UND Alumni Definitely Lied About South Dakota State University Banning The Fighting Sioux

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Written By:
Rob Port

May 2, 2012
11:25pm

Earlier this week a group of UND alumni made headlines across the state when they claimed that South Dakota State University had decided, definitively, to no longer enter into contracts with the University of North Dakota until the Fighting Sioux nickname was retired.

But, as I pointed out yesterday, this came as news to the folks at South Dakota State University who haven’t announced anything about this issue in over a year and haven’t made any changes to their stance, which isn’t even written policy to begin with.

Put simply, the UND alumni told a big, fat fib and they got caught. In South Dakota, the Argus-Leader has more on the confusion the UND alumni caused at SDSU:

The news and subsequent reaction caught Jackrabbits athletic director Justin Sell off guard. He said that he hadn’t spoken about the matter with SDSU president David Chicoine in nearly a year and has had very little interaction with UND officials since taking over in Brookings three years ago. What’s more, SDSU has never had a formal or written policy on the matter, which has been rife with twists and turns over the course of eight years.

The sudden and outside resurrection of the issue seemed to create confusion within the SDSU athletic department (and the media) Tuesday.

“Nothing has changed,” Sell said. “Any contract we have with UND, we’ll honor.”

And there are many, including a men’s basketball game in 2012-13 and a football game in 2013. The schools have met in a number of sports since UND joined the Jacks at the NCAA Division I level in 2008. Sell would like to see that continue given their shared histories – both were longtime members of the North Central Conference – and how difficult it is to find non-conference games within the region.

What’s more, at South Dakota’s other university, they’re not going to stop scheduling new games any time soon:

Meanwhile, University of South Dakota athletic director David Sayler has no plans to avoid scheduling UND based on the nickname issue.

“We do not have any policies in place,” he said. “We’re just like about everyone else on, this waiting to see what the officials involved are finally going to do in this situation. Until then, we’ll proceed with business as usual.”

According to the article, SDSU isn’t signing any more contracts for meetings until the June 12th vote on the Sioux referendum, at which point they’re going to re-evaluate their policy. Which means, really, nothing. The vote is about a month away. My guess is once the people of North Dakota vote to keep the nickname, SDSU will keep scheduling games. Because, as they themselves note in the article, it’s not that easy to find regional non-conference opponents.

This is all a big nothing. More fear mongering and deception from the higher ed loyalists.

I think the UND alumni owe the people of North Dakota, and the folks at SDSU, an apology.

But this sort of lying and deceit has become typical in matters pertaining to North Dakota’s university system. From North Dakota University System Chancellor Bill Goetz lying to the legislature about attempting to limit the scope of an audit looking into enrollment problems at Dickinson State University to the UND alumni lying about South Dakota State University deciding not to play the Sioux any more, it’s clear that these people have betrayed the public’s trust and have no intent to deal with the Sioux matter, or any other higher education issue, in good faith.