Chief Illiniwek to be retired.

University e-mail ^ | 2-16-07 | Chancellor Richard Herman

[IL Republican]

To members of the campus community,

A decision has been made regarding the Chief Illiniwek tradition. For more

information, go to: www.uillinois.edu/chief

If you receive any questions or concerns regarding the decision, please

feel free to use the following reply.

"Thank you for your comments about the recently announced decision on Chief

Illiniwek. For more information, please refer to this web page:

www.uillinois.edu/chief

You can email comments by clicking on Contact/Feedback link

[InfoSource@uillinois.edu] in the top section of the web page."

[rabidralph]

Yes, along with a case of Jack Daniels and some poker chips. Apparently, that's the image of Native Americans that's acceptable to PC crowds.

[Leg Olam]

PC demagoges freak out over Indian mascots, nevermind teams that have devils and murderers (jayhawks, pirates,etc) as themes. What a bunch of crap.

[meg88]

Princess Illiniwek (Idelle Stith) - "an authentic Osace Indian princess" - tries on the Chief headdress at the Pi Beta Phi sorority.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

"In Clarence Welsh's 1921 brochure, University of Illinois Memorial Stadium, the stadium is referred to as 'the symbol of a new united, fighting, aspiring tribe of Illini, who know how to honor their living heroes and venerate their dead."

Guess you won't be known as the "Fighting Illini." Maybe you can adopt the nick name of Industrial Strength Pussies as from 1867 to 1885, the University was known as the “Illinois Industrial University.”

[massgopguy]

"Loyzem gayne!" Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles

[rottndog]

Yet another excuse to end government funding of "higher" education...

The only reason this nonsense happens is because it is paid for with Other People's Money.

[meg88]

A Notre Dame student smokes a peace pipe with Chief Illiniwek IV (Edward Kalb). Block I can be seen in the background, and the two are accompanied by UI cheerleader

[Lutheran Loft II]

The University of North Dakota, while not having a person dress in Indian gear, is suing the NCAA to keep our Fighting Sioux nickname. Since UI is giving in on this you might as well support us. What say ye?

[ohioman]

Miles Brand is the biggest piece of Shiite to ever run the NCAA. He has all the weasly, totalitarian liberal traits apparent in Mayor Bloomberg.

Upon his retirement, I would love for Bobby Knight to kick his arse.

Not gonna happen, but one can always dream.

[fish hawk]

My uncle Timm Williams also known as Prince Lightfoot of Stanford University, was removed as the Mascot after twenty one years of service to the school. If you want to read the story of his service and removal (many years ago now) you can find it at www.daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/10/10respectDueForMascotPriceLightfoot

He died in 1988 and was a Yurok Indian from N. California.

[meg88]

[Corvair]

Me neither! What a sad, sad day.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF!!!!

[Oystir]

it happened to us to:

[eraser2005]

You never had Ron Turner as coach (did you see his fantastic offense in the super bowl this year?)

Or Lou Tepper (great guy, lousy big school head coach)..

[eraser2005]

Actually, "Fighting Illini" has already been approved by the NCAA, as the word "Fighting" is in reference to the military contributions of the alumni (Illini).

Just like the columns at the stadium are all inscribed with names of alumni who gave their lives during WWI

[Biblebelter]

This saddens me. The bigger picture saddens me more.College sports have been ruined. This serves as only one example of how the NCAA has turned its back on what was good about college athletics. The bowl games are a joke. I did not watch one bowl game. I would have like to have seen the Rose Bowl played on New Year's Day with Big Ten Champ Ohio State playing USC.The Big Ten is a fraud or those boys and girls cannot count as they have eleven teams. The Big Ten had a beautiful basketball system when they only had ten teams and each played each other home and home. The games and the conference season was really special. With that stupid tournament I have lost most of my interest in following Big Ten Basketball. I think it may have 84 that was about as good as it could get for Illinois, they went to the Rose Bowl and won ALL 18 conference games in BB. Those were accomplishments although playing for the National Championship a couple of years was special, too.

[MamaLucci]

RIP, Chief...........:(

[guinnessman]

The sheer stupidity of this all is that the Chief was loved and respected by students and alumni alike.

So, some liberal idiot from outside the state comes in and assumes that we are offending a tribe of Indians (which incidentally no longer exists) based on his own PC image of reality.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

Wow, what a coincidence! This morning I woke up and for some reason decided to wear my University Of Illinois T-shirt to work, something I rarely do and only on Fridays. So here I am wearing the UIUC shirt with the Illiniwek mascot right in the middle, and reading about this !

[Tspud1]

I guess the name of the university and state need to be changed also since they are based on the dead Indian tribe also. We need to change the names of rivers and lakes around here as well.