Chief Illiniwek Supporter

Any league can follow any requirements they like. Issuing public statements says "hey, look at me: I'm smarter than everyone else" to me. Therefore, I think he's on a power trip. Yeah, he's the only one who knows what the NCAA requirements are. Thank God for this guy being the commissioner . Otherwise those schools would screw up for sure. Gotcha. Wow, wish I'd known this before. I wouldn't have wasted so much time talking about someone with NCAA contacts DEEP UNDER COVER. Okay, I'm out of here. Gotta go get me another layer of tin foil for my hat. Have fun!

Wow, that's sad. Try reading first. How many of those people are EMPLOYED BY THE CONFERENCE? The people employed by the schools are the people who should evaluate academic fit. Have any of those people (the academics) felt the need to issue a statement yet? On academics or ANYTHING OTHER SUBJECT? Your conference commissioner certainly did. If you seriously think that its within his duties to publicly discuss who should and shouldn't be in his conference before he issues that report to his employers, and before such a vote is taken; more power to you old buddy. Again: if you seriously think that its within his duties to publicly discuss who should and shouldn't be in his conference before he issues that report to hisemployers, and before such a vote is taken; more power to you old buddy. Again, try reading. What you think is little and what I think is little are obviously two VASTLY different things.

Incorrect. I know nothing about which schools have had a visit. For all I know he's visited Hawaii and Harvard in the last two days. OTOH, I do know what public comments this person has made. They've been well-documented here. While I don't know anything about the people employed by the Summit Conference, I'll go out on a limb and say nobody there is qualified to intelligently report on the academic abilities of a school. That's so far over a conference staff's level of expertise it isn't funny. In no way, shape or form could I possibly disagree more. If so charged he may present a recommendation one way or another along with his fact-finding report. The up-or-down vote should be left to the members, not to an employee of the members. Eliminating a candidate on a whim is a one-man blackball vote. Totally unacceptable; out of the question on its face. Knowing what I know about the situation, I disagree with the statement that "very little new research was required"; but I also realize that nothing will be proven either way by two people posting on a message board 15 years after the fact.

Right, but the Yankees are selling a lot of tickets sold during the off-season. THAT is what spending money like the proverbial drunken sailor accomplishes in (non-capped) baseball. Every Yankee fan has optimism. The D-Rays didn't even start selling out their stadium last year until August, and this year's small-market surprise team will be in the same boat. Spending money: more than half of the teams in the NFL are about in the same boat (signing bonuses, etc. can allow some teams a temporary advantage) in terms of payroll, but people like Parcells, Bellechick, the Pittsburgh organization certainly seem to get a lot of bang for their buck. OTOH, the Raiders and Lions seem to be stuck in the mud. The old 80-10-10 rule applies IMHO. Parcells and Cowher and a few others are in the top 10%, there's a lot of people in the middle; and the Davis and Ford people are counterproductive. Personally, I'd say that most fans are aware of the differences between the sports (if nothing else on a subconcious level).

I can't disagree with that idea. IMHO he's on quite a power trip here: but that's really the problem of the league members. Good geographic fit, facilities up to par, scope of programs offered comparable, no skeletons in the closet: IMHO that should be about the end of it for the conference office. Run numbers on whether this expands the pie or cuts out another piece of the same-sized pie and then sit back and tally the vote. Those presidents (and certainly the one who resides in your state as well as the one from South Dakota) should be well aware of the entire nickname and logo issue and where North Dakota stands with the NCAA. If not, let them ask questions at their level rather than having someone at a much lower level make a policy decision like that. And IMHO, that should hold even more if what is in the back of your mind is "missing out" on an opportunity a la SIU-Edwardsville. Don't want to miss out again? Start with an open mind. Let someone else be accused of causing a missed opportunity.

Well, good for him. If that's the case, he's got quite a job there. When the Big Ten admitted Penn State, the presidents started the idea. Jim Delaney may have encouraged them to look at expansion, but there was QUITE a lot of information on academics exchanged long before anything got too public. The AD's and Delaney got involved after that, but if the presidents hadn't been able to agree that PSU was a good fit from the books side, it would have been dead in the water. At that time, there was some discussion that Rutgers and/or Texas weren't considered for academic reasons. How true that is will probably never be known, but what is a given is that the Big Ten commissioner is merely an employee of the schools, not vice versa. He may hire refs, negotiate TV deals and speak with other conference commissioners but he certainly can't say "we don't want Notre Dame in the Big Ten" without getting the okay of the people who sign his paycheck. It's a lot like a law partnership. The decision to admit someone as a new partner simply isn't made by the office manager. Apparently one man can bind 10 schools to another in the Summit Conference without consulting the schools. After all, he said so right there on the radio! This conference may be the only league that handles things that way. Good luck with that. Yes, who could expect those highly paid, postgraduate degree-holding, semi-politicians we call "University Presidents" to actually think ahead? Thankfully we don't trust those dolts with this important duty. After all, they could get their own schools in real trouble this way. Nothing they do on a day-to-day basis could "cause some real problems" for their school. They just don't make those kind of decisions in any other aspect of running a multi-million dollar university. Glad we got THAT straightened out.

"North Dakota cashes in on Minnesota errors, win 4-2." "Do not pass go, do not collect-ND continues winning ways." "Cheapskates: North Dakota shuts out Wisconsin..." (Hey, you could go a lot of different ways with cheapskates.)

(emphasis mine) A) I agree with the statement. If a coach says "I need to quit because people are criticizing my strategy" then he's not the right man for the job. If this guy is upset by criticism, he needs to find a new job yesterday. He's CERTAINLY not ready to move on to bigger challenges in this line of work. B) IMHO, those are two excellent word choices: people and fans. There's no proof that the emails in question have come from genuine fans of any single school.

I find it hard to read this statement...

It's JMHO, but if you let someone frame the issue in terms of the nickname, they're relying on the entire weight of the NCAA being behind them. And the only way you'll prove them wrong is once you're off the NCAA s-list. Not a lot of other schools would merit special consideration, but your in-state rival just might.

Each and every member of the Summit Conference is also a member of the NCAA. The NCAA "got into the middle" of the nickname dispute about three years ago. Why did your members not speak out at that time? I agree with the questioning statement "why would I want my membership to get into the middle of that?" that was meant to be rhetorical. But the far better, actual question is " three years ago, why did your member schools choose to get into the middle of a dispute that should be handled by a school as they saw fit; letting that school alone either suffer the consequences or reap the rewards that resulted from their decision?" JMHO, but this guy ought to either say "we aren't considering you for membership and here's why" or say "we're open to new members". Never mind the silly hyperbole. Also from the above article:

From numerous posts...

The Summit League basketball tournaments for both the men and women are being held in Sioux Falls this year. They sure talk a lot for a group that's taking a lot of business to a city which has a discriminatory name. http://www.thesummitleague.org/ViewArticle...;ATCLID=1570040

Interesting stance on the conference's part. I'm assuming that you will be playing your other state school no matter what; and sooner or later you'll schedule at least one of the South Dakota schools also. So you will be traveling to those universities on a pretty regular basis no matter what conference you eventually join. However, for a school from Shreveport LA or Indiana, traveling to the upper Midwest for 3 games instead of two could be very economical. You'd think the conference that already had two Dakota schools would see the financial benefits of fewer road trips, consolidating recruiting, etc. I wonder if any of those schools play Bradley, Utah, etc. in any sport?

It's JMHO but it could mean that in these tough economic times, stores are devoting floor space to tried-and-true sellers with local appeal. There's no need for your stores to take a chance on purchasing Seattle Mariners hats when there's far more support (and demand) for the local schools. At this time the risk/reward equation is definitely tilted towards "safe". Right about now I'd say plenty of Wisconsin people wished that the school had stayed true to its word and refused to play FSU in the bowl game. But of course, if Wisconsin had attempted to go all high and mighty, someone else would have stepped in (probably Northwestern in this case) and taken a nice New Year's trip to Florida. The players on Wisconsin who are from Florida would have understood that they were taking a stand on principle, right? Same thing for their retired alums down there in the Sun Belt. And ESPN would have remembered that Wisconsin turned down the opportunity to help garner ratings and pay for that fat ESPN contract. And Wisconsin's conference bretheren would remember that their high and mighty attitude had cost us money. And they'd suddenly get a lot of 11:00 am games for football and midweek games for basketball. And AFAIK, the basketball Badgers played FSU in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. It would have certainly been MUCH easier for Wisconsin to speak up here about their ethical code of conduct, yet they didn't. All that it would have meant here was that Wisconsin itself would have probably suffered in terms of a strength of schedule component for possible seeding into the Big Dance, plus a lesser game (or no game at all) on ESPN. And they'd have to answer to the calls that they were ducking the Seminoles. A few extra questions from reporters for the basketball coach, a few extra questions from recruits about their schedule and that's that. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote about "movable morality". Their code of ethics certainly appears solid and immutable when it's in a leather-bound volume on some desk in the Equal Opportunity office. In practice, its not worth the paper its printed on. And if you want to know about Wisconsin's ethics and truthfulness when it comes to being PC, I believe the story about how they Photoshopped a picture in their recruiting brochure is still available on the internet. That will tell you all you need to know about their ethics and honesty.

Will a school sell tickets? Will they contribute to our TV package? Are they going to contribute to a bigger pie for all, or simply take another piece out of our existing pie? Those are the questions a conference office (and conference members) will ask IMHO. And if you have any questions about movable morality, ask Iowa and Wisconsin. They'll give you all the answers you need.

There is no negotiating with the PC crowd. These people are simply nuts. Some may be satisfied momentarily, but others will keep on going. We still hear calls for the elimination of some songs played by the band as well as our nickname. These jokers are simply professional protesters, constantly outraged at something: its their raison d etre. They'll never build anything or accomplish something on their own-they only want to tear things down. IMHO they're nihilists in a way. And why the Sooners get a pass on all of this I'll never know.

My religion is just as good, just as valid as your religion. So I get to put up a display at the State Capital too. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-...0,2475692.story But the bigger point is that there is absolutely NO limit to the number of people who will be outraged at one thing or another; and its only when things like this happen that people start to say "wow, shouldn't we take a deep breath and kind of tell these idiots to get a life?"

You better believe it. Do you think the Big Ten office is going to let a multi-million dollar bowl payday (split among all conference teams, BTW) go to some other school from another conference because of some crazy student "referendum"? (Not to mention that we'd tee off our cable TV partner.) No way Jim Delany would let that happen, he has bills to pay. Let's make the rules so pliable you couldn't stand them up if you nailed them to a 2x4. Certainly everyone absolutely knows that without exception Indian names are always, always offensive: unless the vote of a small group of certain people says they aren't offensive. And everyone will realize the logic behind that, and say "see that guy lighting a spear and throwing it into the ground? He's very very different than a guy at Illinois. Sure, they may appear to be the same, but the difference is obvious." If you think about it, in theory that vote could come down to one person being "not" offended. And how many millions of people will see the Badgers play this game? I don't know for sure that this rule (I mean "bending of the rule") actually exists on their books. Wisconsin always said they'd play against anyone in a bowl, even before the NCAA got their official S-list up and running. So five or ten years ago, they would have put their moral outrage aside for a few days to get to Florida or Arizona or Texas in the middle of winter.

It's unfortunate (IMHO) that we need to drag down other schools in order to make the point that should be self-evident: EVERYONE can find SOMETHING to scream about. Use some common sense; some jerks are just perpetually unsatisfied about everything, destined to go thru life as sad, small and unloved people. The less time you spend around this group (who will do nothing but drag you down) the better off you are. But if that's what it takes to figuratively beat the NCAA MOIC over the head with a baseball bat, then so be it.

Illinois went thru what may have been the last ever "lack of institutional control" proctological exam by the NCAA. After they found no evidence of the original accusations and little evidence of other violations, at the press conference to announce the wrap-up the NCAA representative said (and I'm not quite verbatim, but its close) "even though we couldn't prove anything, I'm sure they are guilty". Many people consider that exam and that press conference a turning point. Most people think that since our NCAA audit (early 1990's) neither the exams nor the punishments have been anything like the one we had. BTW, we were originally accused of essentially buying a player. When it was all said and done, among other things we got caught when 2 football players were taking a recruit around the stadium on a hot, sunny summer day-and after walking around the old-fashioned Astroturf the two college students pumped in enough money to buy THREE cans of soft drinks: that was considered a recruiting violation, liable to sway that recruit towards our school. Meanwhile, Indiana hires a known cheater, kind of whitewashes one internal investigation after fraud is found, and finally is caught months later during a second exam. If you don't call hiring a cheater (a cheater not just by the NCAA definition, but the only coach EVER sanctioned by the basketball coaching association) and then not supervising said cheater "a lack of institutional control"; well, then nothing should ever again be considered a lack of institutional control.

I was hoping this would be posted. Everyone here in Illinois was just sickened by the reports of rampant corruption and graft in your state.

I was unclear in what I wrote. I was trying to show that various groups of Native Americans use the term "Pow Wow" differently. The link to the convention-like gathering here in Chicago shows that some Native Americans use that term to denote simply a meeting, open to all people with no particular religious reference or role. Others seem to feel that whenever anyone uses the term "Pow Wow" it can ONLY mean a gathering of deep religious/spiritual significance which is only open to Native Americans. When I said "anyone can call anything a Pow Wow" I should have written "any NATIVE AMERICAN can call any of their gatherings a "Pow Wow". Some will insist that it can only be used one way of course; but then again, some will insist that everything they see in their lives is an insult based on their race/nationality.

JMHO, but I think anyone can call anything they want a "pow wow". Some people view it as a gathering much like a convention. Admission charge, prizes for the best dance, etc. http://chicago.about.com/od/artsculture/p/ChicagoPowWow.htm Others view it differently I guess. And when it suits the agenda to say "oh no, this is all sacred, you're making fun of our religion" people will DEFINITELY throw that out there in an attempt to start the guilt trip. Whatever. I learned long ago that when it comes to this "you're hijacking our culture without our permission, we OWN our culture and that includes blah, blah, blah" people will throw every bit of stuff against the wall to see what sticks.