The Sioux in The Frozen Four--Time for a Nickname Change?

The Final Four is done. Everyone knows what it is and there’s more money bet on it both legally and illegally than any other sporting event in the nation. Now it’s time for the fun tourney—the Frozen Four, which is the NCAA Hockey championships.

See, I went to a small college which plays big time hockey—the University of North Dakota. They’ve been national champs 8 times and are the favorite again this year as the highest seeded team to advance through the Regionals.

What I’ve always liked is that UND is a small school with 14,000 students. When I graduated in 1973 there were only about 8,000. And yet it goes up against the “big boys” playing in the same conference as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio State.

Now, this year’s Frozen Four is being held in Minneapolis about 300 miles Southeast of Grand Forks, North Dakota where UND is located. The other teams in the Frozen Four are Michigan, Notre Dame and Minnesota-Duluth. And I really, really hope the Fighting Sioux from UND kick some serious butt and win a national championship.

Hockey is a tradition at UND. When I was an undergraduate in the early 70’s we played in a huge old Quonset building that was unheated. If it was 30 below zero outside, it would be about 20 below inside. And the colder it was, the more the building rocked. Talk about a home rink advantage.

But, do you know what I also hope? I hope that they take the championship home and then finally retire the name Fighting Sioux. I know that won’t sit too well with a bunch of people in North Dakota and who graduated from there but it’s time. The NCAA has been after UND to do that for a number of years and the school is the only university in the nation which has not complied with an NCAA request and directive to eliminate nicknames which are considered to be racially derogatory. It’s time.

This controversy has been going on at UND for 40 years (I remember it rearing its head in the early 70’s during the height of Native American activism to the extent that UND went for a couple of years with the seal of the University as the logo on its hockey jerseys rather than the Indian head that had been the image for years and years).

A few years back, a major benefactor of UND donated $100 million to build a new hockey arena festooning it with thousands of Fighting Sioux logos which would cost millions to remove. This was done intentionally to keep the name and image of the university the same. There was even a major story/expose of this in Sports Illustrated and other articles in newspapers across the nation and on major TV news networks.

There has even been legislation passed this year in North Dakota and duly signed by the Governor defying the NCAA and requiring that the name “Fighting Sioux” be retained. A rationale has been presented claiming that the worst that could happen would be that UND couldn’t host any NCAA play-off games or wear their “Fighting Sioux” jerseys on TV. Come on, that’s not the point.

But it’s time. Time to move on. I recall moving to a small city in Iowa in 1992 that has a small Methodist affiliated college, Simpson College. I got to know the President of the school quite well and he told me the story of how the college had changed from a nickname of “Redmen” to “Storm” shortly after he became the President. He said that it was pushed through at the request of the NCAA and also because it just wasn’t consistent with the school’s Methodist heritage. And he also said that within 4 or 5 years by the time a new crop of freshmen had gone through the school that the new name would be part of the ongoing culture of the campus. And, interestingly, this was accomplished and alumni donations neither dried up nor went down.

I’ve always been proud to have attended college at the University of North Dakota. I’ve always been proud of the “Fighting Sioux” name and logo. But now, I’m actually getting a bit ashamed of it because of the never-ending controversy. I still have a “Fighting Sioux” license plate bracket on my car but will change it to a generic UND bracket. Here’s my bottom line:

I graduated from UND in 1973—38 years ago. I have never told anyone that I am a graduate of the University of Fighting Sioux. I’m a graduate of the University of North Dakota. It’s time to do the “right thing”.

Until then, here’s hoping UND goes on the ice tonight and kicks some serious University of Michigan ass.

Forty Years Ago--5/4/1970--Four Dead in Ohio

(If you don't want to read a reminisence of that day, scroll down and play Crosby, Stills and Nash's anthem and requiem to Kent State "Four Dead in Ohio")

May 4, 1970. A spring day for a Freshman in college at the University of North Dakota. I was 18 and enjoying being in college. Then...the reports started to come in.

A demonstration at a small college in Ohio protesting Nixon's sending troops into Cambodia. No one had ever heard of Kent State before. The National Guard had been called out. We were kind of used to that kind of report from the media by then. There had been lots of riots. President Nixon was constantly invoking the phrase "outside agitators". Maybe there were. Nobody really knew.

We heard about shots being fired. About students being killed. Students? Wow! I was a student. These were kids just like me.

The most famous image of May 4, 1970 from Kent State University

I went home that night. I didn't live on campus my Freshman year. I lived at home at the local Air Force Base. I watched the news and was appalled at the black and white images of students running from tear gas and of bodies left behind.

When my father, an Air Force Master Sergeant, got home that night we got in a discussion about it which turned into an argument which turned into me getting punched and held against the wall with his hand on my throat and his fist cocked. I remember my father's rage. And I remember that the only point I was trying to make was that these were students just like me.

Well, not quite. This is where it gets a bit interesting. The next morning I left for school--with a black eye. It was Tuesday. I had AFROTC class. I was trying to get a scholarship. Not because I wanted to go to 'Nam. But because I wanted to serve and to fly.

Classes were cancelled. A crowd was gathering near the ROTC Armory. I went inside with some of my friends from ROTC. We decided that if the crowd were to storm the building then we would fight. We were ready. We weren't going to let things happen here that had happened on other campuses. A friend and I noticed something right across the street from the Armory on the flag pole just outside the Administration Building.

Someone had raised the Viet Cong flag and it was flying above the American flag. We went running out and lowered the flags. Then we quickly decided that the best thing was to put the American flag on top with the Viet Cong flag beneath it. No way was the American flag going to fly lower and we didn't want to inflame tempers by doing what our first instinct told us--which was to throw the Viet Cong flag in the trash.

Col. Woodard and UND President Tom Clifford on the steps of the ROTC Armory on May 5, 1970

Anyway, the ROTC Armory was the center of a protest that morning. My friend and I were threatened by a University Administrator with arrest if any violence occured because of what we had done with the flag. And ultimately the Armory was "bombed". Except in true pacifist style, it was bombed with paper airplanes and marshmallows. That was anti-war protest at the University of North Dakota.

I never truly understood what had so incensed my father. Maybe he was worried that I would find myself in the middle of something that I couldn't get out of. Maybe he too was confused.

I do remember that all the planes on the flightline of the base were moved away from their usual place near the highway to the other end of the runway--just in case. Dad and I used to joke though at how easily someone who had just a bit of local knowledge could get on the flightline. We even joked about doing it and putting tags on a plane that said "Boom!".

And, as the week of protests and the "spring of our discontent" rolled along we all changed. I think my relationship with my father changed even though we went back to throwing the ball in the yard and going out fishing together. But I don't think I trusted him as much. And it was the last time he ever hit me.

My American Legion baseball coach called me one night. He was the head of the base's Office of Special Investigations. He knew I was a student and was active on campus. He asked me to keep an eye out for military personnel participating in demonstrations or unrest and to let him know. I didn't want to "narc" but agreed to do that even though I really didn't. I think what he really meant was to let him know especially if there were any "black" airmen conspicuously hanging out with demonstrators.

And within a week the campus was back to normal. I was playing JV baseball that year and just trying to have fun.

But, I'll never forget that day. Four dead in Ohio. Every young man and woman in college remembers that day I think. It changed how we view the world. Four dead in Ohio. And it changed our world, too.

Finally--here's a note my wife wrote about this post that explains why my father hit me that day. Her words are far wiser and better than any I could come up with:

"...your dad was afraid because men like your dad and mine never feared anything but what they couldn't control with bravery and/or intimidation and anger. And the only way they could deal with fear was with anger and action, as had been, literally, drilled into them. What was he supposed to do to protect you or his version of the world?"

Thanks Carolyn.