bisonboone11 said:
UNDfan said:
KoolMoeDee said:
Is this the same hack that keeps saying the Big Sky can't kick UND out if they keep the nickname ?
Legally, they can't. After the Fighting Sioux nickname was reinstated, the Big Sky didn't come out with a position until four months later: after the Big Sky Presidents met.
Even Fullerton and UND's President have written that UND would only be "dropped" if a whole lot of schools drop UND from their schedule and UND's athletic finances get really really bad. A total of 4 out of 350 DI schools refuse to schedule UND because of the nickname.
UND's President poisoned the well with the Summit League (as the Summit League's Commissioner himself has stated that UND pressured him to come out against the nickname.) Fullerton will do what Big Sky Presidents say: oppose the nickname. Portland State's President and UND's President go way back as buddies in the University of Illinois system. Both were ecstatic to kill the Chief Illiniwek there. Now in the Big Sky, they are doing their dirty backroom deeds together again.
Fullerton has said in several interviews that there is nothing to say that UND can't be moved out of the conference. Fullerton also said, "For those people that think that once they're in, they're in: any institution in the Big Sky can be voted out at any time, so that is not necessarily a curtain they can hide behind. We sit now at 13 schools, and I'll be honest with you 12 is a much better number... If I was the 13th school and I lived 600 miles away, I wouldn't be very confident that this is a relationship that can be cemented forever."
All of that crap Fullerton is spouting is to scare and intimidate the voters of North Dakota into voting down the nickname. Everything that Fullerton says is only by the permission of UND's President, who needs to kill the nickname, otherwise his job becomes in jeopardy by all the crap he has pulled.
The Big Sky would not be talking about going 12 being the perfect number (by adding Idaho) unless UND was in the mix.
So the Big Sky is going to kick out UND for a nickname is such a joke and the President know it. Practically every Big Sky school has been on much more serious probation for cheating, academics, or actual crimes - those are the problems. Big Sky Presidents know APR, athlete behavior are much more important than an Indian nickname (that the Sioux support BTW). To kick out UND, with its stellar APR, when an Idaho State, Sac St, or NAU have been walking APR disasters would reveal the Big Sky as total academic hypocrites. The Presidents have to support UND's President to get rid of the name, as all the President's protect each other.