NCAA and Native American name ban

[DKW 86 7,441]

How is this going to end?

We have all heard and read about FSU fighting the NCAA about the term Seminoles. It is supported by the local tribesmen.

What about other problems tho.

Oklahoma is an NA tribe. So is Alabama, Tennessee (a mythical city), Mississippi, Arkansas, and more.

The NCAA is finally starting to look like totally lost bunch.

All this could be a good thing.

Comments?

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

How is this going to end?

We have all heard and read about FSU fighting the NCAA about the term Seminoles. It is supported by the local tribesmen.

What about other problems tho.

Oklahoma is an NA tribe. So is Alabama, Tennessee (a mythical city), Mississippi, Arkansas, and more.

The NCAA is finally starting to look like totally lost bunch.

All this could be a good thing.

Comments?

173879[/snapback]

The NCAA, puttting it nice, is a sad organization. Always has been and looks like they always will be unless all the schools band together ans say "enough."

[AuNuma1 1]

Oklahoma is an NA tribe. So is Alabama, Tennessee (a mythical city), Mississippi, Arkansas, and more.

173879[/snapback]

I don't understand this statement...how are those states native american tribes? The states or the teams or what? :huh:

[keoson7 28]

Who is the braintrust that signs these goobers paychecks? They need to move on to administrative positions at PETA or some other wacko org.

[DKW 86 7,441]

The states are named after tribes. Seminoles are a tribe, so are the Alabamas, and the Oklahomas. If they ban Seminoles, could, should, would they also ban Alabama and Oklahoma too?

Just food for thought. The ban is for mascots, but actually could be applied to University names as well.

[MrMoJo 0]

I think the NCAA ought to ban it's own name. It contains the letters AA togather

which people might think is some sort of slight to the Alcoholics Anonymous membership. I think the millions of people who belong or have belonged to AA should rise up and voice there displeasure of these pompous asses.

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

Oklahoma is a Choctaw word that basically means red people. I don't believe there was actually a tribe named Oklahoma.

[AUloggerhead 2,253]

Interesting Link

Ya learn something new every day:

Tuscaloosa, Alabama; From the Choctaw leader Tuskaloosa (Black Warrior)

It just figures them bammies would misspell a great Native American's name!

[BamaGrad03 0]

I think, ultimately, what the NCAA is doing is only going to be bad for football. Their meddling in all these insignificant things:media guide limitations, the uga/boise st thing, the Native American name ban...will only prove cause division and uncertainty in college football itself.

They are going to have schools that are up their ass on one side of the fence (see Tennesee, OSU, etc) and the other side will see schools who dont like all these rulings and where the NCAA is headed.

In the end, it really hurts teams like guys in the MWC, WAC, MAC, etc...they cant afford to go it alone like an FSU, Auburn, Alabama could. Its gotta be all or nothing. Either every D1 program decides to go against the NCAA...or none of them do. Or it will make for a much worse landscape than we have now.

[Points 2]

What about the Utah Utes..............will they have to change the name of the university?

[SouthLink02 8]

Everyday the NCAA is being laughed at even more.

I wish I could hear what is going behind the doors at their office.

Do they know how much of a joke they are right now?

[WaDE'05 8]

Here's my issue with it all. I just don't see how Florida St. or Utah's nicknames could be all that deragatory. Both ar the names of tribe sthat inhabited the area's where the schools are located. Many of the students are probably descendants in some way or another of these tribes. I know I am descneded from Creeks that lived right off the Tallapoosa river which is not 20 miles from Auburn. I can understand why native americans find the cleveland Indians Logo and mascot offensive, as well as when the braves used to use Chief Knockahoma as their mascot, even the washington redskins, but Utah and FSU, I believe, have very tasteful and historically significant nicknames, just like UT and OK. Are the descendant's of the Sooners and Vols offended by these names? Don't get me wrong, here, though, I know my history. and I know native americans have probably been the most oppressed people in the history of the US. I just see these names as more of a tribute than a derogatory slam. but that's just my .02. What do I know I know about racism, I'm a middle class suburbanite wasp.

[Tigermike 3,053]

What about the Utah Utes..............will they have to change the name of the university?

174046[/snapback]

Yeah their state as well.

[rebdawg 5]

I think the Seminole tribe (not the school) should request that the Justice Department file charges against the NCAA for discrimination and committing a hate crime. You can be a cardinal, a Fighting Irish, a bulldog, a TIGER, a green wave, even a cock, but you cannot be a native American.

[CarolinaTiger 0]

i think the NCAA will eventually allow FSU to use their mascot. i read a statement by an NCAA official that was already opening the door for them to have an exception made. look for them, and perhaps the utes to get a free pass, and everybody else to have to succumb to their idiocy.

BS, i think this is actually a good thing for all those that hate the NCAA...only hastening their eventual demise. i think a group of schools will break away and form their own league...perhaps Alabama and FSU (if they don't get their way here) will lead the way, who knows.

ct

[Tigermike 3,053]

PETA wants NCAA "Gamecocks" ban

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

PETA recently contacted the presidents of the University of South Carolina and Jacksonville State University and suggested that the schools consider changing the names of their sports teams, both of which are called the Gamecocks. We pointed out that the Washington Wizards team changed its name from the Bullets after deciding that it didn’t want to be associated with violence, so it can be done.

The Gamecocks are named after birds used in cockfighting. These birds are pumped full of stimulants, hormones, and blood-clotting drugs. They have sharp blades attached to their legs to make the fights more exciting, i.e., bloodier. The birds routinely suffer hideous injuries, such as broken legs and wings, punctured lungs, and split eyes and are left to die outside the ring. Cockfighting is illegal in all but three states, and is a felony in South Carolina.

link

The NCAA shows why it's way out of control

Commentary By RAY MELICK

BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

Just when you thought this NCAA mascot flap couldn't get any sillier, those animal-rights loving folks from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) jumped right through the door opened by the NCAA's Executive Committee and asked them to extend the ban on nicknames considered "hostile and abusive" to include animals.

The first salvo fired was at the nickname "Gamecocks," used by both Jacksonville State University and the University of South Carolina. PETA has written a letter to NCAA executive director Myles Brand asking that the NCAA pressure those schools to change that nickname, or else face the same ban on hosting and possibly participating in post-season play that the NCAA says it will apply to schools using names that refer to Native Americans.

In essence, PETA is asking the NCAA to reduce this theoretical humiliation of Native Americans to the level of chickens. Or perhaps, in PETA's feather-lined way of thinking, it's elevating the plight of Native Americans to that of these poor (but apparently not entirely defenseless) birds.

Logically, PETA's request makes sense. As Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla) said, "If the NCAA has to protect offended Native Americans ... by God, PETA ought to advocate for the protection of every living organism in the animal kingdom."

Either way, somebody will be offended, which we can't have because the ''freedom from being offended" is apparently buried somewhere in an overlooked part of the Bill of Rights.

Who is offended and who is not and what a reasonable response to those people might be is not what I want to take issue with here, however. What this whole issue once again screams about is the bloated bureaucracy that the NCAA has become.

In a commentary both on the NCAA website and in USA Today, the NCAA's Brand plays Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of any guilt associated with this controversy. He writes, " ... neither I nor any member of the NCAA staff had a vote. The decision was made by a dozen chancellors and presidents from all three membership divisions appointed to represent their institutions, their conferences and the values of higher education ... "

In other words, Brand says he supports the decision, but he wants to make it clear he had nothing to do with it. That's typical NCAA, handing down unreasonable decisions then passing the buck on to the often nameless and faceless "chancellors and presidents" of its member institutions.

For the record, the Executive Committee is supposed to be made up of 16 university presidents and chancellors of various institutions from all three divisions, plus Brand and the chairmen of the three divisional management councils.

What these university presidents and chancellors did was order all other university presidents and chancellors to abide by a poorly-defined restriction or face being locked out of NCAA tournaments. And if those affected members of the NCAA don't like it, the chairman of the NCAA executive committee, University of Hartford president Walter Harrison, was quoted as saying "everyone has recourse through the courts."

In other words, the Executive Committee of the NCAA is actually saying, "If you don't like it, sue us. We're ready."

If the NCAA is really determined to see this one through, what the Executive Committee is really saying is, "the only good Indian mascot is a dead Indian mascot."

That is far more offensive than generations of non-Indians signing up to proudly and bravely compete for Seminoles and Illini and Utes.

Ray Melick's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Saturday in the Birmingham Post-Herald.

http://www.postherald.com/sp081305.shtml