DU Pioneers: Mascot Committee will not be Adopting a new Mascot

Looking at Denver mascot choices, I don’t blame them for not wanting to pick a mascot after all. In a way, this is what I am hoping that the University of North Dakota does. I would rather see no mascot at all. I kind of like just being the University of North Dakota. I know some people are irritated by the sports writers calling UND the Green and White, but it’s better than being some stupid moniker none of us can embrace or get behind.

Caitlin Swieca, Denver Post --- After a months-long controversy surrounding the University of Denver's mascot, the DU Pioneers community has spoken and said it would prefer to have no mascot at all. The news came as DU's Mascot Steering Committee announced the findings of its research on Friday and recommended that none of the considered mascots move forward as they are currently designed.

A survey containing three mascot options— an elk, a jackalope and a mountaineer — was sent to DU students and alumni in July, asking them to evaluate the concepts against 20 attributes of the DU community.

More than 8,000 community members participated in the survey, more than three times the expected response. The release by the committee said that nearly 70 percent of respondents were either receptive or neutral to moving forward with a new mascot, but were not aligned on what that mascot should be.

Does recruiting bad apples help football teams?

UND Women's head hockey coach Brian Idalski posted a link to this story on Twitter today. I think this article causes many things come to mind when I start thinking about all of the stories in the media as of late. Do you think that teams play better if they have a few players that get into trouble with the law.

Dick Harmon, Desert News --- Does a football coach need to recruit a few criminals to win?

Somebody thinks so.

At least one radio broadcaster said so and got suspended from work for three games. His name is Allen Pinkett, a former star running back for Notre Dame. He made those comments while Notre Dame played Navy in Dublin, Ireland, last week.

Does having a few bad apples on a team give a squad a certain attitude? Does it make it better?

Notre Dame is one of those storied football programs that will forever find a niche as legendary and is an enduring stereotype of the successful part of the college game.

But the Fighting Irish haven't exactly lived up to that reputation the past few years. Some say it's because Notre Dame's high academic standards have made great bookworms and poor runners and pass catchers.

So if you’re favorite college hockey, football or basketball team is winning, but they seem to have their share of players that are getting in trouble law - like, say the school to the south of us and what if the football in question cleaned up their program would they lose their winning edge?

Breaking it down further, the football player in question down in Fargo, ND was the Bison’s MVP of the FCS Championship game. What if players didn’t clean up his act – at what point does the coach decide that he become a hindrance to the program and they go their separate ways.

I am sure that most of us can think of time that happened to a player on our favorite sports team.

Let me be clear, I pick on the Bison Football team because they're an easy target right now and they have earned their reputation, however, that being said, I know it can happen to any of our favorite sports teams. Recently two players from UND hockey had their names surface on a media blog for Minor in Possession.

Fans of other programs will probably bring up incidents of elevators and or lawnmower tossing incidents as well. Of course we can bring up incidents at a particular bar in Minneapolis as well named Blarney’s.

NBC & NBC SPORTS NETWORK TO TELEVISE 32 COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES IN 2012

This season the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs have been exclusively on NBCSN and NBC… This fall NBC Sports Net has inked a college Football deal. The evolution of Versus to NBCSN is beginning to take shape.

This brings up the question – who needs ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU anymore when you have NBC Sports Networks and NBC? The Peacock is passing ESPN in my opinion and becoming a better option sports as each day passes.

NBC SPORTS GROUP COLLEGE FOOTBALL SCHEDULE (all times ET)

3:30 p.m. Sat, Sept. 8 Purdue at Notre Dame NBC

3:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 8 Delaware State at Delaware NBC Sports Network

7:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 8 Army at San Diego State NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 15 William & Mary at Towson NBC Sports Network

4:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 15 Miami (Ohio) at Boise State NBC Sports Network

1:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22 Yale at Cornell NBC Sports Network

4:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22 Harvard at Brown NBC Sports Network

7:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22 Michigan at Notre Dame NBC

10:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22 Nevada at Hawaii NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Sept. 29 Penn at Dartmouth NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 29 Atlanta Football Classic: Florida A&M vs. Southern (Georgia Dome) NBC Sports Network

1:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 6 Towson at James Madison NBC Sports Network

7:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 6 Miami at Notre Dame (Soldier Field) NBC

12:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 13 Brown at Princeton NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 13 Stanford at Notre Dame NBC

3:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 13 Fresno State at Boise State NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 20 Penn at Yale NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 20 BYU at Notre Dame NBC

3:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 20 UNLV at Boise State NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 27 Delaware at Old Dominion NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 3 Towson at Delaware NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 3 Pittsburgh at Notre Dame NBC

12:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 10 Harvard at Penn NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 10 Air Force at San Diego State NBC Sports Network

7:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 10 Boise State at Hawaii NBC Sports Network

10:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 10 Fresno State at Nevada NBC Sports Network

12:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Yale at Harvard NBC Sports Network

3:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Wake Forest at Notre Dame NBC

3:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Colorado State at Boise State NBC Sports Network

7:00 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17 Old Dominion at James Madison NBC Sports Network

2:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 24 Bayou Classic: Grambling State vs. Southern (Mercedes-Benz Superdome) NBC

3:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 24 Air Force at Fresno State NBC Sports Network

--NBC SPORTS GROUP--

A few good articles on the NCAA

National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Someone posted these articles on Sioux Sports in the nickname section and they are worth a read if you haven’t seen them. There seems to be an emerging re-occurring theme of an Anti-NCAA sentiment by fans and journalists.

Dennis Dodd, CBSSports.com --- "Do we really want the NCAA to be the moral police?" one college administrator said last week.
-----------[ Snip ]-----------
Some thought NCAA president Mark Emmert overstepped his authority when he warned Penn State it might be investigated for lack of institutional control in the Jerry Sandusky case.

Former NCAA president Myles Brand started the fight to eliminate offensive team nicknames. While some schools acquiesced quietly, the battle over University of North Dakota's "Fighting Sioux" nickname rages. All of it still doesn't explain why Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish" nickname isn't offensive and stereotypical.

"The NCAA drifts into social policy every now and again," said a source who has had business dealings with the NCAA. The source did not want to be identified. "Is that organization, by design, supposed to lead our moral fabric, be engaged in social policy?"

Here is another one that asks the question The NCAA: Is Membership Worth It? That's a good question... Do we really need the NCAA to monitor college athletics anymore? Some would say no. In some cases they have over stepped their bounds.

Frank Deford NPR --- Trust me: It's only 10 days since Kentucky took the title, but the NCAA is safely again where it likes to be, flying under the ethical radar, tucked away on the sports pages and in the warm embrace of ESPN.

So far as the college media and fans are concerned, we're already back to the only issue of real consequence: how to more properly conduct the football championship so that the big-conference schools can make more money, even as the poor players continue to make none.

But before we all put the NCAA out of our mind again, here is my question: Why do so many honorable colleges continue to let their good names be associated with such an un-American conglomerate? Oh, I can understand why the big-time colleges, like Kentucky — or like Alabama, the football champion — need a cartel. It's the same reason Saudi Arabia and Venezuela belong to OPEC.

But why, in particular, do Division III colleges feel a need to align themselves with such a big-foot organization? At the very least, the NCAA is just so unbalanced. Do schools like Williams and Johns Hopkins and Oberlin and Cal Tech really need NCAA oversight just for their students to leave the classrooms and play games?

Related articles

• They aren't listening - Fighting Sioux nickname (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• Letter from the NCAA to UND (ndgoon.blogspot.com)

Denver athletic department is losing 7 million a year.

Wow! I found this article in the Denver Post this morning when I was conducting a visual recon of the opposition’s newspaper and I must say; that is a lot of money.

The Denver Post --- Despite having one of the country's premier hockey programs, the University of Denver athletic department is operating on an annual budget deficit of more than $7 million. The massive shortfall is the result of the school's pledge to remain in NCAA Division I in all sports, as well as its effort to upgrade its struggling men's basketball program.

Athletic director Peg Bradley-Doppes said there has been no discussion about Denver returning to Division II in its core sports.

"I believe the chancellor and the board feel very, very, very good about the direction of our program, and confident in the direction of the program," she said in a recent interview. "This university takes pride in that we educate student-athletes. . . . There is no quick fix here."

According to documents obtained by The Denver Post, the DU athletic program lost more than $22 million during a three-year period ending June 30, 2007, the deficits growing from $7.1 million to $7.8 million in the third year. DU is a private school and would not make its recent budgets available.