Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand ForksFighting Sioux Nickname Fall Out

Fighting Sioux Nickname Fall Out

  Fall out from the Fighting Sioux nickname controversy continues to rain down on UND's Athletic Department.

  More and more schools are declining to schedule games with UND, because it's been forced to keep the nickname, while a petition to save it is being verified.  The nickname puts UND in violation of NCAA policy, so other schools are declining to schedule games with UND.

  Die hard Fighting Sioux nickname supporters contend that UND should simply keep the nickname and ignore the NCAA rules.

  However, other members of the NCAA are not ignoring the rules of that private organization. What those schools are doing is ignoring UND and declining to schedule games.

  Here's the list so far, of schools declining to schedule games with UND, because of it's continued use of the nickname.

  Softball with Wisconsin is off the books. A track meet with Iowa is gone. Men's hockey at Wisconsin is gone. So is a cross country meet at Minnesota and women's basketball with Iowa. Men's hockey with Minnesota could also go by the wayside.

  Athletic Director, Brian Faison says even if the only thing fans cared about was men's hockey, UND cannot play Division One if it's not part of the NCAA.

Brian Faison: "It's a voluntary organization. The rules are the rules and if you don't want to play by those rules you can go some place else. So, if that's what the pro-logo people are saying... Well, it doesn't matter. You don't have to be NCAA Division One. They're right. You don't. But, the consequences of that to our hockey program would be disastrous.

  Meanwhile, Secretary of State, Al Jaeger says they're still working on verifying over 16,000 signatures on the petition that forces UND to keep the nickname for now. Jaeger says a couple thousand postcards will go out to petition signers this week to make sure they legally signed it.

Al Jaeger: "It depends on what we receive as responses. If need be, in the past we have asked the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to follow up with some investigation, which has resulted in the past, of petitions being tossed out."

  Jaeger says at this point, he has no idea how the verification process of the petition will turn out. He has a deadline of March 13 to either allow the petition to keep the nickname or throw it out.