After Atalanta

No, this post is not about Don Imus. It's about the University of Illinois bringing back Chief Illiniwek. You may recall that UI abandoned the mascot last winter after pressure from the NCAA. There had been a ban, put in place by the school, eliminating the use of the Chief (who was never a real chief by the way; whose dress and "dance" does not reflect anything the Illini ever wore or did) at school events. But this year Chancellor Richard Herman lifted the ban on using Illiniwek's likeness just in time for homecoming festivities because he felt it limited the free expression of students. And so various Illiniweks showed up at the homecoming parade. There were no protesters. It's nothing less than sickening. Sportswriter Dave Zirin devotes his column this week over at Edge of Sports to the issue. He spoke about it briefly last week in Pittsburgh where he gave a keynote address at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport conference. I found him very e...

The University of Illinois has finally agreed to comply with NCAA orders to get rid of mascot, Chief Illiniwek. The university can keep the nicknames Illini and Fighting Illini (similar to the decision regarding William and Mary ). I was fairly excited by the news, so when my tennis teammate, an Illinois alum, started to say "this weekend University of Illinois decided--" and I finished "get rid of their mascot!" The glee in my voice though did not match that of her own who said something about "80-year old tradition" and "not really offensive." I forget that even though I now live in a very liberal part of the country, "liberal" philosophy only goes so far. Especially when we are talking about "tradition" after all. So I trotted out, hopefully in a non-pedantic way, why Native American mascots are offensive, how what UI presented as their tradition was not really respectful of Native American tradition, how the "dance...