jdub27

I still haven't figured out his angle on this but his headline that "Newspaper Readers overwhelmingly Oppose New UND Nickname" is absolutely classic. The poll was absolutely trash but regardless, 66.4% of people voted for a new nickname. That seems to be quit opposite of his headline. Math must be hard.

The speed at which "no nickname" went from losing by 12% or so (37-27) to up by 8% (40-32) was confusing until I ran across a couple "Fighting Sioux Forever" Facebook posts with people proclaiming about the tons of votes they had entered and encouraging other to do the same. But don't worry, it will get passed as legitimate by the Forum and apparently Rob Port. This is exactly why if there is any sort of public vote that it needs to have significant controls. Also, Facebook comments must be where all the intelligent folk moved on to after the GF Herald and Fargo Forum shut down their comments section. Uneducated hot takes galore!!

I think it was in reference to how the committee scored it, those are the only two that didn't receive a negative score from any of the members.

Some interesting tidbits that mean absolutely nothing: One of the highest on North Stars (+7) also hated Roughriders (-2, only negative score) The two highest on Green Hawks (+7) were not huge fans of Fighting Hawks (+4, +2) Two of the four highest on Fighting Hawks (+7, +5) did not like Green Hawks (-1, -1) "No Nickname" was the only choice that had three scores of 0 or lower, Green Hawks and North Stars were the only other options that had at least two while Nodaks and Fighting Hawks had no negative scores 5 committee members gave out no score of 0 or worse, 4 had one, 1 had two and 1 had three Using an arbitrary score of "6" as strongly in favor of, Roughrider had the support of 5, Sundogs and North Stars had 4, No Nickname, Fighting Hawks and Green Hawks had 2 and Nodaks had 13 If you change that to a score of "5", North Stars had the support of 7, Roughriders and Sundogs had 5, Fighting Hawks and Green Hawks had 4 and Nodaks and No Nickname had 3.

I thought KG said that Spirit was something he liked? I didn't see anything that he openly supported Sundogs, but even if he does, looking at the vote totals, he clearly isn't the only one.

Someone needs to e-mail PadillaCRT the link to Sundogs from urbandictionary. Interesting, but not surprising, that they took the time to check out Roughriders but nothing else.

Pretty original too. There are 9 other colleges at various levels who had a Native American related nickname and now have some variation of "Hawks": Chowam Hawks - formerly Braves (2006) Dickinson State Blue Hawks - formerly Savages (1972) IUP Crimson Hawks - formerly Indians (2006) Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks - formerly Indians (2006) Miami RedHawks - formerly Redskins (1997) Ripon Red Hawks - formerly Redmen (1985) Southeast Missouri State Redhawks - formerly Indians and Otahkians (2005) Seattle Redhawks - formerly Chieftains (2000) Stonehill Skyhawks - formerly Chieftains (2005)

Choosing "no nickname" will be the opposite of unifying. There are groups already sharpening their claws if it happens because they, all along with anyone paying attention, realize "no nickname" is just a cover for Fighting Sioux.

They were two votes away from basically ending this circus but only 4 people on the committee had the guts to remove "no nickname", short of the 6 needed. Not like they were going on a limb either since it ranked 7th out 9, coming in slightly behind the powerful Green Hawks and Fighting Hawks. Despite that, there were a couple relevant quotes from last night that at least gives me hope that there are some on the committee who "get it": -Carla Christofferson: "Majority of public wanted North Dakota as nickname but many are just mad about Sioux logo retirement". -Chelsea Moser: "Saying we're going to be North Dakota to me means saying we're going to stay the Fighting Sioux" -On keeping North Dakota, Lowell Schweigert says "What is popular is not always right. Have courage."

I'm not positive but I believe they are 10'x20'.

Wasn't the NCAA Executive Committee granted the power by the membership to make rules on behalf of the membership? With that, they don't need votes or litigation to make a policy that would subject UND to penalties, though I'm still not sold that the settlement agreement itself doesn't cover it for them but its clear we won't agree on that. Doesn't the settlement agreement say that UND is subject to being placed back on the sanctions list if they don't not adhere to terms agreed upon, which was either a)get tribal approval or b)retire the Fighting Sioux nickname and adopt a new nickname? UND subjected itself to different rules (two tribes, timelines, etc) with the settlement agreement.

Right, wrong or indifferent, I did notice in the GF Herald article last week, they made a point to distance themselves from this particular incident:

Their current athletic aid is split 39/61, so that might be the more accurate number since FCOA only goes to scholarship athletes (for comparison, UND is at 49/51). I guess debating on Larsen's quote to whether their athletes are treated equal is a subjective thing and assuming he is talking strictly about the athletes that are on campus, he probably has solid ground to stand on. What isn't subjective is that NDSU provide nowhere near the opportunities for student athletes that all measures besides their "surveys" seem to show they should. What they aren't treating equally is the opportunity for women student athletes, since for every single opportunity provided for a women, there are 2.2 opportunities provided for men.

Wasn't your buddy Blais #umproud? Simple question.

Some holes in your math.... -NDSU isn't necessarily guaranteed to have 6 home games every year (though have held strong on it thus far). -NDSU has 4,000 student tickets allocated per game plus whatever they are required to give to the visitor plus player tickets. Even if you only included the student tickets, you've just lost 20% of your "new-found" revenue. Your idea probably gets them halfway there.

While no more scientific than anything a newspaper runs, very interesting to see that "no nickname" is in fact not the overwhelming favorite in the two most recent SiouxSports polls and in fact is behind Roughriders in both polls. Can I now use those numbers and claim the overwhelming majority wants Roughriders or how does that work?

Not sure we can trust you or the %gobc any more. Didn't know the head coach was leaving, was wrong on the new head coach, wrong on the new assistant coach and wrong that Schmaltz was going to stick around when Berry was named head coach. That's a lot of time spent behind the 8 ball...

I know that the issue brought up in the Star Tribune is mainly related to money being spent on the different genders, however participation numbers are also mentioned as part of the issue. Just for fun: If you look at the unduplicated participation numbers (each student athlete counted once, regardless of how many sports they play), U of M's women's participation rate is at 46.5% (337 women vs. 388 men), ranking 149th. For comparison: UND is ranked 161st at 45.7% (205 women vs. 244 men) and NDSU is at 31.4% (129 women vs. 282 men) which ranks 340 out 347 schools in Division 1. Looking at the total participation (student athletes are counted once for each sport they participate in), NDSU does move up to 337 out of 347 at 35.0% (188 women vs. 349 men). U of M moves up to 102 out of 347 at 51.5% (501 women vs. 471 men). UND is ranked 163rd at 48.1% (268 women vs. 289 men). U of M does have a higher percentage of women enrollment (51.1%) than NDSU (43.3%) or UND (45.4%). Equal opportunities don't matter when you can produce "surveys" to show that women supposedly aren't interested in D-1 athletic opportunities.

Not everyone, but the overwhelming majority and it isn't even close. Read any set of Facebook comments or tweets related to the nickname issue, it is far and away the main reason why people are selecting "no nickname" and makes it very clear why "no nickname" is the current leader in the polls on the GF Herald/Forum websites and people's reasoning for it.

Just curious, how do you know that they aren't representing opinions they have heard? I've talked with one of the committee members and gave my input and I know I'm not the only one. Just because they aren't representing your specific opinion doesn't mean they haven't taken input into their comments or decisions. They are also privy to a lot more information than the general public sees through whatever snippets WDAZ or the GF Herald decides to show, including recommendations and information from the marketing firm (who I'm not a huge fan of myself, but that's a different point). KG's comment was a five second snippet of a how many hour meeting? It doesn't mean he didn't speak positively or negatively that or any other nickname, that was just what was presented by the media. In the end, I'm guessing pretty much every single member of the committee knew they were signing up for a thankless job in a no-win situation and accepted the role anyway because they wanted to do the best they could to help out a University they care very much for and about.

Who let a Minnesotan chair this committee??

Agree 100%. Lay it out for what it is, saying you are picking "North Dakota" is incorrect, that part is going to be there regardless of what happens going forward. Be clear and state that you supporting the selection of "no nickname". Unless of course you want the University of North Dakota North Dakota but we've already went over how redundant that is.

One other point is that what is acceptable today is not always acceptable in the future. The NCAA Executive Committee has the power to do as it pleases. It isn't a real stretch to see the same outside groups continue to put pressure on UND if no nickname is the option selected, particularly since there is absolutely no doubt that it leaves Fighting Sioux as the de facto nickname. Why even put yourself in that position? This process has been a circus, I don't want to see Act 2.

What you call BS logic is rationalization of why going with no nickname is not only a terrible idea itself but also sets up UND for potential for consequences, giving it two pretty heavy marks against it. Even if I didn't think there was potential ramifications for selecting no nickname (hypothetically, because I do), I still think it is just a flat out bad idea. At some point, a group of students/alumni/outside source will start the push to put a nickname in place and we end up in this exact same spot. My concern is that it ends up being the outside source because they continue to see an environment where the "Fighting Sioux" nickname is the de facto nickname because nothing has been put in place to fill the void. I'm not in favor of the majority of the nicknames left on the list. But I could look at 95%+ of the college nicknames across the country and if they were on the list, I'd think the same thing. The funny thing is, alumni of all of those schools support their nickname because they have become acclimated to it. The same thing will happen at UND regardless of what nickname is chosen. The teams and student-athletes will still play the same games, the same way. It will still be just as enjoyable to watch. But not picking a nickname continues to leave open what has become a festering wound because it leaves UND fair game for criticism from the outside groups that were part of creating this mess in the first place. I want to hear about positive things when I see UND in the news, not the same old nickname stuff that has been the overshadowing tone for a decade or so now.

And if they continue to make limited edition shirts or apparel, they are doing that. They released 50 at Scheels and 50 at the Sioux Shop, sold them and made money. Not sure how that is hard to prove? They will have to use all the previous marks in order to stay in compliance, not just the Brien logo. It was included for the reasons you stated, so that it didn't fall into the public domain and it remained under control. I'd love to print up some apparel with some of the logos from way back and sell them for a nice profit. Don't see that happening (legally) in the future. I guess other than some sort of hypocrisy (which is synonymous with the NCAA), I didn't see it as all that strange. The NCAA deemed allowing very limited runs of apparel to be better than it being freely available for public use.