NCAA Denies Second UI Appeal on Chief Illiniwek

I believe we have all watched the last dance of the Chief.

Until the next 'offensive' item the PC police are embracing illegal immigrant rights, impeachment, support of Hamas, etc.

I think the Chief should hand out diplomas at UI Graduation and be the Commencement speaker.

Gordy, I took the kids to a football game last fall, and was telling them to pay attention because it might be the end.

To stick it to the PC crowd, I would love to see a French fur trader with a big ole musket installed as mascot. "Jacque" could duke it out with the Buckeye and Boilermaker and the Hawkeye.

If we just had a tribe to pay off like FSU.

RSW - Great idea for the fur trader mascot... the DIA could sell team bandana's that are made of fur, and call them "Jacque Straps". :)

[...] -Discussion thread at IlliniPundit. [...]

Let's not forget that all the NCAA's decision really does is restrict UIUC from 1) displaying Chief Illiniwek on uniforms during NCAA tournament/play-off events; 2) displaying Chief Illiniwek in any form at such events; and 3) prevents UIUC from hosting NCAA post-season events. This last provision is the most problematic, since it will keep sports like gymnastics, wrestling, and tennis from participating in post-season events at home.

That having been said, most of these sanctions are manageable. None of our sports teams currently display Chief Illiniwek on uniforms, and he does not dance at post-season events. Unless there is something I do not know, I do not see any real reason why they would amount to a legitimate cause for retiring Chief Illiniwek. This may provide some cover to the Board should they choose to retire him, but from my perspective, I do not see how this decision would force Chief Illiniwek's retirement.

"This may provide some cover to the Board should they choose to retire him"

And that would be my guess as to the result, partly for the reason that Josh puts forth - is this symbol really worth all this fight and money.

"And that would be my guess as to the result, partly for the reason that Josh puts forth - is this symbol really worth all this fight and money."

Its definitely a possible result. However, I don't think the Board will act on it due to this denial of final appeal. Like him or not, Chief Illiniwek is important to the University, and to various constituencies the Board represents. The benefits to the University - ranging from alumni donations to merchandising rights to the goodwill of the Governor - may very well outweigh the cost to the University. These sanctions, quite frankly, still do not outweigh the benefits of retaining him - even combined with the other costs.

And now... The News-Gazette story.

It has a lot more than the AP story with some back and forth from the NCAA and the Board of Trustees. A lot more interesting read.

I'm tempted to get into a discussion of costs and benefits w/ my good friend Matt Diller (we are good friends even though we insist on calling each other Satan and Lucifer), but most of these arguments are too tired to bother tossing around on a blog where most of the readers have heard both sides. Still, it's worth noting that most of the people who shout the loudest about the importance of retaining the mascot are townies who've never given the university a dime, absent the occasional athletic ticket, or more likely still, parking ticket.

The costs are hard to calculate. It creates considerable division on campus already struggling to hold together a close knit campus culture. It does trigger racial hostility, though not in excess, but I think when your latino and african american students hear white students shouting about how if native americans dont like it they should go somewhere else, it makes everyone feel a little less welcome. Perhaps this furthers self segregation (for more on that I'd recommend a look at some of DI Columnist Billy Joe Mills' columns). Aside from the obviously expensive lawsuits, and the unnecessary studies that always tell us the same thing (still we feel compelled to keep investigating the issue to look proactive), consider the enourmous amount of administrative time spend dealing with this issue over the years. Many of those who have to spend time dealing with this contraversy are those we're paying well over 100,000 a year to run a university.

I think the only benefit Diller really raises is alumni donations that might be lost if we retire the chief. First, these overwhelmingly would be losses sustained by athletics, and while that isn't ideal, with the success of our sports teams recently, I doubt the drop would be substantial, and even if it was it would not be sustained. History has shown that at every other school that has retired a native mascot, within a year or two a funny thing happens: donations reach new highs, people remember why they were donating in the first place.

People dont give to Illinois because of the chief. They usually give because they have fond memories of their time here, or because the world class faculty we boast gave them a the kind of education that led them to thrive professionally. When I graduate, I absolutely intend to give back, but it's not because of a mascot. The U of I is a really special place, and it will continue to be a world leader, and our sports teams will continue to improve whether or not we retire the chief.

I think some clever people have figured out a way to keep some merchandising dollars rolling in even if we were to retire the mascot officially, whether or not we should use those methods is another debate. If our teams continue to thrive, we'll still make a killing on merchandising, it's not like our ability to sell t-shirts and hats goes away if the chief does, maybe you haven't notice but the mascot appears on fewer and fewer items every year. People like me wont buy items with the Chief on it out of respect for our native american friends, that doesn't mean we love the school any less.

The goodwill of the governor? Yeah, he's showing us so much good will. The BOT is independent, it's a myth that he'll take tons of heat if the Board retires the chief. Anyone who'd really give him all kinds of hell was almost certainly not voting for Blagojevich anyway.

Lucifer, take another shot ;-)

Now that the chief is decided, what will the libs attack next? Blogs with the name Illini? Religous groups on campus? Does it ever end?

For the benefit of readers who may be confused why Mr. Rohrscheib and myself are referring to each other by names usually reserved for the personification of ultimate evil, it stems from the last campaign for student trustee. Mr. Rohrscheib and I represent diametrically opposed viewpoints on a number of issues (although I often find that we agree more than we disagree). I'm conservative, he's liberal; I'm pro-Chief, he's anti-Chief. Thus, we represent the opposite of each other, or a metaphorical "devil" to the other's "goodness," so to speak. It's all in good fun, in any event.

Mr. Rohrscheib does make a number of good points regarding the costs to the University and the benefits derived from Chief Illiniwek. However, I think he is overestimating the costs and underestimating the benefits. It is true that the experience at other schools has shown only a brief (two-to-three years) drop in alumni donations. However, that drop is usual substantially significant, and at a time when the University is experiencing other budget crunches, it is perhaps not wise for the University to take any action that would reduce our overall income. Additionally, although most donors donate to the University due to their good feelings about their education and the experiences here, Mr. Rohrscheib is naive if he thinks that Chief Illiniwek is not a substantial consideration in the thoughts of some donors. Merchandising dollars may come in to the University for apparel and souvenirs that do not feature Chief Illiniwek, but the fact remains that there is a market for such apparel and souvenirs, and retiring the Chief would eliminate that supply and thus that revenue source for the University.

As far as the costs, my personal belief is that vast majority of racial tension on campus stems from other sources besides Chief Illiniwek, and that it is more likely a reflection of overall racial tension in society or a consequence of throwing diverse groups of people together in the same environment for the first time their lives. As Mr. Mills noted in his column last week, one of the benefits of such an education is the exposure to other races, cultures, and beliefs. However, tension between those diverse groups is an almost inevitable byproduct of such exposure - the task and overall goal should be to minimize it while eventually helping people to accept others, thus reducing such tensions in society writ large. I am unsure that eliminating Chief Illiniwek would help alleviate this problem in any way.

As far as goodwill of the governor goes, I myself have been less than enthralled with his support for the University. However, since the governor ultimately appoints the members of the Board, it is likely that some of the heat of such a retirement decision would eventually extend to him. Certainly retirement would hand the GOP a killer issue on a silver platter, one that would be especially be effective in central and southern Illinois.

Your move, Satan.

Diller, you are greatly overestimating the political fallout of retirement. No one outside a 75 mile radius of Champaign gives a care about Chief Illiniwek, and I'm sorry, but people in Mahomet and Homer don't decide statewide elections. The Illinois sports program does not have the statewide devotion of similar schools in other states. This is why most of the state's top athletes go elsewhere, and why you can't even get Illini football on the radio where I come from.

Au revoire,

No radio? Too bad, you won't be able to listen in when the Fighting Cornies get whipped by the Eastern Illinois Panthers. Tickets will be available up to game time.

Lots and lots of tickets.

The university has done basically nothing to actually address the chief issue, hence NCAA action. However, as diller pointed out, this sanction only affects post season play and hosting events. The ban is only prevalent to chief illiniwek, not the name Illini or fighting Illini. A pretty reasonable sanction in my mind. The university should continue to play their "no action" card and live with this ruling, because it really doesn't affect anything to this point. I would let it ride as is and move on.

i can see that the chief is very important to a good chunk of people, but i can't imagine it being a major issue in state politics.
it has long been a historical inevitability that the chief would go-- even the board of trustees has come close to doing so.

despite efforts to politicize the issue, the state legislature has no control over the NCAA

Don't get it 11:15 am - There is a tribe associated with the name - who told the university to shove it.

vvl, et al: As Debbie pointed out, the Chief isn't gone yet, so there's still plenty for the activists you so despise to do. Fancy that - attracting attention to bad things in hopes of making them better. Who'd ever thought that'd work?

Anon 12:39pm - If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The Chief's a mascot, and the fact that you want to play word games about it says something.

My own thoughts: the "consensus procedure" that the BoT has been persuing is merely a means to continue the status quo for as long as possible. Once the Chief is retired, he can never be brought back, and so the BoT has a vested interest in delaying that decision for as long as possible. This is why the BoT is so threatened by the NCAA's actions: now, instead of some uppity students, an outside authority is calling the Chief (and the Board that refuses to retire him) wrong. The NCAA's actions highlight the university's "hostile and abusive" mascot like never before, casting the university in a poorer light.

This, combined with the negative consequences to the athletics teams that don't make money put the BoT in a harder bind. Either they "do the right thing," retire the Chief, and support the real student athletes who aren't just profit-makers for the university, or they keep the Chief, screw over the sports teams that don't rake in the dough, and cultivate local support at the expense of our national and international academic reputation.

YoungRighty - The Chief wasn't "designed." As the organic tradition whose death your ilk complain so loudly about, it grew up over time, in an era when things were acceptable that aren't so now.

Yes, Sparty's representation on the field is a fuzball, but you've obviously not been to the MSU campus and seen the statues and the like that are a helluvalot more serious than the foam suit that walks around the basketball court. Even with that more serious side, they have no problems calling Sparty a mascot. That you refuse to call the Chief a mascot speaks volumes about the appropriateness of having a Native American mascot.

A person, animal, or object believed to bring good luck, especially one kept as the symbol of an organization such as a sports team.

Who believes the Chief is bringing good luck to Illinois?

Even according to this definition, the Chief is surely a symbol. The only question is whether he's a mascot, and this definition suggests he's not.

In any case, it's time to start thinking about new mascots/symbols for Illinois. Schools rarely have this opportunity, and usually when they have it they use a color. How stupid is that? I vote for Colonel Kernel. He's a big, wacky ear of corn. The kids love him, and anybody can make a balloon animal out of him.

"The efforts to get the government involved in this dispute just give the lie, once again, to the whole conservative joke about small, non-intrustive government. (Terri Schiavo, anyone?)"

Not to get off subject, but if one of the key purposes of government is not to protect those who cannot speak for themselves, like Terri Schiavo, then what is the point.

First of all, the Chief is a mascot. I joyfully violated that style "rule" with frequency at the DI. Calling the Chief a symbol is merely a semantic ploy.

It'll be good for this sad debate to finally be put to rest. Both sides in this dispute have shown themselves to be sadly inept at debate and logic.

Here's hoping the status quo defenders lose this one, and then the PC police are finally sent packing to their next barely substantive stand. Perhaps a Sesame Street character is mildly offensive.

if one of the key purposes of government is not to protect those who cannot speak for themselves, like Terri Schiavo, then what is the point.

Unless you're talking about marginalized minority groups like Native Americans, or gays. In that case they can apparently fend for themselves?

btw - YAY! The Chief is dead. Long live the Chief!

Michael Marsh at WCIA isn't doing the pro-chief folks any favors by mispronouncing Illiniwek. It's Illini-wick, not Illini-whack!

Oops. Thanks for correcting me. Nonetheless, the new guy is mispronouncing it!

Big E: The Confederated Peoria Tribe are the descendants of the Illiniwek Confederacy. Perhaps you should find some facts before you run your mouth off.

Ammonium: Archpundit has for years suggested the "Railsplitters" as a replacement name/mascot/whatever, since it was once Abraham Lincoln's nickname. I know I've seen some Abe logos floating around that look rather like the current Chief logo. Heck, maybe it'll even encourage the state to fund renovations of Lincoln Hall...

run4cvrlib: past experience at other schools is that within a year or two, donations go up.

Oh, and Debbie, Big E just called you (at least, I assume he was referring to you) a "professional victim" over in the comments at my blog. Just thought you'd like to know.

Terri Schiavo was not about government protecting the weak. It was about the Christian theocrats who run this government swooping down to override a family's private medical decisions. If only Bush had shown as much interest in that August 6, 2001 briefing which said "Al Qaeda Determined to Strike in the US" using airplanes. He cut short his Texas vacation to meddle with Schiavo but kept on "clearing brush" when he was warned that an attack was coming.

"Terri Schiavo was not about government protecting the weak. It was about the Christian theocrats who run this government swooping down to override a family's private medical decisions"

The family's decision - yeah, of course the guy had her medical settlement money to spend and a new girlfriend that he couldn't marry as long as Terri was alive. I don't find any fault in any legislators that wanted to make sure the case for her life was given one more hearing before she was starved to death.

I think we should adopt Fat Albert as our new mascot.

Hey Hey Hey

a 10 year old? Maybe people who think like ten year olds.

The law in every state is the husband and wife control those decisions, not the parents and not the government.

This is Biblical. Husbands and wives. Not officious intermeddlers. Not parents. Not Rome (whether 35 AD or 2006 AD) and not the government

To not be FOR the husband is to be against him.
To not be FOR the husband is against the Word of God.

Perspective Police: for her husband to have killed her, Terri would've had to been alive in the first place, and nearly all signs pointed to her having been neurologically dead for years.

Terri was only "dead" in the brain sense. What stopped her heart from beating was not her "vegetative state" but the fact that her heartless husband stopped feeding her. All those who tout the vow arguement better believe in NATURAL death until us part. Instead of Michael's interpretation: "Until you no longer satisfy me and I'm ready to marry again and collect your life insurance money."

The UIUC Chancellor's new vision seems focused on making this campus an academic giant. How many other academic universities have even remotely competitive sports teams? UIUC needs to sacrifice the entertainment and hit the books if it doesn't want to getting more mediocre.

Why should UIUC damage its desired academic reputation giving sports scholarships and tutors to athletes who can't handle the academics?

If we want to attract world wide attention, respect, and perhaps some tourists, we should try to dominate soccer. If we want worldwide recognition and respect, a mascot based on Lincoln would be much more effective.

How bad does UIUC want to be worldclass? UIUC hopes to attract lots of new dollars to our community via the internet from around the world...a huge incentive with state budget cuts.

UIUC's priorities are clear and The Chief doesn't cut it as the mascot of a worldclass academic institution.

Except for engineering, Michigan is ranked as superior to Illinois is every way, not just football (and usually basketball).

Texas is an outstanding academic school, and national champs.

"Academic" schools can and do succeed beyond Illinois.

New flash: Illinois is excellent in engineering, but only "good" to "very good" in most others. In other words, Illinois is very average in academics, and very below average in athletics.

But it has a nice quad, and "Unofficial".

"I also think having a “true” native american doing the actual dance would have been more appropriate then having a college kid do it. I know the student is supposedly trained by a “true” Native American, but it's not quite the same."

Anyone who has ever been to a pow-wow or Native American dance competition knows that there is nothing remotely "authentic" about the dance. First of all, Chiefs do not dance warriors do, secondly there is no dance anywhere among the North American tribes in which the dancers jump in the air and touch their toes or run around with their arms folded across their chest like a Russian folk dancer.

For anyone who is truly interested in seeing what real Native costumes/dances look like here is a link to a pow-wow website - http://www.powwows.com The Save the Chief Society is not interested in the Chief being authentic.

[...] Blogosphere: -The IlliniPundit discussion thread got pretty heated -Old Guy is celebrating to the tune of “The Wizard of Oz” -Thanks to the power of YouTube, Chris Perardi is now against the Chief and in favor of FarmBot -Bill Dennis chimes in and also notes the NCAA blog post on the denials of the mascot appeals -Don thanks the NCAA for pushing the University in the correct direction -The Squire has one, two, three posts -Ken Schreiner speaks his two cents in essay format -The Exploding Aardvark says “oh boo hoo” -Mark Tupper and “The Sports Desk” from the Daily Herald weigh in -Tribune blogger Dave Wischnowsky is disappointed [...]

Ah, it is time to finally say goodbye to the Chief. I grew up with the Chief, but when I became a man I put away childish things. The whole Chief controversy is an embarrassment to a great university that would be great without the chief and without sports at all.

So, this is where we go from here: get rid of Chief Illiniwek, then get rid of sports. Won't Ron Guenther be surprised!

Ah, it is time to finally say goodbye to the Chief. I grew up with the Chief, but when I became a man I put away childish things. The whole Chief controversy is an embarrassment to a great university that would be great without the chief and without sports at all.

So, this is where we go from here: get rid of Chief Illiniwek, then get rid of sports. Won't Ron Guenther be surprised!

You completely took this quote out of context. All they said was that the University would be great without the chief or sports at all, not that it would be better. The next paragraph says that the sports will be better in ten years and then says, "Go Illinois!"

Could you have flipped around the intent of the post any more backward?

This is supported by what RSWB said:
Stanford also has occassionally had pretty good hoops teams, and I think is quite competitive in a lot of “minor” sports.

Stanford did not receive any long-term funding blow when they switched away from their Indian mascot. In fact, donations and other indicators rose sharply once its teams returned to national prominence.

New flash: Illinois is excellent in engineering, but only “good” to “very good” in most others. In other words, Illinois is very average in academics, and very below average in athletics.

I don't understand this statement. Average and below average compared to who? It's certainly far above average in both compared to all of the 4 year institutions in the country.

"Stanford, Michigan, Duke, Berkeley, UCLA, UNC have good sports programs and offer a quality education."

Somehow you don't find the TOP academic universities (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) in that list.

If the goal is to be the number one academic public university in the US with worldwide recognition, we need a strong medical research school and should drop the losing football program and start dominating soccer. Planning to phase out Division I athletics would make a bold statement about our committment to academics, greatly improving our academic reputation.

Being number one academically will be incredibly difficult, especially on tight budgets without a laser focus on academic quality. The distraction of trying to seriously compete in sports and entertainment will only prevent us from reaching our goal.

Either we're serious about the vision or not because it is not realistic to expect to be number one and still expect top sports. What do you think is best for the future of this town and the taxpayers of Illinois: the number one public academic reputation or just pretty good in a bunch of stuff? Are you willing to make the sacrifices needed to be the number one academic public university?

Vincent, Eppley's saying that suing isn't in the university's best interest.

Eppley is a whining moron to claim that the NCAA is "dictating social policy" and invading the trustees' "autonomy." No one is forcing the university to field sports teams. If they don't like the NCAA's rules, don't play in the NCAA.

Klitzing has one vote on the board. It's silly to imagine that a student trustee's opinion is going to hold any sway over the adults on the board, who, over the next few days, are going to realize that the Chief is at the end of his rope.

I suppose a good alternative would be to "rent" CHIEF OSCEOLA from FLORIDA STATE.....seems noone has a problem with this guy.

Which is why the University should do what I suggested on another thread: Pass a large, sweeping tuition increase. Then offer a raft of scholarships to the people who can't afford it.

The suburbanites will still come down here and whine for four years before they shuffle back north of I-80. Their pockets will just be a little lighter.

People are willing to pay more for a top quality academic reputation and if we lose a few students on the lower end of ACT/SAT and GPA, would that really be a loss?

Offering internet classes opens up the entire world to support the university, instead of the state, but the state benefits from having a powerhouse research institution.

So does this mean that even if the decision is upheld, the Chief can continue to perform, at most Illini games (at least the home games)?

It would be a sad, sad, sad day (for the entire state) if we lose the Chief.