Say goodbye to the Fighting Sioux

What's next, Mark? People of different races mixing?!?

 

Here's what UND should try to do: Drop the nickname but not the logo.

If they're forced to drop the logo then they have a fight on their hands because EVERYTHING in North Dakota, from highway signs to state trooper cars and patches, etc., have Indian heads on them. The logo is fairly new, done around the time the arena was built, and, as I understand it, is supposed to be a fairly accurate depiction of a Lakota warrior done by a Lakota artist.

So they should just be North Dakota. That's it. No Sioux. No Fighting Sioux. Just North Dakota. With the lndianhead logo.

 

Green uniforms at home with the block NORTH DAKOTA in diagonal, and I'm down. Wear black on the road.

And that logo is fairly new, and it's cool as hell.

I kinda like that idea.

 

The arena is built. What's the old Nazi gonna do, come out of the grave and tear it down?

 

hence the Pwners... he must have been very conflicted that day...

 

Muscatels pull for the underdog, Slap ....

 

Well, the university will have to find somewhere else to play, since his family trust owns the thing and will own it for the next 20-some years.

 

From the 2001 SI article:

Engelstad completed the arena but has yet to actually hand it over to the university. One of his companies, Ralph Engelstad Arena, Inc., owns and operates the facility, which it leases to the school for one dollar a year. (There is a one-year renewable lease.) Engelstad in turn paid one dollar to lease the land from the university for 30 years. Strinden and others say Engelstad has pledged to give the arena to the school "after two years or so," but opponents worry that Engelstad will hold on to the facility as leverage against his alma mater. Because the arena ended up costing twice the original estimate, not a penny of Engelstad's $100 million pledge will be left for academic or other purposes. Faculty members accuse Engelstad of intentionally overspending to punish them for their opposition to the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo. They point to the arena's many extravagances, including the 400-foot hedge that spells out FIGHTING SIOUX for planes flying overhead, the 10,000-square-foot weight room and the electronically controlled vents in each player's locker. "How much was spent on spite?" asks Ganje. "How much of what he added is him saying, 'You will get none of my money' ?" Opponents also say that the reason Engelstad plastered the Indian-head logo all over the arena—it appears more than 1,000 times—was to rub his success in their faces.

 

This is an outstanding point. If UND has to ditch the logo, the state should be forced to pay to remove every single indian head that appears on state-owned materials.

That would end this argument pretty quick.

 

Lots of good stuff in today's GF Herald.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/118748/

 

Perfect.

 

When I was up there a few years back someone mentioned that Engelstad had left word with his family that if the name changed to tear the arena down brick by brick.

A school in the conference I cover recently had to drop Indians as its mascot because of NCAA pressure. They have played the last two years with no mascot. Someone came up with the idea to change their mascot to "Engines" and slap a train on the side of the helmets as screw you to the NCAA and the PC Police. That would be classic if they had the balls to do it.