OUR OPINION: NCAA’s nickname gesture appreciated
September 27, 2012 at 4:30 pm in Grand Forks Herald
Here’s to the NCAA’s decision and the negotiating team from North Dakota that helped bring it about. Continue Reading
OUR OPINION: NCAA’s nickname gesture appreciated
36 Comments
I find it odd that people state how expensive removing all of the logos and signs would be, when the manager and owners of the building, stated removing even one logo would be this biggest form of disrespect to the Engelstad family. Does anyone know if the Engelstads are going to remove the signs? has anyone asked? or are all of you just assuming?
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Contrary to all the emotional hogwash that substitutes for facts on these boards, the Engelstad’s have no intention of closing the arena and taking their toys and going home. How many times over the last two years have you heard various people say “if we do ‘X’ the ghost of Ralph will do ‘Y’?” We have done ‘X’ numerous times and Ralph’s ghost has stayed in his grave.
The arena is a $100 million dollar investment. Investments make no money if they are closed.
Ralph did not get $100 million plus to invest in the arena by being a fool.
If they were going to close the arena over the name, they would have done it long ago.
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My initial reaction to the NCAA decision was disappointment. It simply leaves a festering wound to fester. It provides no closure.
After reflection I realized I was wrong. This is a generational problem and it will not be solved until the present generation of FS supporters reach their expiration dates. This is one instance where the graying of ND is a good thing. It means the end will come sooner.
20 years ago or more the LA Fire Department absorbed the LA City Ambulance. The transition was not welcomed by either side. Both sides looked down their noses at the other and there was no indication that would change.
A very smart consultant told the leadership to quit trying to force things. Fire those who were openly obstructionistic and refused to play the game, and ignore the rest. The consultant instead told the administration to focus their efforts on the new firefighters. Make sure these new people were “branded” in a way the department wanted.
The old timers would take care of themselves. They were a time limited problem.
The consultant was correct.
The lesson for this situation is obvious.
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I find your opinions hostile abusive and racist. Does that mean will stop writing comments?
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You just summed up the flying nurse perfectly.
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Tom-Your cllosing paragraph was a great use of history to make a point! Taking it a bit further and paraphrasing Generals Lee’s final advice to his soldiers, it is time to be good fans, the atheletes on the field, court or ice in the UND colors deserve no less!
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I would not be surprised if a 100 years from now, people will look back at the double standards, logical fallacies, and hyprocrisy on which this topic has been based, and say “Lord, what a bunch of intellectual Neanderthals!”
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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“(she also found no fault with Sambo, so we have to assume it is a generational thing).”
“Little Black Sambo” was a well-dressed little boy from India, not Africa as is often presumed, and one with excellent negotiating/interpersonal skills. A person reading the ACTUAL STORY as written by Helen Bannerman would be hard-pressed to find anything racist beyond the repetitive description of everyone involved (except the tigers, of course) as “black”. Silly, as poor children’s stories often are, but not racist.
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Story-of-Little-Black-Sambo.html
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True. Ghandi recalled from his time in South Africa that Indians were called “darkies.”
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It shows the total hypocrisy of the NCAA on this matter. Not just the Seminoles vs Fighting Sioux but now they just let everything go at the end. Friggin’ joke.
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Total BS FN. I live in Denver. I wear my Fighting Sioux sweater to Avalanche games. Every game I get at least 5 fist bumps from total strangers in the concourse. People come up to me in my seat and tell me how much they love the logo and ask about the status of the name change. Not one person has told me it’s offensive. The Native Americans I work with always ask me to bring them back something with the Sioux Indian Head whenever I head up north.
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Phil: key word is generational. People will continue to support the name till they don’t . To the rest of the world this is a page 3 news story.
BTW my mother lives in Aurora. I grew up there. Your assertion about 100% acceptance of the name is a tad overblown.
I am impressed that 5 people at an Avs game recognize the old logo. That is about the same number of people per year who recognize my UND class ring and ask me how the Alma Mater is doing.
I had not thought of it before now, but none of the people who recognize the ring ever ask the status of the nickname. Maybe they are alumni or have family & already know, or maybe they just don’t care
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It’s an interesting topic. If it wasn’t the thread would be bare. Every school I went to in GF went through the same thing. It just took a while for it to reach the university.
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That’s a minimum of 5 people at EVERY game I go to. About 25 in the last 3 years. Yes…you and your vocal minority that screamed louder and longer than the majority won. That doesn’t mean you were right, it only proves that the PC movement in this country is totally out of control. Common sense gets thrown out the window. It’s the norm now, I’ve accepted that. Glad I only have 20-30 years left. This country will be a police state in 10 years.
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And I really enjoyed your story about the class ring. You might want to consider a career change. You do write some great fiction.
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The NCAA bullied UND for years, got their way and we should be happy when they throw us a few crumbs?
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Correction: the NCAA bullied UND for years AND THEN when UND hired the garbage leadership they have in Twamley Hall……….the walls came crashing down. This president is a joke. Latest news: he claims to be environmentally friendly but sure loves that oil money donation.
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FN says, “In the interest of full disclosure, she initially thought the school should keep the name. She is 80 and she could not understand how a cartoon could be offensive to Native people (she also found no fault with Sambo, so we have to assume it is a generational thing)”.
I hope you have as much sympathy for Muslims that are offended by “cartoons” of Mohammed.
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There’s a difference between being offended and being bat crap crazy offended with zero chance for logic. Being offended is one thing, but to then act in such offensive manners really puts the offense on them. Although I can empathize with their initial offense I find the way they’ve handled it every time to be so wrong that I have no empathy for them. If they can’t act civil then why should anyone cheer on their anger?
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About 6 or so years ago, the Dartmouth athletic director apologized to the student body for having scheduled a game with UND…because of UND’s use of the Fighting Sioux logo/name.
Back then, I sent them an email pointing out some things I found interesting about the Dartmouth AD’s letter.
The AD mentioned that Dartmouth had moved away from its use of an Indian logo and name back in the 70′s. Since they had “gone PC” so many years before, (thrty-plus years ago certainly could be considered “generational”), it could be assumed that all of the political correctness would have “taken hold” by 2006, (the year this particular game was held), and that opinions/behavior/etc. would have reflected the success of those politically correct actions Dartmouth had undertaken.
But alas, they didn’t. Recent events at Dartmouth apparently led to the AD’s letter to students. In the letter, she “reminded” the students to treat North Dakota fans and players with respect.
My email asked a very simple question: If such political correctness had been successful, why were events such as the ones at Dartmouth occurring? Why would the AD need to “remind” people how to behave? If it was almost 40 years AFTER changing the name and logo, wouldn’t the “correctness” of that move have taken root?
That said, I do think it’s time to move on. But anyone that thinks this will be a life-changing, attitude-changing situation need only look at some examples elsewhere. Stuff like this is pushed through because it makes folks “feel good”. We apply the “if even one person is offended, it needs to be done away with” concept when it’s convenient….
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I remember that. It was a Xmas tourney with BC and i think Cornell. IIRC, the president made her apologize.
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The grabber for that tourney was the prospect of a UND/BC championship game. UND took out Darmouth but Cornell upset BC. There were 200 people at the arena for the final game.
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How the games turned out slipped my mind. What I didn’t forget was that the school that HADN’T done away with their name and logo didn’t feel it was necessary to remind folks how to behave. The “more progressive” and/or “more PC” school that HAD done away with their name and logo some thirty years prior still apparently felt that the actions they took way back in the 70′s somehow failed to deliver on the often-touted promise of peace, love, and understanding.
I hope this whole issue gets put to bed soon. I also hope someone can OBJECTIVELY analyze the results twenty or thirty years down the road. Sometimes *touchy-feely* produces positive results. Other times, well….
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Her comments raised the ire of a number of Darmouth alumni. You know, the ones with the deep pockets, who made clear what they thought to the prez. That’s what got him to tell her to apologize. Nothing like the threat of being taken out of a will to move university administrators.
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That may be true, but her comments also resulted in folks like me being intrigued by the whole thing. I read her letter to the students and some other things in the school’s paper and local newspaper at the time as well. There were a few incidents mentioned that had occurred on and off campus that could be labeled as derogatory and/or racist.
That’s the thing that put her comments into perspective for me. She WANTED it to appear as though they and their situation was *above* what existed here. They had done away with the logo and name years earlier, while we were somehow stuck in the past.
And yet surprisingly, (or not), incidents of prejudice, disrespect, racism, etc. could, (and did), still occur in that “progressive” environment.
I’ve said it before and and I’ll say it again: No matter what ends up happening here, we’ll still have SOME stupid people that do stupid things.
When we do away with all of the Fighting Sioux stuff we ought to do so with a goal in mind. Someone should benefit from all of this. It might be the healing of relationships, the advancement of a culture, or any number of things. We won’t know if this, (or any other such action), has achieved the goal(s) it was honestly intended to achieve…unless we are able to look at it objectively years down the road.
That won’t happen….at least I don’t think so. If some incident occurred today on campus that the name-retiring proponents could point to as derogatory, the name and logo would be pointed to as at least partially to blame.
Ask Dartmouth is that assessment would be accurate.
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Oops….last line should say, “Ask Dartmouth if that assessment would be accurate.”
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Oh hell……if you don’t remember something ask Gene….he’ll be able to tell you most anything the rest of us have long forgot….He just might be the Herald’s version of HAL, but throws us off by always sticking it to some of the journalists…….
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“NCAA…generous in victory”
Now that is some real spin.
More likely Hodgson told the NCAA what the Engelstads had always said…. NO
Imagine if the “leadership” at UND…or the State…had any integrity.
My alma mater would still exist ….instead of the University of Screw the Sioux.
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Flyingnurse:
People will continue to support the name till they don’t.
Really?
How insightful….does that mean there will be no problem when there is no problem?
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You know….eventually.. .the sun will begin to fuse helium instead of hydrogen.
Will the problem be solved by then?
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You know….that is about 12 billion years from now.
So.. Do the math …16 trillion divided by 12billion is 1333 dollars a year.
12months in a year so divide 1333by 12.
Thats just over a thousand dollars a month until the end of the earth (not accounting for global warming of course)…..and the US will be debt free.
Always a silver lining I guess.
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Sorry…its better than that…its like a hundred bucks a MONTH.
Thats less a cell phone….oh happy days are here again.
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The Herald likes to do their spin also……
“Hey, it could have been worse.”
I think they stole that lone from the Obama Presidency.
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You know, you know, you are talking to yourself.
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You wish.
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