This is the best commentary I have seen on the possible Sioux name retirement:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/157912/publisher_ID/40/
By Don Speare
GRAND FORKS — I hope the fight to let UND retain its Fighting Sioux name is not over, but if the name cannot be saved, then it should not be replaced with any nickname.
We will never be more than Fighting Sioux, and if we truly respect the name, we should “retire” it conspicuously, leaving only “North Dakota” for our team name.
Thousands of Fighting Sioux families have stories like ours: I was incredibly fortunate to experience the thrill of Sioux competition as a scholarship athlete, an assistant coach and a UND team announcer. My wife (UND ’83) and I are proud parents of two UND Sioux students, one with two degrees and another just beginning his UND Sioux journey.
We’ve been Fighting Sioux Club members and supportive alumni because we are indebted and obligated — privileged — as so many UND alumni understand.
We say “Thank you” to generations of the Sioux Nation for lending their name to UND. The Fighting Sioux name symbolized a spirit of loyalty, in honor of and in brotherhood with the great Sioux warriors and proud Sioux people — a way for that spirit to be expressed though our performance, attitude and demeanor.
Being Fighting Sioux was woven into the educational and normal maturing process that college brings, but it added something more. Warriors who fight back to back and owe each other their lives forge a lifelong bond, even though each individual may be different from the other in nearly every substantive way — the Sioux experience can have that impact.
UND athletes understood that the Sioux name was lent to us, not owned by us; that we were privileged to be called Fighting Sioux, and not gracing the Sioux namesake for our own self-aggrandizement.
Being a UND Fighting Sioux endowed legions of letter winners with a special spirit that changes those of us charged with living up to the honor. Fighting Sioux fans feel it, and our competition dreads and envies it.
And that’s true not only in sports. UND Aerospace flying teams, the Marching and Pep Bands and many UND groups exude the Sioux spirit that permeates UND. Students and alumni are praised for their respectful and classy behavior when compared with students from many other universities.
“Fighting Sioux” never was a nickname, and the logo is not a mascot. Submissively allowing the NCAA and Sioux name opponents to trivialize and prejudge the UND/Sioux relationship let manipulative “PC” language gain traction — a huge error.
Our athletes and graduates have been proud, fierce and respectful. There is not a more positive beacon for the Indian image than the class act of UND athletics projecting our Sioux namesake. The “Sioux!” cry rings proudly out across fields and arenas all over this nation, and through broadcasts via satellite and Internet, across the planet.
Our soldiers, sailors and aerospace alumni take the Sioux logo into battle and on missions into space, comforted by the spirit it fires within us.
If we must retire the Fighting Sioux name and logo, the fitting “spirit” for the greatest aerospace university is to retire the Fighting Sioux name the way a revered pilot is remembered: with the Missing Man Formation.
If the name Fighting Sioux is retired, make no mistake: so, too, is the spirit with which it was being used. If we must “move forward” without the Sioux name, then let the absence of “Fighting Sioux” be conspicuous, palpable and begging elucidation.
Make future announcers explain to their audiences why UND is, out of respect for the Sioux, merely North Dakota. If not Fighting Sioux, then we are North Dakota, nothing else.
Go Sioux!
A three-time UND letter-winner in wrestling, Speare served as UND’s assistant wrestling coach from 1981 to 1983 and announced Sioux wrestling from 1983 through 1988.
I evidently have a higher regard for Sioux fans' stubbornness on this issue than you.