The New University Of North Dakota Nickname Is The Fighting Hawks

Well, it’s finally over. The new nickname for the University of North Dakota is the utterly prosaic Fighting Hawks.

Here are the totals:

Total votes: 27,378

• Fighting Hawks: 15,670 votes (57.24 percent)
• Roughriders: 11,708 votes (42.76 percent)

Remember there were roughly 82,000 people eligible to vote, so this selection represents the will of the majority of the 33 percent who bothered to vote. Just 19 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots for the Fighting Hawks in this final vote.

That’s telling, I think. Good luck marketing this crap sandwich, UND.

The Fighting Sioux will still be around for a long time though, I’m sure. Fans will continue to wear their merchandise and chant the name. And heck, UND will even have to sell Fighting Sioux merchandise from time to time to keep their rights to the old Fighting Sioux logo/nickname per their agreement with the NCAA.

What was accomplished here? A whole lot of nothing. But hey, President Kelley got to sneak off and quietly get an award from a small crowd of anti-nickname grievance mongers, so there’s that.

Here’s the full press release.