OK, ask yourself:
How much are you willing to pay to keep the Chief?
You can bitch all you want, but these are non-negotiable prices.
Are you willing to give up all post-season NCAA athletic events on the UI campus? Including women's basketball, softball, soccer, tennis, baseball, track and field, volleyball, cross country. Giving that up means giving up revenue realized from the events. It also means giving up hotel and motel revenue, restaurant revenue, shopping revenue, service station revenue, vendor revenue, traffic ticket revenue. Even ticket scalping revenue.
Is it worth it?
Are you willing to give up playoff home field advantatage in all those sports to keep the Chief?
Are you willing to give up the victories that advantage might produce?
Are you willing to give up the opportunity to easily attend those postseason competitions?
Are you willing to give up the prestige that hosting an NCAA post-season event brings in order to retain the Chief?
Are you willing to give up post-season men's basketball and football appearances to keep the name Fighting Illini? (This is not a certainty yet, but it's still a question worth asking.)
The organization to which the UI belongs and which governs intercollegiate athletics has ruled that certain mascots depicting Native Americans in negative light are 'hostile and abusive. It has said the Chief and Fighting Illini are among those mascots.
Bitch as much as you like, you don't have a say in who decided what is 'hostile and abusive.' That decision was ceded to the NCAA when the UI paid its dues. (If you drop out of the NCAA, you also drop out of the Big Ten, and essentially drop out of sports. Does the NAIA still exist? Are you sure?)
The UI belongs to the NCAA. The NCAA makes the rules. The UI must follow them. The UI can't on its own decide that a 19-food jump shot should be worth 4 points. A field goal won't be worth 5 points because we might like that. The UI must follow the NCAA rules to be a member of the NCAA. In order to compete in the NCAA.
Simple.
(Oh, sure, you can sue the NCAA. It'll cost, well, how much are you willing to pay? And realistically, what are the odds of winning? Not good.)
How much are you willing to pay to keep the Chief?
And so it goes.
10 comments:
I'm willing to give all that up to avoid genuflecting at the altar of excessive political correctness.
I'm willing to give all that up to avoid allowing policy to be dictate by a handful of ultra-liberal students, faculty members and permanent protesters claiming to represent the interests of a tribe that's been extinct for 300 years.
Oh, and by the way - if those two dozen people would stop pretending to be injured by the Chief, perhaps the UI could be removed from the list of schools that are considered "hostile and abusive?"
How much damage to the UI are you willing to allow a handful of people to inflict in the name of hyper-liberalism and campus activism?
Personally, I don't consider protecting the religious rites, rights and practices of an entire race of people from degredation and desecration an act of political correctness. I'd call it the right thing to do.
And if you can convince yourself that there are only two dozen people opposed to this kind of humiliating action, more power to you. I personally know more than that who like myself will not attend a UI event where the Chief performs.
A handful? If you chose to believe that, more power to you.
I also know that no amount of arguing or debating will ever change some minds. Hint: Liberal is not an expletive.
Old Guy,
I never said liberal was an expletive. But I find it amusing that the same handful of people who protest the Chief are also the same people who protest the War who protest for animal rights, etc., etc., etc.
When upwards of 85% of a community supports something, and there's no evidence that anywhere near a majority of Natives are bothered by it, then it should remain rather than be sacrificed just so some suburban white grad student protestors can add another notch to the PC-police belt.
It's really quite sad, actually, how a few people can claim to be offended and thus dicate policy contrary to the wishes of the vast, vast majority. It is, in fact, offensive.
Most people I know don't like the chief and they don't protest. But, like me, they also don't buy chief paraphenalia or apparel. They also don't contribute money to the university....
I can tell you right now the athletics deparments will not sacrifice for the chief. Losing home field advantages and NCAA competitions is *not* an option....
I hope you're right. I could show you about half a church of people who fnd the Chief offensive; they don't protest either. But according to some dinosaurs, they don't exist because they don't fit into his safely encased little belief system.
it wouldn't affect football.
1) Currently our team isn't going anywhere, unless we can win 6 games. BELIEVE IN RON ZOOK!!!
2) Assuming arguendo that the team wins 6 games, and it makes a bowl game, the bowl games are NOT NCAA-governed events.
That's football.
There is also: tennis, baseball, soccer, softball, diving, swimming, gymnastics, cross-country, golf, wrestling, and volleyball.
Many of these sports hold NCAA tournaments at "host" schools. We would effectively no longer be eligible for host school status.
In addition, some sports don't have a dedicated tournament site (like women's basketball) and therefore there is a home-field advantage for one of the teams. Illinois would lose the ability to have the home-court advantage in post-season NCAA tournament play.
It's time to move on....
By the way, oldguy, I get what you mean about boxing people into certain categories (liberal=dem, for example....).
I'm a Chief supporter, but I know plenty of people who say:
"I don't like the Chief so I don't give money to the university. I don't like the Chief so I don't go to the games."
Let's be honest with ourselves...would those people really be giving the university any money anyways? Do they even care about sports?
All of the people who I know who are anti-Chief, are poor, and don't like sports anyways.
...and it probably isn't right to take what I know of a small group of anti-chief people and apply it to the majority of protestors ...but, everyone else seems to like to make broad sweeping speculations and generalizations of what different groups seem to want, so why can't I?
I probably wouldn't contribute to the UI - I didn't attend - but I would return to Memorial Stadium for football games. (At one time I was a season ticket holder for football, until I grew tired of leaving at halftime so I wouldn't have to watch the minstrel dance). I might even try for basketball season tickets. I will do neither now, because of the dancing clown.
I can name folks who don't now but could/would donate if the Chief went away. Not all anti-Cheefers are poor. The are some well-off, well-educated folks out here, too. Even a few Republicans, believe it or not.
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have a great day!!
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