I agree these names aren’t purposefully used for degrading Native Americans. I think that they can be degrading though anyway. Also, These 20 or so schools that have Indian references will survive with new names.
I wasn’t adamant about the NCAA doing this and I would have slept well at night without it, but I think its a good idea.
And does anyone think the pciture below could be taken offensively?
[i]Originally posted by X-49er[/i]@Aug 5 2005, 07:48 PM [b] If this is the route the NCAA chooses, all schools should be forced to choose a plant or non-animate nickname. They've crossed the line this time and I hope somebody kicks their @$$ in court. [/b]Sit back and watch this one play out. Somebody with the desire (and more importantly, the cash) will be doing so.
FSU vows to keep mascot
NCAA: ‘Hostile,’ ‘abusive’ names will be penalized
By Steve Ellis, Tallahassee Democrat Staff Writer
Florida State needs a victory in court to keep its Seminoles nickname without suffering potentially damaging penalties to many of its teams.
It’s that, or face a decision unthinkable to FSU fans - abandon the only nickname the school has known since 1947 as well as the nationally recognized symbols Chief Osceola and Renegade. And FSU President T.K. Wetherell insisted that won’t happen in the wake of the NCAA’s announcement it would prohibit teams with nicknames, symbols or mascots considered “hostile or abusive” from hosting NCAA postseason events.
The NCAA also will not allow such nicknames or symbols to be on team uniforms or clothing in NCAA postseason competition beginning Feb.1. There would be no such ban for the regular season. FSU and Illinois were among at least 18 schools determined to have “hostile or abusive” nicknames, symbols and mascots.
That rule will not affect FSU’s football team - the school’s most visible team and biggest moneymaker - because the NCAA does not have a championship format for that sport. Other sports, including baseball and softball, regularly host NCAA postseason competition.
“We’re not going to change the name - that’s not an option,” Wetherell told the Tallahassee Democrat Friday evening. “We would not do that.”
Wetherell, who was angered by the decision, said he had it in his mind “to paint (the Seminole logo) three times as big on the field (at Doak Campbell Stadium).”
The NCAA Executive Committee surprised FSU when it announced the bans on Friday.
Wetherell reiterated comments he made to the Democrat on Wednesday that, in the face of a ban, he would seek legal action against the NCAA. He said that because the NCAA, in his opinion, deviated from its procedures in reaching its decisions, “the first thing the court would do is throw it out based on the NCAA’s process.”
Wetherell also mentioned that FSU might have grounds for economic restitution.
“I don’t foresee any circumstances short of the NCAA reversing this decision that will not put us in court,” said Wetherell, whose day included wrist surgery after he fell in the morning. “We’ve got lawyers looking at it right now.”
The Seminole Tribe of Florida may not join FSU in any legal fight, according to Max B. Osceola Jr., a member of the Tribal Council.
“I don’t think that is our fight,” he said. “But I’m sure if we’re asked to express our point of view we will be more than happy to do that.”
Osceola said the Seminole Tribe of Florida disagrees with the NCAA’s decision and determination that FSU’s nickname and symbols are “hostile and abusive.” Osceola was also concerned that his tribe was not approached by the NCAA regarding the matter.
“It’s like history - they left the natives out,” Osceola said. "They have non-natives telling natives what’s good for them or how they should use their name. You have a committee made up of non-natives telling people that they can not use a native name when you have a native tribe - a tribal government, duly elected and constituted - that said they agree with Florida State.
“There are some names, like the NFL team the Washington Redskins - that’s derogatory. Those are abusive and hostile but not this.”
The NCAA disagreed.
“Colleges and universities may adopt any mascot that they wish, as that is an institutional matter,” said Walter Harrison, chair of the NCAA Executive Committee and president at the University of Hartford. “But as a national association, we believe that mascots, nicknames or images deemed hostile or abusive in terms of race, ethnicity or national origin should not be visible at the championship events that we control.”
Wetherell’s anger over the decision went beyond the decision. He criticized NCAA President Myles Brand for his role in the process.
“Here you have someone like Myles Brand - he didn’t have a problem as president of Indiana playing Illinois … and he grandstands on this. That’s hypocritical. You’re not going to put the name Seminoles on the scoreboard but you put the Hooters girls on it. That’s just stupid. … It’s just frustrating that they don’t deal with issues more important to the athletes (instead of) grandstanding on this.”
[b]They have non-natives telling natives what's good for them or how they should use their name. You have a committee made up of non-natives telling people that they can not use a native name when you have a native tribe - a tribal government, duly elected and constituted - that said they agree with Florida State.“There are some names, like the NFL team the Washington Redskins - that’s derogatory. Those are abusive and hostile but not this.”[/b]
B-I-N-G-O.
[b]And does anyone think the pciture below could be taken offensively? [/b]
The Cleveland Indian logo could indeed be taken offensively, but the team itself was given their nickname because they had a former player who was an Indian. They were formerly nicknamed the Naps from 1905-1914 after star player and now Hall of Famer Nappy Lajoie. Lajoie was waived by the Indians in 1914 in the twilight of his career and picked up by the A’s.
From the book Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball by Harvey Frommer:
[b]With Lajoie gone, a local newspaper staged a contest to select a new nickname for the Cleveland team. The winning suggestion was Indians, to honor Cleveland Spider player Louis Francis Sockalexis, who had died in 1913. "The Chief", a Penobscot from Old Town, Maine, performed for Cleveland from 1897 to 1899 and was one of the first Native Americans to play in the majors.[/b]
News as of Aug. 8th, the NCAA has banned the use of all nicknames involving the use of colors during the months of october, february, and april.
Ban?
Editorial from today’s High Point Enterprise on the subject…
Editorial: NCAA can’t distinguish tribute, ridicule
Fortunately, the NCAA has exercised a little bit of common sense and allowed the University of North Carolina at Pembroke to keep its nickname for athletic teams - Braves.
Unfortunately, news reports say that college, founded in the 1800s to educate Indians, is the only one exempt from a National Collegiate Athletic Association postseason tournament ban on Indian nicknames and mascots determined to be “hostile and abusive.” Among 17 schools listed are Catawba College in Salisbury, Chowan College in Murfreesboro and Florida State University.
Under the NCAA determination, it must be “hostile or abusive” to name a college after an American Indian tribe - such as Catawba and Chowan - and then call their athletic teams Indians (Catawba) and Braves (Chowan).
As for Atlantic Coast Conference member Florida State, most sane individuals among us have long understood that the university’s “Seminoles” nickname is a sincere tribute to that historically significant Indian tribe that populated Florida and that it just wouldn’t make sense to change it. But then, again, it seems that sanity and common sense aren’t much in play here.
FSU officials say they plan to sue the NCAA over this. Osceola, the defiant Seminole leader, would be proud.
:sigh: I really don’t like this ruling.
Aboutthe only mascot name I find degrading is Redskins, and even that is just in historical context.
Feels a lot like PC run amok. $.02
If the NCAA keeps pissing major (BCS) conference schools off over silly stuff like this, then perhaps that much anticipated BCS/non BCS split will gain momentum.
Can’t wait to see what becomes of these idiots ($!) when the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10 and Big East leave and form their own new organization. Maybe taking the Mountain West with them.
Withering on the vine of stupidity.
There is a difference between Redskins and Seminoles, Between Illini and Savages
only an idiot would confuse this issue. I think that if Charlotte ever changes its name, I’d be proud to be a Fight’n Cracker! :lmao:
[SIZE=4]NCAA removes Seminoles from hostile list [/SIZE]
August 23, 2005
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – The NCAA will allow Florida State to use its Seminoles nickname in postseason play, removing the school from a list of colleges with Native American nicknames that were restricted by an NCAA decision earlier this month.
The NCAA said it was recognizing the relationship Florida State has long enjoyed with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which assists the university with its pageantry and celebration of its culture and supports the school’s use of its name.
The staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor,'' the NCAA said Tuesday.The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.’’
Florida State President T.K. Wetherell had threatened to sue the NCAA immediately after its Aug. 5 announcement that the school’s highly visible nickname, Seminoles,'' was defined ashostile and abusive’’ by a committee.
The NCAA said it would handle reviews from other schools on a case-by-case basis. The Illinois Fighting Illini, Utah Utes and North Dakota Fighting Sioux are among other prominent school nicknames that remain affected by the edict.
Under the NCAA restrictions, teams with American Indian nicknames would not be able to use them in postseason tournaments.
I wonder if Gold Diggers find it offensive that we use them as our mascot?
the next step down this road of insanity will have PETA demanding teams that use animals as mascots as being abusive and demanding they change mascots. insanity and peta are synomous though.
Tribe debate sizzles on campus
Dave Fairbank
August 23 2005
In that incubator for radicals and educated malcontents tucked into the colonial capital, otherwise known as the College of William and Mary, there is a buzz of activity - and not just because parking spaces are as valued as a final-grade mulligan.
The school has a new president for the first time in a dozen years, law professor and former college quarterback Gene Nichol. There is construction galore: new dorms and renovations and a parking deck.
On the fun and games side, the school spent $750,000 for a permanent hardwood floor in William and Mary Hall.
They dug up the old track at Zable Stadium, in preparation for laying down a new one next spring. Despite appearances, they swear the old ballyard will be ready in time for the football home opener in 31/2 weeks.
New soccer and lacrosse practice fields near the Dillard dorm complex are almost complete, and the installation of permanent lights at Zable awaits only state approval.
But the most intriguing athletic issue on campus these days has nothing to do with fields and buildings, and everything to do with perception.
William and Mary is in the process of assembling a report to the NCAA about its nickname - Tribe - and why it should not be judged “hostile and abusive” to Native-Americans.
Thirty-two of the 33 NCAA member schools with Native-American nicknames and mascots recently learned if they were acceptable. W&M received an extension because it was between administrations.
Any school that produced four U.S. presidents and that was judged “hottest small state school” by Newsweek needs no outside help to argue its case, but part of its report will go something like this:
“Tribe” is about as innocuous a reference to Native-Americans as it gets. The closest thing to a mascot the school has is a green, fuzzy creature called Colonel Ebirt (“Tribe” spelled backwards), who obviously was named on a day when all the clever kids slept late.
Area Indian tribes have not protested the school nickname as hostile or insensitive. The only visible Native-American references are a couple of green-and-gold feathers on the school logo.
In the rare instances when inclined, William and Mary fans perform maybe the nation’s most pitiful, half-hearted “Tomahawk Chop.”
Naturally, all of this guarantees that the NCAA will deem “Tribe” hostile and abusive. Thus, the school will be denied the chance to host postseason competitions. It must cover or alter offending logos, and athletic director Terry Driscoll will have to pay full retail at the NCAA store in Indianapolis.
William and Mary’s nickname predicament may be blamed on a former student. W&M athletic teams originally were known as the Orange and White, and later the Orange and Black, after the school colors, according to the book, Goal to Goal, a history of W&M football.
In 1916, a student named William Durham Harris, who was editor of both the campus paper, The Flat Hat, and the literary magazine, suggested calling the teams the “Indians,” after the Indian school that was housed in one of the original campus buildings during colonial times.
For decades, W&M had mascots dressed in Native-American costumes and had a cartoon Indian as its logo. The school gradually did away with those images.
Under former athletic director Jim Copeland (1981-85), William and Mary began to shift the nickname from “Indians” to “Tribe.”
“We did it more for marketing than for political correctness,” Copeland said recently from his office at SMU, where he has been athletic director for a decade. “We thought that ‘Tribe’ had a better feel to it, in terms of our teams and team concept.”
Under Copeland’s successor, the late John Randolph, the athletic department completed the shift to “Tribe” in the mid-1980s.
W&M officials will present their report by Nov. 1 and await the NCAA’s verdict - expected early this winter - before responding.
The NCAA allows that schools’ nicknames and mascots are their own business, but believes it has the right, as well as the obligation, to administer postseason competition not only fairly but sensitively.
Problem is, sensitivity can no more be legislated than can compassion or charitable contributions. Absent the truly offensive or legitimately aggrieved, most action appears to be needless meddling.
The thickness of the NCAA rule book is a testament to which way the NCAA leans on that notion.
North Dakota’s appeal was denied by the NCAA for their use of Fighting Sioux. The article says that it was denied because they “did not have the support of the three federally recognized Sioux tribes of North Dakota to use the “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo”. The NCAA’s hypocrisy runs rampant and usually in the same direction of money.
ESPN.com: NCAA: North Dakota can’t use Fighting Sioux
What’s so offensive about these?
I keep waiting to see some Irish group get upset at the “Fighting Irish” icon. Then the NCAA will have a tough time deciding what to do. Do you leave it alone and show your hypocrisy or do you go toe to toe with ND? With that $27 Million ND made last year off football, they may tell the NCAA to take a hike. Everyone forgets the NCAA is a volunteer organizaion. If the school want to leave they can. The Illini, ND, FSU or any other schools could tell the NCAA to kiss it, form their own group and their own TV deal (ND already has one). For all the good the NCAA tries to do it simply gets in the way.
I won’t even start in on the political correctness crap… the thought that FSU was even on the list with their signed agreement with the Seminole Nation is a testment to how crazy this is. Call an all white team abunch of crackers… I don’t care… people need to get over things and move on.
I remember when UAB went through this some years ago when they unveiled a Norseman-looking dude (read:white) as their mascot and folks got upset saying it represented an exclusive, non-diverse group (read: white males) and got it quashed in favor of the current dragon. Up to now, Puff and other dragonites haven’t said a word in protest. I shudder as I say this, but Norm has, so far, been lovable to everyone…so far… :wub:
North Dakota announces that they will henceforth be know as the Fighting Sue.
“call an all white team the crackers…I don’t care…people need to get over things and move on.”
Thats the dumbest S@*t I have read on this board in a long time. Yea…get over it and move on. Tell a race of people who had their entire land and livelihood stripped and stolen to move on. They were SYSTEMATICALLY KILLED. Kinda hard to move on from that.
I got a thought…next time I hear a jewish person talking about the holocaust…you should tell them to get over it and move on.
WB…your a freakin idiot!!!
Don’t get me wrong cass… I do find Redskins offensive, but something like Tribe? Or Seminoles when the Seminoles said it was ok? I mean c’mon NCAA that slightly overstepping your bounds! I was simply saying that I feel like we are the United States of Sensitivity… everyone is offended at something. I am offended at alot of things… but in the end it doesn’t matter… there are bigger issues that we as humanity or a society need to face. I liken alot of this to the confederate flag on the court house in SC. Was it wrong to be there? Yes. Is that the biggest issue that the NAACP needs to be fighting… no. I mean heck most people didn’t even know it was there!
Of all the problems in college athletics the fact that the NCAA spent time and money telling FSU they couldn’t use “Seminoles” blows me away. I get offended at something… I think wow they are stupid and I move on. I have to suffer through diversity crap at work and it just pisses me off.
The NCAA is a joke…there is no doubt about. FSU has an agreement with the tribe and that should be allowed. But I certainly understand the position of the NCAA and I almost commend them on their stance.
The general acceptance a selected sterotypes in this country absolutly sickens me. We admonish some and turn our cheeks to others, and the way native americans are portrayed is very disturbing to me. I over-reacted to your post and I’m sorry…it just really pisses me off how people just don’t care about this and just pass it off as just some liberal bleeding heart bs
Why not have some fun with this?
Let’s have some NC natives file suit objecting over the use of “Tar Heel” by a certain snobbish, erudite liberal arts school…
