Governor Dalrymple Announces That UND Will Retire The Fighting Sioux Nickname

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 12, 2011
3:49pm

After meeting for just an hour, the NCAA says they won’t budget and the Governor says he’ll introduce a bill to change the name during the upcoming special session of the legislature.

Which isn’t surprising given that Dalrymple, despite rushing to sign the Fighting Sioux bill into law during the session, made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to Indianapolis to stand behind the bill he signed.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – State legislators and University of North Dakota officials are preparing to change the school’s Fighting Sioux nickname following a meeting at NCAA headquarters.

After spending more than an hour with NCAA President Mark Emmert on Friday in Indianapolis, Gov. Jack Dalrymple said the NCAA would not change the settlement agreement that goes into effect Monday. If the school doesn’t change its nickname, or get permission to use the name Fighting Sioux from a second tribe, it will be banned from hosting postseason tournaments and using the nickname or logo at NCAA tournaments.

Dalrymple says he will introduce a bill Nov. 7 transferring authority of the nickname and logo back to the school. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a law requiring the school to use its current nickname and logo.

I really don’t understand why we need to change the name at all. The sanctions are meaningless (UND can’t host postseason tournaments anyway, and taking the logo/nickname off of the jerseys during NCAA tournaments is no big deal), and the hysteria from the universities about the “damage” to the athletic programs is pure hokum.

But to the arrogant members of higher education community, what North Dakotans (not to mention a majority of actual Sioux Indians at the Spirit Lake tribe) want doesn’t matter. Score another win for North Dakota’s totally unaccountable, completely out of control higher education system.

What they ought to do is just not give the team another name. Officially they’ll just be the University of North Dakota. To the fans, they’ll always be The Fighting Sioux.

And, given that the university legally can’t hold on to the trademark on the logo and nickname unless they use it, some enterprising capitalist ought to be waiting in the wings to pick it up and continue to sell merchandise that will flood the games.

The NCAA may have won officially, but unofficially the logo and nickname aren’t going anywhere.

The big question is, what happens at Ralph Englestad Arena? It’s not owned by the University, and there are so many Sioux logos there the building might actually fall down if they remove them all. Plus, the REA gets a cut on merchandise sales which are going to be all but non-existent without one of the most popular logos in all of sports emblazoned on them.

One thing you can bet on is once the university bureaucrats see a hole in their budgets thanks to disappearing merchandise revenue they’ll be back begging the taxpayers for more money.

Update: I’m being told by nickname supporters that tribal interests are considering a lawsuit against the NCAA, so it would appear as though this issue is far from over though I don’t have any details to add at this point.

Update: Apparently Grand Forks Herald reporter Chuck Haga was kicked out of the building by the NCAA while he was waiting for North Dakota’s delegation to exit from the meeting. Classy folks.