North Dakota Can't Get This Right

Hope everyone's had a great spring. Summer is almost here, believe it or don't.

If you're a Twitter follower (@BruceCiskie if you're not), you'll be excited -- or dismayed -- to know that our third annual 100 Day Countdown to the UMD season opener starts July 1.

(Yes, the exhibition is Oct. 4, but we count down to the first game that counts, which is Oct. 9 against Bemidji State.)

Later in the offseason, I'll draw up a projected line chart for the upcoming campaign, an exercise that serves to get me really excited for the season. But today, we talk about one of our adversaries.

Out at North Dakota, they've been Nickname-Free since 2012, when the NCAA finally twisted their arm enough to get them to drop Fighting Sioux. Well, officially at least.

Go to any sporting event involving a North Dakota team, and you're bound to see a few "Sioux" jerseys floating around. Hell, there was a guy in a Sioux jersey at UMD's regional in Manchester this past March. UND was playing in Fargo, mind you.

There's a large group of UND fans who simply haven't moved on from the Sioux name. And since the school has been sans nickname this whole time, they haven't had any real reason to move on.

It's something that could change this summer. The university has a committee put in charge of finding the school's next athletic nickname. The process has made headlines throughout the spring, and now UND is down to seven options for a new name.

"No nickname" remains one of the available choices, along with "Fighting Hawks," "Green Hawks," "Nodaks," "North Stars," "Roughriders" and "Sundogs."

I'm not here to break down the choices. Honestly, I don't care what North Dakota calls itself.

But it has to call itself something, at least in my view.

The process of a new nickname, at least to me, is partially about moving on. UND's rabid -- that's a compliment, guys, so don't flood the inbox -- fanbase has been given no reason to move on from a name it loved so much.

Yes, the argument exists that a large number of fans wouldn't move on anyway. Maybe that argument is correct. But what is undeniable is this: No nickname means the vast majority of the fanbase will not move on.

They might not want to, but this process should be about moving on, not endorsing the status quo, where "Sioux" is only not UND's nickname officially. Fans yell "Sioux" at the end of the national anthem, still chant "Let's Go Sioux" during the game, and still wear Sioux jerseys and other clothing bearing the logo all the time. The university might not be making bank on the nickname, but it still exists.

While a new name doesn't guarantee the Sioux legacy will fade away, no name guarantees it won't.

So for what it's worth, as much as I appreciated the old name and the old logo, and as much as I respect what UND has, I strongly feel UND has to implement a new name and not go with no name at all.

I also recognize UND can't win here. No name, and exactly what I've laid out happens. But those loyal to the Sioux name will struggle to accept any name that is put in front of them. They'll reject it at first, and it might take years to reach full acceptance. It'll be a process, just like the last few years have been.

It's been three years, and it's time to start new traditions.

Ok, there's my $.02. It's time for me to move on.

North Dakota Ready to Move On From Fighting Sioux Nickname

When North Dakota's men's hockey team was preparing for a February visit to Duluth, the team was without a nickname. The "Fighting Sioux" moniker was dropped as of Jan. 1, and the school was planning to go sans nickname for a couple years.

Then a group of petitioners in the state decided to intervene. A successful drive led to enough signatures to trigger a statewide referendum on the nickname. Yes, a statewide vote on the status of a school's nickname.

The school and its alumni association -- which had fought the NCAA "hostile and abusive" bit for years -- suddenly were on the other side of the fence. Led by an emotional men's hockey coach Dave Hakstol, one of the champions of the fight, the school began an initiative to convince voters to allow it to drop the name.



The work was a success.

Voters Tuesday overwhelmingly decided to allow the school to drop the nickname. The guy who started the petition drive isn't ready to let a 2-1 majority stand in the way of what he thinks is right.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Sean Johnson, Bismarck, spokesman for the group that sought Tuesday’s statewide referendum on the nickname.

He blamed “a lot of false fears generated by the foundation,” a reference to the UND Alumni Association and Foundation, which took the lead in encouraging a vote to allow UND to retire the nickname. Keeping it, the alumni groups and others said, could severely damage UND because of NCAA sanctions.

The alumni groups spent about $250,000 on the campaign, mostly on TV advertising. “When your opposition out-spends you 25-1, they’d better fire their ad company if they don’t win,” Johnson said.

He said nickname supporters will continue to circulate petitions for another vote, an initiated measure that would secure the nickname in the state Constitution. If enough signatures are filed by August, that vote could occur in November, but Johnson said the group may wait to file until December for a vote on the constitutional amendment in 2014.

Brilliant.

Meanwhile, the Grand Forks Herald story linked above indicates that there are some members of the Standing Rock Sioux who want the tribal council to vote on the nickname. A vote in the affirmative by this tribe could have prevented any of this from happening in the first place, but the tribe has yet to vote.

No matter what, it's time to move on. It's been a controversial and very divisive issue in North Dakota, as well as among alumni of the school.

The nickname has already cost North Dakota several competitive opportunities, including a track meet at Iowa that the school had been invited to before the petition drive forced it to reinstate the Sioux nickname. The alumni association's campaign centered around opportunities like this that were going to disappear if the nickname wasn't discontinued. Those opportunities largely involved sports that aren't hockey, as the UND hockey teams don't tend to have any scheduling or conference issues.

Longtime readers and listeners will know where I have stood on this issue. But when the nickname was restored in February, it was clear that more harm than good would come from its continued use. The fact that people like Johnson don't seem to understand that these are real impacts on real student athletes -- even if they don't directly involve hockey -- make me think that this petition drive was the work of either an attention-grabbing or exceptionally misguided individual.

The day that this nickname started having a profoundly negative impact on the student athlete experience at North Dakota was the day that this fight had gone on long enough.

That day has come and gone.

UPDATE: Via Jen Conway (@NHLhistorygirl on Twitter), here's a statement from UND President Robert Kelley:

We are appreciative that voters took the time to listen and to understand the issues and the importance of allowing the University to move forward.  We also understand how deeply this has affected all of us.

Tuesday's vote allows us to focus our attention on our students as we continue to build exceptional programs in all areas of the University.  We appreciate the support that has been expressed for the University of North Dakota over the past several weeks, and especially for UND Athletics.  It is support that will continue to be important as we build a great future for the University and for UND Athletics.

We will continue to work with the State Board of Higher Education, the North Dakota University System, and the leadership in athletics as we move forward.