Just to answer a few of the points that were brought up - I still believe the basic issue with the NCAA has to do with money. Maybe not directly with the NCAA's bottom line, but it's financial nontheless. You can draw many similarities between the Chief Illiniwek symbol at the U of I, and the Chief Osceola symbol at Florida State. Both are portrayed by members of completely different race. Both do a "routine" not necessarily based on total historical accuracy (although I believe Chief Osceola is based upon an actual person in history). Both are considered offensive by (some? many?) Native Americans. So why is Florida State allowed to keep Chief Osceola, and host post-season NCAA tournament games (and thus the revenues associated with them), while Illinois is not? Because Florida State contributes a large amount to the Seminole Tribe; in return the Tribe agrees to accept the symbol. Money rules. If the NCAA was pure in their intention that they rid their member schools of all possible offensive symbols, then it should be
all of them. Not just the ones that haven't bribed (oops, contributed to) the right causes.
HawkeyeCubP - the article you suggested:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...ive_americans/ has a great final paragraph about a survey done by Sports Illustrated in 2002. It shows 81% of Native Americans that responded said they disagreed with the suggestion that schools stop using Native American mascots.
So who is being offended?
Ok, I didn't mean to hijack the topic, but just wanted to point out it's very difficult to define what's offensive. So we, as officials, shouldn't be put in a position to have to rule on such items in a game situation. That should be handled at a school, district, state or federal level.