years old.

Best of luck with the lawsuit, hope you take them for all they're worth! I'm ashamed that my school isn't being as proactive as North Dakota is. The University of Illinois women's soccer team lost the opportunity to host NCAA tourney games last weekend because of this policy. However, we managed to win the games on the field, and therefore we're continuing on in the tourney. This week we are playing at...... Florida State.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/200...gs_on_ncaa_bill A local Congressman is trying to hold hearings on the issue; and he wants them held in Champaign. I know its an election year and this is far from certain, but at the very least the NCAA knows that the Illini fans aren't just rolling over, despite the actions of our administration.

Just a quick note to say best of luck, and I hope you take them for all they're worth. I am ashamed to say that my school seems content to ride your coattails.

Okay, a little Big Ten history for everyone. AFAIK, there is no conference-wide policy set down by the Big Ten office. However, there are two conference schools with this policy: Wisconsin and Iowa. I think Wisconsin was the first to go PC-happy. I'm a bit more familiar with Iowa's policy and the way it was handled so I'll go into more detail there. The University of Iowa student council got itself into a tizzy one year and started a resolution about Indian nicknames. The grown-ups needed to get involved to water it down enough so the conference games and post-season games were exempted. (After all, the Hawkeye sports department wouldn't want to turn down the money involved with either the NCAA tourney or a possible bowl game for a mere principle, would they? And I'm sure the bowl would say "oh, we see your point. Listen, the Hawks are still invited: we'll turn down Florida State and let their dollars and TV ratings go elsewhere.") After it was passed by whatever student council, it was so important to succeding generations of Iowa students that it was promptly forgotten. Iowa actually played Bradley's baseball team at least once, maybe twice before the old resolution was brought to somebody's attention. They cancelled any future games contracted for with Bradley, and paid whatever financial penalty was involved. I was just wondering if any school ever said to North Dakota "love to play you, but your name is offensive". AFAIK, nobody has ever done this to Illinois.

Does this fall under the Aztec exemption for non-USA tribes? Where did the Inuit people live one minute before the first European explorer came upon their culture??

If the symbol was one that was associated with any other type of "tribe", I wonder if the NCAA would have a problem with it? Can anyone here tell me if North Dakota has ever had an opponent refuse to play them because of the nickname/symbolism? I can tell you that a few people have made some noise about the Illini (some people associated with the University of Oregon) but AFAIK no game has ever been cancelled, or even not scheduled.

IIRC, the quote was that wealthy benefactors would wear chicken feathers to a cocktail party if they could. What stops them? I went to a cocktail party (a bunch of people drinking beer) last weekend and nothing stopped me. The benefactors clearly still can do the same. Has the editorial writer ever witnessed this? What basis does he have for this opinion? Sorry, that response by the "readers representative" was clearly non-responsive. JMHO, but rather than writing the "readers representative" you might want to start writing the advertisers.

Thank you for that information, much appreciated. I'd just LOVE for that PC committee of eight university presidents to tell Dome that they need to change. If you thought that Florida State got quick action, the Domers would make the Seminoles look like snails. I heard the first caller after your president left the show. I'm not sure I understood the idea behind his objection that "Illinois couldn't use Chief Illiniwek because there are no reservations in Illinois". Are there Vandals in Idaho? Tigers in Lousiana?

JMHO, but I think what would happen first is that most (if not all) of the other schools would refuse to play a team with a patently offensive nickname. That may or may not be covered by "the court of public opinion" as referenced above.

This show was on in Chicago at 9:00 pm, and I enjoyed it immensely. But I would appreciate any help people can supply: shortly before your President left the show, the host made some sort of reference to Notre Dame (this was right before he spoke about your website). Can anyone tell me what was said about the Fighting Irish? Many thanks in advance.

Here is the original article: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2006...ini/1016051.txt Mark Tupper writes for the Decatur Herald and Review. He is a veteran of the Illini beat; he's covered Illinois sports for at least 10-15 years. Decatur is less than 50 miles from Champaign, and is probably the biggest population center within that 50 mile radius. A few notes: Illinois has already had one team penalized because of Chief. Believe it or not, our men's tennis team is very successful, and would have hosted the first round of the NCAA tourney. Because of Chief they were forced to travel to Louisville, KY. I believe we were the only team ranked in the top sixteen who did not host. I'm happy to report that our team won despite being on the road, and we went on to Stanford the next week and acquited ourselves well before bowing out to a stronger team. Yes, the Big Ten Tourney has been awarded to Indianapolis. One of the biggest reasons this has happened is a cash payment from Indy. Technically, its to make up for the lower capacity of Indy's arena vs. the United Center, but its hard to turn down cash in hand. Another big reason is the location of Indy's arena-it is right downtown, and there are several hotels within walking distance. This makes it easy to assign "official" hotels to each team, fostering some camaradarie I guess. IMHO, its doubtful that the large Blackhawks symbols carved into the building (and IIRC, the large sculpture directly across the street) had anything to do with the decision of the Big Ten AD's and Presidents to give the tourney to Indy for five years. I seriously wonder what's up with our Board of Trustees. IMHO the lawsuit is the only way to go. Our BOT seems to be sitting around, waiting for things to happen to them. I loved the reaction of Florida State-they went on the offensive from Day One. I wish we had don the same. BTW, I noticed that one of your Hockey players was the first-round choice of the Hawks. FYI, he'll be putting on what's known as the "Indian head sweater".

I'll ask this question, and it applies to schools like FSU and Utah also: just how often are these tribes going to vote on granting permission? Say the Seminole tribe rescinds their permission next year; what happens then? And then what happens if they vote again two years from now and then decide its now okay? Have today's Seminoles, Utes, Choctaws granted permission in perpetuity to use their names? What if their descendants are offended more than they are?? IMHO, another ridiculous example of what happens when a bloated bureaucracy delves into areas where it doesn't belong.