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Drooling on the Pillow

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Go Fighting Sioux! 

Now that the NCAA has rescinded it's ban on Florida State's use of the nickname Seminoles, I can return to my natural state of hating them and the war pony they rode in on. There will be no more painful Go Seminole! posts.

The issue is still a live one, though, and that is that the NCAA has no right, or should have no right, to dictate mascots and nicknames to it's members based upon their own delicate sensibilities and sensitivities. As I said before, if a school wants to name its team the Wehrmacht or the MichaelMoores they will get what they deserve, but the notion that it's up to these bozos to instruct colleges and universities on the heritage of their areas and the ideals they want to personify is positively ludicrous.

With Florida State out of the way, the heavyweights in this fight now are the universities of Illinois and Utah. I haven't seen anything that says these schools are in litigation over this. Utah expects to retain their name, as did Florida State, based upon their relationship with the Ute nation. That's nice, but unhelpful, since it establishes the principle that teams have to justify themselves before the NCAA pinheads. Illinois has a different problem as there never was a tribe named the Illini. I really hope they get jiggy with the NCAA.

Moving forward, I was looking over the banned nickname list looking for a replacement team to root for in this fight and noticed my mother's alma mater, the Catawba College Indians. Catawba's problem is that the school is named after a tribe so to qualify for the Florida State exemption they would have to rename themselves the Catawba Catawbas.

I'm going to go with the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:45 AM
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