I agree with the critics that more could have been done to save the name and the political leaders dropped the ball. I don’t blame people for being angry. I think there are some legitimate questions that need to be asked. Why wasn’t former governor John Hoeven and now U.S. Senator involved in the process? Hoeven is a very popular state wide and he could have made a difference in the process of retaining the nickname. Why wasn’t North Dakotas’ elected leaders team “North Dakota” (Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy) involved in the process?
Grand Forks Herald --- In the cascade of venom and conspiracy theory surrounding the fight over the Fighting Sioux name and logo, few key players have escaped abuse or censure.also think it’s funny that people thought the Fighting Sioux nickname would just go away quietly during the night and there wouldn’t be any hurt feelings and all parties would just embrace a new nickname, It’s not going to happen folks. I would be willing to bet that this is going to be a nasty fight.
In public comments posted on the Internet in response to recent news stories on the nickname, UND President Robert Kelley has been called a “buffoon” and worse. “Fire the liar,” another posted.
Student senators who voted to oppose the nickname bills, which would enshrine the Fighting Sioux name in state law, were called cowards. Faculty opponents of the bills were tarred as “Political Correctness Nazis.”
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who negotiated a lawsuit settlement with the NCAA that gave the state board three years to gain Sioux tribal authority to retain the symbols, was declared “an idiot.”
And Shaft, who took the lead in board efforts to seek responses from the Spirit Lake and Standing Rock Sioux tribes, was dismissed as a “PC puppet.”
His school-age children have been taunted. He has received hundreds of e-mails, mean and rancorous. Horse manure was deposited on his driveway. Legislative leaders publicly scolded Shaft and the board for “mishandling” the nickname issue.
He has been vilified on blogs as a schemer, dupe and traitor to the Fighting Sioux tradition.
“I try not to read the blogs,” Shaft said recently over coffee at the Urban Stampede in Grand Forks. “They have a preconceived notion as to how this went down, a misunderstanding of the facts. Unless we engaged each of them in a 45-minute sit-down, they would not understand.”
Other nickname devotees, “people I know — friends, business acquaintances, members of Sioux Boosters and the Alumni Association board, people who have a more vested interest in the university than most of the bloggers — will tell me they’re deeply disappointed,” he said. “But they recognize the board has done everything it could. It’s time to accept it and move on.”
Just as he did at the legislative hearing, Shaft recited his own Fighting Sioux credentials. He earned his law degree from UND. His wife and brother are graduates. The family connection to Sioux athletics goes back four generations.
“I’m a Fighting Sioux guy,” he said.
The House Education Committee, which heard more than eight hours of testimony on Jan. 26, may take up the nickname bills this week after dealing with budget bills, Chairwoman Rae Ann Kelsch, R-Mandan, said. The committee has work sessions scheduled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.
There has been a lot of stuff said on both sides of the issue and both sides are culpable. It’s laughably predictable that there is now going to be finger pointing and name calling. How nice! I do think that people have a right to question the AG as well as the president of UND, maybe calling him a “buffoon” is a little much but I do think people have a right to question Kelley as well. That's not out of bounds. In the last election I voted against the Attorney General Stenehjem I voted for the democrat whose name escapes me. I mean seriously, Kelley can’t act all smug as say, ’hey, don’t blame me I am not involved in this nickname mess’. Kelley shouldn’t let off the hook so easily. Dr. Kelley can sit in the band with his instrument with his interlocking ND logo jersey on at REA and act as if nothing is happening, but we aren’t stupid.
