Tahnee Robinson (Shosone), a senior guard on the University of Nevada, Reno’s women’s basketball team, has made a name for herself on the court. She’s also helped her college and local Native communities come closer together.

Not only has she won several NCAA awards as a player, she often speaks with youth about her experiences. Last weekend, she stayed after the game and signed autographs.

Robinson was honored by the Native community in Reno last weekend, the Sparks Tribune reports, with an entire set of ceremonies during Reno’s game.

Robinson . . . received a Pendleton blanket from the Pyramid Lake Veteran’s and Warriors Association in honor of her community service with local Native Americans.

“It’s a tradition,” said Michelle McCauley, UNR intertribal higher education coordinator. “If someone is given one, then it means that they’ve done something very special. It’s a very high honor.”

The ceremony was a part of a celebration of local Native Americans in conjunction with the Wolf Pack women’s game against the New Mexico State University Aggies.

Finding camaraderie can be difficult for Native American students at UNR. There are only 173 self-identified Native American students out of 16,681 students at the school, according to McCauley.

Jenna Cederberg

Tags: NCAA, reno, Tahnee Robinson, University of Nevada

Three bills introduced into the North Dakota Legislature that would keep the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux nickname won’t be fought by the university’s board, the Grand Forks Herald reported.

The school’s board had hinted at trying to changed the nickname but said this week it won’t fight the bills, one brought by a Republican representative who said he would keep pushing the bill despite several administrative roadblocks that might be in its way.

Several issues would seem to constrain state lawmakers, which board members noted.

One is the settlement with the NCAA that had required UND to win approval from both the state’s Sioux tribes to retain the nickname. Only one tribe, the Spirit Lake tribe near Devils Lake, chose to vote on the nickname.

Board member Michael Haugen said he worried about the reaction by the NCAA. “UND needs the NCAA. It’s not the NCAA needing UND,” he said.

UND President Robert Kelley, who was traveling to meet with NCAA officials, said he hasn’t heard their reaction yet, but would find out soon.

The other issue is the state constitution giving direct control of the university system to the board, rather than to lawmakers. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem told lawmakers that, too.

Jenna Cederberg

Tags: fighting si, Fighting Sioux, grand forks herald, NCAA, robert kelley, UND, University of North Dakota

Tetona Dunlap is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

The other day I was eating lunch with two friends in the cafeteria at the University of Montana. It was crowded as it often is around noon, students filled tables while chatting loudly, the sound of utensils clattering against ceramic plates. However, no matter how crowded or noisy, none of us at our table could help but notice the grinning red face across the room.

Seated at the table next to us was a guy wearing a Cleveland Indians T-shirt and baseball cap. His back was to us, but emblazoned across it was Chief Wahoo. All of us at the table were from different tribes, but we are all equally offended by this stereotypical and racist image smirking at us as we ate. We made sarcastic remarks like, “Is that what we look like?” noting its red face, big nose and sky-high feather. We laughed at its absurdity, our laughter blending with the laughter of our fellow students enjoying their lunch.

When I first learned that the North Dakota State Board of Education ordered the University of North Dakota to drop its Fighting Sioux mascot, I was overjoyed. In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association banned college logos and nicknames it considered “hostile and abusive.”
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Tags: buffalo post, Chief Wahoo, Cleveland Indians, Cultural insensitivity, Fighting Sioux, Gwen Florio, Indian Education for All, National Collegiate Education Association, Native American news, NCAA, North Dakota Board of Education, North Dakota Supreme Court, Ralph Engelstad Arena, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Tetona Dunlap, Univeristy of North Dakota, University of Montana

The issue of Native-themed sports mascots has been much in the news lately, most recently with the ongoing controversy over a decision to end the University of North Dakota’s use of the Fighting Sioux mascot. (See yesterday’s post here.)

Students at the University of Colorado-Denver have been paying attention, and are weighing in on the side of ending all use of such mascots.

“It’s just blatantly racist when you have teams that are called, you know, the savages,” Charles Panke, a Lakota Sioux descendant, tells Denver’s 9News, here. (Watch a video of the newcast here.)

Panke dismisses claims that such mascots actually honor Native people. “You don’t honor somebody by doing these tomahawk chops that are not part of any Native American culture whatsoever or even doing war whoops or things like that,” he says.

So Panke and others in the Ethnic Studies department created the “I am not a Mascot” video. They’re going to post it to Facebook and YouTube, but we haven’t found it there yet; when we do, we’ll post it.

Darius Lee Smith, with the Colorado Indian Education Foundation, points out that Colorado has nearly 20 schools that use Indian mascots, and of course there are many more around the country.

And he applauds the ethnic make-up of the students who made the video. “”The majority of the individuals are Non-native. I think that’s why this project is so important.”

He wants the Colorado High School Activities Association to push schools to change such logos and mascots, just as the National Collegiate Athletic Association has done nationally.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Colorado High School Activities Association, Colorado Indian Education Foundation, Cultural insensitivity, Darius Lee Smith, Ethnic Studies Department, Fighting Sioux, Gwen Florio, Lakota, National Collegiate Athletic Association, Native American news, NCAA, Team nicknames, University of Colorado Denver, University of North Dakota

Just because the North Dakota Board of Higher Education yesterday retired the state university’s Fighting Sioux nickname doesn’t mean everyone has accepted the pending change.

“This is Sioux country. This whole state is Sioux country,” women’s basketball coach Gene Roebuck said today at a news conference, the Associated Press reports here.

“It’s going to be hard for me to move on and to accept any other type of logo,” says Roebuck. She wore a jacket with anIndian head logo designed by a Native student at UND. The school has had the mascot for more than 80 years.

Getting rid of it paves the way to UND’s participation in the Summit League, which set getting rid of the nickname as a criterion.

As the AP’s Dave Kolpack reports:

The NCAA in 2005 and 2006 listed 19 schools with American Indian mascots and images that it considered “hostile and abusive,” and banned them from postseason play pending name changes. Nicknames the NCAA deemed offensive ranged from Indians to Braves to the Fighting Illini.

Some universities, like Florida State (the Seminoles) Central Michigan (Chippewas) and Utah (the Utes), were allowed to keep their nicknames by getting permission from local tribes. The University of Illinois was allowed to keep its Fighting Illini nickname, but a mascot dressed in buckskins and headdress, Chief Illiniwek, was banned.

The name was dropped even though the two Sioux tribes within the state — the Spirit Lake Nation and Standing Rock Nation — couldn’t reach agreement on the issue. Spirit Lake backed the nickname; Standing Rock had yet to resolve the issue.

Senior BJ Rainbow, at the office of American Indian Student Services, senior BJ Rainbow says he likes the change but worries about hard feelings and a possible backlash.

No timetable has been set for a new nickname.

Gwen Florio

Tags: American Indian mascots, buffalo post, Central Michigan University, Fighting Sioux, Florida State University, Gwen Florio, Native American news, NCAA, North Dakota Board of Higher Education, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Team nicknames, University of Illinois, University of North Dakota, University of Utah

Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press, which will be updated:

MAYVILLE, N.D. (AP) — The North Dakota Board of Higher Education has determined that the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux nickname is retired.

The determination came Thursday after a state Supreme Court ruling that said the board had the authority to change the nickname at any time. The court rejected an appeal that sought to delay action.

The board had voted last May to retire the nickname. A motion on Thursday to reconsider that vote died for lack of a second. Board president Richie Smith said before the vote that he thought no further action was required to retire the nickname.

A group of eight Spirit Lake Sioux tribal members who support the nickname had wanted the courts to bar any decision before a Nov. 30 deadline set in a settlement agreement involving the NCAA, the education board and UND.

The justices in their ruling said the board could change the nickname before the deadline.

Tags: buffalo post, Fighting Sioux, Gwen Florio, Native American news, NCAA, North Dakota Board of Higher Education, North Dakota Supreme Court, Spirt Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Team nicknames, University of North Dakota

The Standing Rock Tribal Council decided today to await a decision by the North Dakota Board of Higher Education’ on the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname before the tribe takes action.

That council’s move disappointed tribal members who support the nickname, the Fargo-Moorhead Forum reports here.

Archie Fool Bear had collected more than 1,000 signatures on a petition to put the issue on the ballot. But he says tribal council didn’t even discuss his petition at today’s meeting.

The NCAA considers such nicknames “hostile” and “abusive.” In North Dakota, the decision as to whether to keep the nickname was given to the state’s two Sioux tribes.

Members of the Spirit Lake Tribe voted last year to support the name, but opponents are seeking to undo that approval, the Grand Forks Herald reports here.

A lawsuit by supporters is before the state Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the State Board of Higher Education, meets Thursday at Mayville State University. The nickname issue is on the agenda — UND wants to join the Summit League athletic conference as soon as possible — but board members also await the Supreme Court’s decision, which could force them to wait until Nov. 30 to retire the nickname.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Cultural insensitivity, Fighting Sioux, Gwen Florio, Navajo Nation, NCAA, North Dakota Board of Higher Education, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Team nicknames, University of North Dakota

Tetona Dunlap is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

I remember the first time I met Billy Mills [above left, Rapid City Journal photo]. I was at the National Indian Gaming Association’s conference in San Diego. I was more excited and nervous to meet Mills than I was to meet actor Adam Beach. Beach, of course, had the most people lined up to meet him, mostly women, but for me, Mills signified a different honor.

Growing up on a reservation, sports culture is prevalent. However, I never knew about Mills until I was a senior in high school. I was writing an essay about Native Americans and came across an article online. Since I was a student-athlete at the time, I was excited to discover that a Native American from the Pine Ridge Reservation had won an Olympic gold medal.

Before that he was an All-American cross-country runner at the University of Kansas. The footage from the 1964 Olympic 10K race still gives me chills. It is still considered one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history and he is still the only American to ever win that race.

There is a great pride in the Native American community that follows those in sports. I am a fan of the Boston Red Sox because of Jacoby Ellsbury. I also follow New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain’s career, even though I am not a fan of the Yankees. Ellsbury and Chamberlain are two of only three active Native American players in Major League Baseball.

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Tags: 1964 Olympics, Billy Mills, buffalo post, Native American news, NCAA, Pine Ridge Reservation, Tahnee Robinson, Tetona Dunlap, University of Nevada, Wind River Indian Reservation

The University of North Dakota’s athletic teams are trying to get into the Summit League and schedule some games. But that can’t happen until the school settles a dispute over its teams’ Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.

The issue was supposed to have been settled last year, but the process has been subjected to repeated delays – most recently on Friday, when an attorney for the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe filed an appeal to a plan to ditch the name.

The NCAA considers Indian nicknames offensive and urges schools to drop them. In North Dakota, the decision was left up to the two Sioux tribes within the state. The Spirit Lake Nation voted to keep the nickname, but the Standing Rock Nation has yet to take a vote.

Of all the schools with nicknames targeted by the NCAA, North Dakota is the only one that hasn’t changed its name or been granted a waiver.

Meanwhile, Summit League president Tom Douple tells the Associated Press, here, that UND won’t be considered for admission until the school comes up with something that satisfies the NCAA.

“It’s neighbor against neighbor, and those are never real good situations,” Douple says. “I feel for both sides.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fighting Sioux, Native American news, NCAA, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Team nicknames, University of North Dakota