Former ND AG Alen Olson tees off on NCAA...

It’s about time someone with some political clout said something in response to the NCAA. So kudos to former ND Governor and Attorney General Allen Olson for taking the NCAA to task.

Grand Forks Herald --- Allen Olson served two terms as North Dakota attorney general before he was elected governor in 1980. In the early 1990s, former UND President Charles Kupchella asked him to serve on an advisory committee concerning the nickname, and last year Kelley named Olson to his nickname “transition cabinet,” to help guide a respectful retirement of the popular name and logo.

“What bothers me the most about this … I see the politics of it,” Olson said.

“Setting aside the emotions of the Native American and non-native relationships of this issue, it was an easy way for the NCAA to offset the legitimate criticisms they had received for years about the extraordinary amounts of money involved in collegiate sports,” he said. “It seemed to me it was an easy way for the NCAA to use a serious and significant issue that deserved serious attention but turn it to their advantage and use their monopoly power” to force a change.

“I wish I had more respect for the NCAA,” Olson said. “It is a flawed organization.”

Citing NCAA controversies over money in collegiate sports and other matters, Olson said the association “certainly (has) been humbled. In the past few years, they’ve been forced to feel the heat over some irrational policies.

“My sense is (the campaign against member schools’ use of American Indian names and logos) was a way to respond to the academic intelligentsia critics on NCAA member campuses where they were under continuous criticism,” he said. “It was a convenient and easy way for them to claim credibility.”

NCAA officials, provided a synopsis of Olson’s comments, responded tersely.

“Mr. Olson is entitled to his opinions,” Bob Williams, NCAA vice president of communications, wrote in an email, “but they have no basis in fact.”